Terms of Service

Officially Useless

Last updated / effective date: 28 June 2026

Who we are

These Terms of Service ("Terms") are a binding agreement between you ("you", "your", the "customer") and:

• Legal entity: Arturs Vanags
• Trading as: Officially Useless
• Registered address: Rīga, Latvia (full registered address available on request via support@officiallyuseless.com)
• Country of establishment: Latvia
• Company registration number: Not applicable — sole trader (self-employed individual), not a registered company
• VAT number: Not applicable — not registered for VAT (PVN)
• EU representative: Not applicable — established in the EU (Latvia)
• Website: https://officiallyuseless.com
• Contact email: support@officiallyuseless.com
• Phone: Not available — please contact us by email

In these Terms, "we", "us", "our" and "Officially Useless" mean the entity above.

1. Acceptance of these Terms

By placing an order, creating an account, signing in, or otherwise using the Officially Useless website and services (together, the "Service"), you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy, which is incorporated by reference. If you do not agree, please do not use the Service.

At checkout, specific confirmations (including the immediate-delivery waiver described in Section 9) are stated directly at the payment button; by clicking it you actively give those confirmations, and they form part of your agreement with us. We will send you a confirmation of your order, and of any waiver you give, by email — this serves as your record on a durable medium.

2. Eligibility and age

To place an order or hold an account you must be at least 18 years old (or the age of majority in your country of residence) and have the legal capacity to enter into a binding contract. If you are under that age, you may use the Service only with the involvement and consent of a parent or legal guardian who agrees to be bound by these Terms.

The Service is intended for general audiences and is not directed at children. For how we handle minors' personal data, see the Privacy Policy.

3. Your account, passwordless sign-in, and security

You can use parts of the Service as a guest, and you can also create an account.

• Passwordless sign-in. We do not use passwords. You can sign in either by requesting a one-time "magic link" sent to your email address, or via Google sign-in (OAuth). The magic-link request is protected by a Cloudflare Turnstile anti-bot challenge.
• Magic links are personal and time-limited. A magic link is single-use and expires shortly after it is issued. Do not share magic-link emails; anyone with the link can access your account.
• Sessions. When you sign in, we set a secure, host-only session cookie (__Host-ou_session) in your browser. Keep your device and email account secure; you are responsible for activity under your session while you are signed in.
• Accurate information. You agree to provide accurate, current information (for example a valid email and, for physical orders, a correct shipping address) and to keep it up to date.

What we collect and why is described in the Privacy Policy.

4. What we sell (description of the Service)

Officially Useless sells satirical, novelty "officially useless" certificates celebrating joke achievements (for example "World's Okayest Developer" or "Supreme Nap Champion"). You choose a certificate title, a recipient name, a visual design, and a language, and we generate a personalised certificate.

We currently offer the following products (the "tiers"):

Other current product details:

• Designs: Classic, Vintage, Modern, and Diploma styles.
• Languages: multiple languages are available (currently English, Latvian, Russian, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Japanese).
• Custom certificates: you can enter your own certificate title and recipient name (see Section 12).
• Scheduled delivery: for digital tiers you may optionally schedule delivery for a future date/time (see Section 8).

Each certificate carries a unique verification ID and a QR code linking to a public verification page (see Section 13). Certificates on blockchain-enabled tiers — Digital Deluxe and Printed & Framed — are additionally anchored on a public blockchain by default as part of the product (see Section 14). The Digital Basic tier is not anchored.

We may change, add, or discontinue products, designs, languages, or features at any time. The product and price shown to you at checkout govern your order.

5. Novelty / entertainment only

Officially Useless certificates are novelty, satirical, decorative items sold strictly for entertainment and amusement.

They are not, and must not be represented as, a real or official qualification, accreditation, diploma, degree, certification, licence, award, title, or government or institutional document. They have no academic, professional, legal, evidential, or accreditation value of any kind.

Officially Useless is not an educational institution, examining body, accreditation body, certification authority, or government agency, and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or recognised by any such body. A certificate confirms nothing about a person's real skills, knowledge, status, or eligibility.

The "verification" page, QR code, certificate ID, and any blockchain anchoring exist only to confirm that a particular novelty certificate was generated by us. They do not verify any real-world qualification, fact, or achievement.

You agree that you will not use any certificate, verification page, certificate ID, or blockchain record to deceive, defraud, gain employment or admission, obtain a benefit, impersonate a credential, or otherwise misrepresent your or anyone's qualifications, identity, or status, or in any way that is unlawful or misleading. You are solely responsible for how you use, display, or share a certificate, and for ensuring that such use is lawful in your jurisdiction.

