Terms of Service

1. What this site is

HUCSC Market (the “Site”), at londontextbooks.com, is an independent, student-run noticeboard for used course textbooks at Huron University College and Western University. A seller posts a book. A buyer reveals the seller’s chosen contact method. The two of them arrange everything else directly.

By using the Site you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree with them, please do not use the Site.

2. Who can use it

• You need a current @uwo.ca or @huron.uwo.ca email address to create an account. This is enforced both in the app and at the database level.
• You must be at least 16 years old. Most users are undergraduates, and we do not knowingly create accounts for children under 16.
• One account per person. Do not share your account, and do not create an account on someone else’s behalf.
• Browsing listings does not require an account. Posting a book, revealing a seller’s contact, expressing interest, and reporting a listing all do.

Your account is a link, not a password

Sign-in is passwordless. We email you a single-use link that works once and expires after 60 minutes. Your account and your listings are not affected by that expiry, only the link is. Anyone with access to your school inbox can sign in as you, so treat that inbox as the key to this account, and sign out when you are finished on a shared computer.

3. What you may and may not list

Listings are for physical, legitimately owned course materials. Do not post:

• Books you do not own, or that you did not lawfully acquire.
• Pirated, scanned, or photocopied textbooks, leaked exams, purchased essays, shared solution manuals, or anything else that would breach copyright or Western’s or Huron’s academic-integrity rules.
• Anything that is not course material. No tickets, no electronics, no furniture, no sublets, and absolutely nothing regulated (alcohol, cannabis, vapes, prescription drugs, weapons).
• Counterfeit or knowingly misrepresented items, including a wrong edition passed off as current.
• Contact details belonging to anyone other than you, or contact fields used as advertising space.
• Content that harasses, threatens, defames, or discriminates against anyone, or that is sexual, hateful, or otherwise abusive.
• Photos containing other people’s faces, personal documents, or anything you do not have the right to publish.

You are responsible for the accuracy of everything in your listing: condition, edition, ISBN, and price. Describe damage honestly. A misleading listing wastes another student’s trip across campus.

4. How the exchange works, and what we are not

When a buyer taps to reveal contact details, the Site shows the method the seller chose (email, phone, Instagram, or Snapchat) and steps out of the way. Any conversation, meeting, payment, and handover happens entirely between the two of you.

Meeting safely

Meet in a busy, public place on campus, in daylight. Bring a friend if you would rather. Inspect the book before you pay. Do not send a deposit or e-transfer before you have the book in your hands, and treat any request to do so as a warning sign. Do not share your address, your student number, or banking details. If a person or listing makes you uncomfortable, use the report control on the listing, and contact Campus Community Police Service if you feel unsafe.

5. Content you post

You keep ownership of your listings and photos. You grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to store, display, resize, and distribute that content for the purpose of running the Site, including in link previews when someone shares a listing. That licence ends when you delete the content, except for copies already cached or backed up, which age out in the ordinary course.

You confirm that you have the right to post everything you upload. Uploaded photos are stripped of embedded metadata, including GPS coordinates, before they are made public.

6. Moderation, expiry, and takedowns

• Any signed-in student can flag a listing. Flags go to a moderation queue reviewed by the Site’s administrators.
• We may remove a listing, or suspend or delete an account, if we believe in good faith that these Terms have been broken, or if a listing is unsafe, illegal, or clearly abandoned. We will usually tell you why, but we may act first when someone is at risk.
• Listings expire automatically after a set period so the shelf stays current. An expired listing is hidden from browsing and from direct links. You can relist it from your dashboard.
• You can delete your own listings, or your whole account, at any time. See the Privacy Policy for how deletion works.

7. Availability and the state of the Site

This is a student project, run by students, on free and low-cost infrastructure. The Site is provided “as is” and “as available”, without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. We do not promise the Site will be uninterrupted, error-free, or continuously available, and we may change or discontinue any part of it. Keep your own copy of anything you would be sorry to lose.

8. Limits on our liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, neither the Site nor the students who run it are liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost data, lost opportunities, or damages arising from your dealings with another user. Our total aggregate liability to you for any claim connected to the Site is limited to CAD $100.

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited, including liability for fraud, for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or rights you have under the Ontario Consumer Protection Act, 2002 or other applicable consumer legislation. Where such law applies, our liability is limited to the minimum extent that law permits rather than excluded.

9. Your responsibility to us

You agree to cover our reasonable costs if a third party brings a claim against us because of something you posted, something you did on the Site, or a transaction you entered into through it, except to the extent the claim results from our own wrongdoing.

10. Not affiliated with the universities

HUCSC Market is an independent student project, built by Huron students for Huron students, in collaboration with the Huron University College Students’ Council. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated by Huron University College or Western University. Course codes and subject names are used descriptively to help students find the right book. Nothing on the Site is an official communication from either institution.

11. How this site was built

Parts of this Site were built with the help of AI coding tools, and its written content was drafted with AI assistance and reviewed by a person. There is no AI chatbot or automated decision-making on the Site, and you are never talking to an AI here. The full explanation is on the How this site was built page.

12. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms. The “last updated” date at the top always reflects the current version. If a change materially affects your rights, we will make a reasonable effort to flag it on the Site before it takes effect. Continuing to use the Site after a change means you accept the updated Terms.

13. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Province of Ontario and the federal laws of Canada that apply there. Any dispute goes to the courts of Ontario, except that either of us may bring a claim in small claims court where that is available.

14. Contact

Email ryanplumley25@gmail.com for anything to do with these Terms, a listing, an account, or a safety concern. We are students, so please allow a few days, and say “urgent” in the subject line if someone is at risk.