This Section does not limit your mandatory statutory consumer rights (see Sections 11 and 22).

6. Ordering and contract formation

1. Placing an order. You build your certificate on the order form, choose a tier, and proceed to payment. For digital tiers you provide a delivery email; for the physical tier you provide a shipping address, and your email is collected by our payment processor at checkout.
2. Checking and correcting errors. Before you pay, review your order summary (recipient name, title, design, language, tier, delivery option, and total). You are responsible for the accuracy of what you submit — including the recipient name and certificate title, which are printed on the certificate and shown publicly (Section 13). You can correct input errors by editing the form before proceeding to payment. After a personalised certificate is generated we may be unable to change it.
3. Payment and redirection. When you proceed to payment you are redirected to our payment processor's hosted checkout (Stripe — see Section 7) to complete payment.
4. When a contract is formed. Your order is an offer to buy. A binding contract is formed only when we confirm your order after your payment is successfully authorised and we begin processing it. We may decline or cancel an order before that point (for example for suspected fraud or abuse, content that breaches Section 12, payment failure, pricing error, or unavailability).
5. Order confirmation (durable medium). We send order and delivery confirmations, and where applicable a hosted invoice, by email. Please keep them. The language of the contract is English unless we agree otherwise.

7. Prices, taxes, and payment (Stripe)

• Currency and tax. Prices are shown in euros (EUR). As noted above, we are not registered for VAT (PVN), so no VAT is added. The total payable, including any shipping charge, is shown to you before you commit to the order.
• Current prices (illustrative). At the time of writing: Digital Basic €2.99, Digital Deluxe €6.99, Printed & Framed €19.99. Physical orders include free Standard worldwide shipping (estimated 5–10 business days); Express shipping (estimated 2–4 business days) is available for an additional €9.99. Digital certificates carry no delivery charge. Prices may change; the price shown to you at checkout is the price that applies to your order.
• Payment processing (Stripe). Payments are processed by Stripe via Stripe-hosted Checkout. You enter your card or payment details on Stripe's secure pages, not on our website. We do not receive or store your full card number or other sensitive payment credentials; we retain only payment metadata (such as a payment reference, amount, currency, and status) needed to record and reconcile your order.
• Invoices. An invoice may be generated for your order and made available to you (for example via a hosted invoice link) by email.
• Your use of Stripe is also subject to Stripe's own terms and privacy policy.

8. Delivery of digital certificates

• How and when. For digital tiers, once payment is confirmed we generate your certificate (a PDF) and deliver it to the email address you provided, typically promptly after confirmation. The certificate is also available via your account and via its verification page.
• Scheduled delivery. If you schedule delivery for a future date and time, we generate and/or send the certificate at approximately the date and time you selected, interpreted in your device's local time zone. Scheduling does not guarantee delivery to the exact second.
• Delivery email. Make sure your delivery email is correct and can receive our emails (including attachments). We are not responsible for non-delivery caused by an incorrect address you provided or by your mail provider's filtering.

9. Your EU right of withdrawal and the immediate-delivery waiver

If you are a consumer in the EU/EEA, you normally have the right to withdraw from a distance contract within 14 days without giving a reason. Two important exceptions apply to most of what we sell. Where an exception applies, it is disclosed to you before you place your order, as set out below.

9.1 Digital certificates and the immediate-delivery waiver

Digital certificates are digital content supplied otherwise than on a tangible medium. Under EU consumer law (Consumer Rights Directive, Art. 16(m)), you lose the 14-day right of withdrawal for such content if you (a) give your prior express consent to us beginning supply before the withdrawal period ends, and (b) acknowledge that you thereby lose your right of withdrawal.

At checkout, the following statement is displayed directly at the payment button:

"By proceeding you agree to immediate delivery of your personalised certificate, acknowledge losing your 14-day right of withdrawal, and accept our Terms of Service."

By clicking the payment button and completing payment, you give that prior express consent and acknowledgement. As a result, once we begin generating/delivering your digital certificate, you will no longer have a right to withdraw, and the sale is final. We confirm this consent and acknowledgement to you by email (durable medium).

If you do not wish to waive your withdrawal right, do not complete the purchase. If, in a particular case, you placed a digital order and supply had not yet begun (for example a scheduled delivery still in the future, or before the certificate was generated), and you are entitled to withdraw, you may exercise your withdrawal right as described in Section 9.3.

9.2 Personalised physical certificates

Printed & Framed certificates are made to your specifications and clearly personalised (your chosen recipient name, title, design, and language). Under the Consumer Rights Directive (Art. 16(c)), such goods are exempt from the 14-day right of withdrawal. This is disclosed to you before you order. This exemption does not affect your rights if the goods are defective or not as described (see Section 11).

9.3 How to withdraw (where the right applies)

Where you do have a right of withdrawal, you may exercise it within 14 days by an unequivocal statement (for example by email to support@officiallyuseless.com). Where you validly withdraw, we will reimburse the payments received from you (subject to the rules above) without undue delay and within 14 days, using the same means of payment you used, unless we agree otherwise.

Note on the electronic withdrawal function. EU Directive (EU) 2023/2673 requires an easy electronic withdrawal function for online B2C contracts that carry a right of withdrawal. Because every certificate is personalised / made to order (CRD Art 16(c)) and any digital delivery is immediate with your waiver (Art 16(m)), a right of withdrawal does not, in practice, arise for our products — so no separate electronic withdrawal function is provided. In the rare case a withdrawal right does apply, you may withdraw by email (above). We will reassess this if non-personalised products are ever added.

10. Personalised physical certificates: shipping and returns

This Section applies to Printed & Framed orders.

• Shipping. We ship worldwide. You choose Standard (free; estimated 5–10 business days) or Express (additional charge; estimated 2–4 business days). Delivery estimates are not guaranteed and may be affected by carrier and customs delays. Any import duties or taxes outside our control are your responsibility.
• Delivery and risk. We aim to deliver without undue delay and, in any event, within 30 days of the contract unless we agree otherwise with you. Risk of loss or damage passes to you when you (or someone you nominate, other than the carrier) take physical possession of the goods.
• Damaged or lost in transit. If your certificate arrives damaged, or does not arrive, contact us at support@officiallyuseless.com within 14 days of delivery (or of the expected delivery date) and we will arrange a replacement or other appropriate remedy.
• Change-of-mind returns. Because physical certificates are personalised, they are exempt from the statutory cooling-off right (Section 9.2). Any voluntary change-of-mind return we may offer is at our discretion and subject to 14 days and the item being unused and in original condition. This is separate from, and does not limit, your rights for defective goods (Section 11).

11. Legal guarantee of conformity (defective or non-conforming goods)

Nothing in these Terms affects your mandatory statutory rights as a consumer. Where required by law, physical goods benefit from a legal guarantee of conformity of at least two years: if goods are defective or not as described, you are entitled to remedies under applicable law (typically repair or replacement, and where appropriate a price reduction or refund), at no return/repair cost to you for a valid claim. To make a claim, contact support@officiallyuseless.com with your order details and a description (and, where possible, photos) of the problem. The withdrawal exemptions in Section 9 and any disclaimer or liability limitation in these Terms do not reduce these statutory rights.

12. Custom / user-generated certificate content (acceptable use)

You control important parts of what appears on a certificate — in particular the certificate title and the recipient name ("Your Content"). You are solely responsible for Your Content.

You represent and warrant that Your Content, and our generating, printing, displaying, and (where applicable) anchoring of it, will not:

• infringe any third party's intellectual-property rights (including trademarks, copyright, or logos), or any privacy, publicity, or other rights;
• be unlawful, defamatory, harassing, threatening, hateful, discriminatory, obscene, or pornographic;
• impersonate any person or organisation, or falsely suggest affiliation, endorsement, or an official/real credential;
• be deceptive, fraudulent, or intended to facilitate any of Sections 5 or 16; or
• contain another living person's name or personal data that you are not entitled to submit and have displayed publicly (remember: the recipient name is shown publicly — Section 13).

Licence to us. You grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, store, reproduce, render, print, display, transmit, and (for blockchain tiers) hash and anchor Your Content solely to provide the Service — including generating your certificate, operating its public verification page and share/preview images, fulfilling and shipping orders, and providing customer support. This licence lasts as long as needed to provide and verify the certificate (see retention in the Privacy Policy).

Our discretion. We do not pre-screen all content, but we may refuse, cancel, edit, remove, or withhold any order or certificate, and suspend the related verification page, if we reasonably believe Your Content breaches these Terms or applicable law, without that being a breach by us. Where we cancel for this reason, we will handle any refund in line with applicable law.

13. Public verification page

Each certificate has a publicly accessible verification page (reachable via its certificate ID and QR code) and may generate a public share/preview image. By design, this page publicly displays the certificate title and subtitle, the tier, the issue date, the certificate ID, and — for anchored certificates — blockchain details (see Section 14). The recipient name is not shown on the public verification page or its share/preview image; it appears only on the certificate itself, which is delivered privately to you. This public display is a core feature of the product.

You understand and agree that the certificate title you provide will be made publicly visible on the internet, and may be indexed, cached, or shared by third parties. Do not enter information you are not willing to make public. The recipient name you provide is printed on the certificate and processed to fulfil your order, but is not published on the verification page; even so, do not enter another person's personal data without an appropriate basis to do so. You may request removal/deactivation of a verification page by contacting support@officiallyuseless.com; for the limits of removal where data has been anchored on a blockchain, see Section 14 and the Privacy Policy.

14. Blockchain anchoring (automatic for certain tiers; irreversible)

For blockchain-enabled tiers (currently Digital Deluxe and Printed & Framed), we anchor your certificate on a public blockchain (BNB Smart Chain) to provide tamper-evidence. Anchoring is a standard, automatic feature of those tiers; it is not separately toggled per order. The Digital Basic tier is not anchored.

• What is written on-chain. We write only (a) the certificate's public verification ID (a random, opaque identifier that is not derived from your name or email) and (b) a cryptographic hash (keccak256) of the certificate PDF. No plaintext personal data — no names, emails, or addresses — is written on the blockchain. Inherently public artefacts of any blockchain transaction (such as the transaction hash, block timestamp, and the sending wallet address) are also created.
• Public, permanent, and irreversible. A public blockchain is, by design, public, append-only, and immutable. Once anchored, the on-chain record cannot be edited, deleted, or undone by us or by you — including in response to a withdrawal, cancellation, or data-erasure request. The certificate ID and PDF hash therefore remain permanently public.
• Privacy nuance. Because only an opaque ID and a one-way hash are stored, the on-chain data does not reveal the certificate's contents; the recipient name remains public only on the off-chain verification page (Section 13), which we can deactivate on request even though the on-chain record cannot be removed.
• Third parties. Anchoring relies on a public blockchain network and an RPC provider (Alchemy). We do not control, and are not responsible for, the operation, availability, fees, forks, or behaviour of the blockchain or third-party explorers (such as BscScan) that may display the transaction.
• By purchasing a blockchain-enabled tier you acknowledge and consent to this irreversible, permanent, public anchoring. Further detail, including the data-protection implications, is in the Privacy Policy.

15. Intellectual property and your licence

• Our IP. We (and our licensors) own all intellectual-property rights in the Service, including the website, the certificate templates and designs, layouts, fonts, graphics, branding, the "Officially Useless" name, and all underlying software. These Terms grant you no rights in them except as expressly stated.
• Your licence to the certificate. On full payment, we grant you a limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable licence to use, download, print, and share the delivered certificate (PDF and/or printed item) for personal, non-commercial novelty purposes. You may not resell it, redistribute it commercially, reproduce it at scale, create derivative certificate products from our templates, or remove or alter our marks, certificate IDs, QR codes, or notices.
• Your Content. You retain your rights in Your Content, subject to the licence you grant us in Section 12.

16. Prohibited uses

You agree not to, and not to permit anyone to:

• use the Service or any certificate to misrepresent qualifications, status, identity, or affiliation, or to deceive, defraud, or mislead any person (see Section 5);
• submit content that breaches Section 12;
• use the Service for any unlawful purpose or in breach of any applicable law or third-party rights;
• attempt to circumvent the immediate-delivery waiver, payment, anti-bot (Turnstile), authentication, security headers, or rate-limiting, or probe, scan, or test the vulnerability of the Service;
• access the Service by automated means, scrape it, or place unreasonable load on it, except as we expressly permit;
• copy, resell, or commercially exploit the Service, templates, or designs except as permitted in Section 15;
• reverse engineer, decompile, or interfere with the Service or any anchoring; or
• impersonate us or any person, or misuse another person's account, magic link, or session.

17. Suspension and termination

• By you. You may stop using the Service at any time and may request account deletion as described in the Privacy Policy.
• By us. We may suspend or terminate your access to the Service or an account, refuse or cancel orders, and remove or deactivate content or verification pages, if you breach these Terms (including Sections 5, 12, or 16), if we reasonably suspect fraud or abuse, or as required by law.
• Effect. Termination does not affect rights or liabilities accrued before it, any vested mandatory consumer rights (including refund entitlements and the legal guarantee), or sections intended to survive (including Sections 5, 11, 12, 14, 15, 18–22, 24). On-chain records already created cannot be removed (Section 14).

18. Disclaimers

• Novelty disclaimer. Without limiting Section 5, certificates are sold as novelty/entertainment items only and confer no real qualification, accreditation, or legal standing of any kind.
• Service "as is". Except for your mandatory statutory rights and our express obligations in these Terms, the Service and any free features are provided "as is" and "as available", and we do not warrant that the Service, verification pages, share images, blockchain anchoring, or third-party networks will be uninterrupted, error-free, or available at all times.
• Third-party services. We are not responsible for third-party services we rely on or that you choose to use (including Stripe, email delivery, blockchain networks and explorers, social-sharing platforms, and your own device, browser, or mail provider).

19. Limitation of liability

Nothing in these Terms limits or excludes any liability that cannot be limited or excluded by law. This includes liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, for gross negligence or wilful misconduct, and your mandatory statutory consumer rights (including the legal guarantee of conformity in Section 11 and any applicable withdrawal rights). Your statutory rights are not affected by this Section.

Subject to the paragraph above, and to the extent permitted by law:

• we are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, or consequential loss, or for loss of profit, reputation, goodwill, or data, or for any consequence arising from the novelty nature of the certificates or your use, display, or sharing of them (including, for the avoidance of doubt, any consequence of using a certificate as if it were a real credential); and
• our total aggregate liability arising out of or in connection with a given order — other than liabilities that cannot be limited by law — is limited to the total amount you paid for that order.

20. Indemnity

To the extent permitted by law, you agree to indemnify and hold us harmless from and against any claims, damages, losses, liabilities, and reasonable costs (including legal fees) arising out of or related to: (a) Your Content (Section 12); (b) your use, display, or sharing of any certificate, verification page, or blockchain record, including any misrepresentation of it as a real credential (Sections 5 and 16); or (c) your breach of these Terms or of applicable law. This Section does not apply to the extent a loss results from our own breach, negligence, or wrongdoing, and does not limit your mandatory consumer rights.

21. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time (for example to reflect changes to the Service or the law). The "Last updated" date at the top shows the current version. For material changes we will take reasonable steps to notify you (for example by a notice on the website or by email where appropriate). Changes are not retroactive and do not reduce rights you have already accrued (including in respect of orders already placed). Continued use of the Service after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms.

22. Governing law, mandatory consumer protections, and disputes

These Terms, and any dispute arising out of them, are governed by the laws of Latvia, and the courts of Latvia have exclusive jurisdiction.

However, if you are a consumer resident in the EU/EEA, this choice of law and jurisdiction does not deprive you of the protection of the mandatory consumer-protection rules of your country of habitual residence, and you may also bring proceedings in, and can generally only be sued in, the courts of your own country of domicile. Nothing in this Section overrides those mandatory protections.

23. Complaints and out-of-court dispute resolution

If you have a complaint, please contact us first at support@officiallyuseless.com and we will try to resolve it.

We do not currently participate in, and are not obliged to use, an out-of-court alternative dispute resolution (ADR) scheme. EU consumers can also seek guidance from the European Consumer Centres Network (ECC-Net) or the relevant national consumer authority. (The EU Online Dispute Resolution platform was shut down on 20 July 2025 and is no longer available.)

24. Miscellaneous

• Privacy. Our processing of your personal data (including order, account, recipient, shipping, payment-metadata, and telemetry data, and the public verification page and blockchain anchoring) is described in the Privacy Policy, which forms part of your agreement with us.
• Severability. If any provision is found invalid or unenforceable, the rest remain in effect, and the invalid provision will be applied to the maximum extent permitted by law (and any consumer-protective reading prevails).
• No waiver. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of it.
• Assignment. You may not assign these Terms without our consent. We may assign or transfer them to a successor (for example on a corporate reorganisation or sale), provided your rights are not reduced.
• Force majeure. We are not liable for failure or delay caused by events beyond our reasonable control (including carrier, network, blockchain, or third-party-provider failures).
• Entire agreement. These Terms, the Privacy Policy, and the order details and confirmations you receive form the entire agreement between you and us regarding the Service, and supersede prior understandings on that subject. This does not exclude liability for fraud or misrepresentation.

25. Contact

Questions about these Terms or your order:

Email: support@officiallyuseless.com Trader: Arturs Vanags, Rīga, Latvia (full registered address available on request via support@officiallyuseless.com)