Terms of service

Last updated 11 October 2026. Written to be read.

The short version

Swindl. runs your golf swindle: sign-ups, the tee sheet, scoring, the leaderboard and the history. A group can use it free with up to eight players an event, or subscribe to a paid plan. No money ever moves through Swindl.; entry fees and prizes are bookkeeping your organiser keeps. You can cancel at any time, and nothing is deleted when you do.

1. Who we are

Swindl. is operated by its owner, trading as Swindl. (“we”). Contact: privacy@swindl.golf. These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales. If you are a consumer living in Scotland or Northern Ireland you can also bring a claim in the courts where you live, and nothing here takes away rights the law gives you there.

2. Accounts

You sign in with your email address and a code; there are no passwords. You must be 13 or over to hold an account, and 18 or over to subscribe to a paid plan or to own a group that has one. Keep your email account secure: anyone who can read it can sign in as you. Organisers are responsible for what they do in their group; members are responsible for the scores they enter.

3. Plans and payment

The Free plan is free for as long as you like. Paid plans (Swindl16, Swindl40, Swindl+) are subscriptions billed monthly or yearly in advance, in pounds sterling, through Stripe. Prices are shown on the plan page before you pay and include any VAT we are required to charge. Payment is taken by Stripe; we never see or store card details. The subscription belongs to the group, and its owner controls it.

A paid plan renews automatically, each month or each year, until you cancel it. The payment page shows the price and how often it is taken before you pay, and section 6 says what happens if the price is going to change.

You can change plan from the plan page. An upgrade starts straight away: you pay the difference for the days left in the period you have already paid for, and your next bill is at the new price. A downgrade starts from your next bill: you keep your current plan until then, nothing is refunded, and you can change your mind before it happens. Your billing date and whether you pay monthly or yearly stay the same either way.

4. Cancelling and refunds

Cancel at any time from the plan page (“Manage card, invoices or cancel”), or by emailing us. Your paid plan runs to the end of the period you have paid for, then the group returns to Free. We do not refund the unused part of a period, except where these terms say we do. Nothing is deleted when a plan ends — events, scores, history and members all stay, and are all back the moment you subscribe again.

Your 14 days to change your mind. If you subscribe as a consumer — for yourself or your society, not for a business — you can cancel within 14 days of the day you subscribed, without giving a reason. Tell us by email, or cancel from the plan page and email us that you want your money back; any clear statement will do, and there is a form at the end of these terms if you would like one. We will refund everything you paid, to the card you paid with, within 14 days of hearing from you. Your plan starts the moment you subscribe because that is what you ask for when you pay; we refund in full all the same.

5. Failed payments

If a payment fails, Stripe retries it and emails you. Your plan continues during the retries. If the payment cannot be taken, the subscription ends and the group returns to Free, with everything kept as above.

6. Price changes

We may change prices for new subscriptions at any time. For an existing subscription we will email the group's owner at least 30 days before a change takes effect, and you may cancel before it does.

7. Money in your group

Entry fees, prizes and winnings recorded in Swindl. are a record, not a payment. Your organiser collects and pays out however your group does it, and is responsible for it. Swindl. is not a payment service, a betting service or a lottery operator, and takes no share of any pot. Each organiser is responsible for making sure the way their group runs its swindle — the stakes, the prizes and who takes part — is lawful where they play.

8. Acceptable use

Use Swindl. for running golf. Do not use it to harass anyone, to enter people who have not agreed to be entered, to scrape it, or to try to get into other groups' data. We may suspend an account or a group that does. We will say why, and where it can be put right we will give you the chance to before anything is removed.

9. Your data

Our privacy notice says what we hold and why. For a group, the data-processing terms apply: your group is the controller of its members' details and we process them on its behalf. We email you news and offers only if you have ticked the box for them, and you can untick it at any time under Settings.

10. Availability and liability

We provide Swindl. with reasonable care and skill. We aim to keep it available on Saturday mornings above all, but we do not promise it will never be down. Keep your own copy of anything you cannot afford to lose.

If we let you down, we are responsible for loss that was a foreseeable result of it, but not for loss that nobody could have expected, nor for lost profit, lost business or business interruption. To the extent the law allows, our total liability to a group in any twelve months is the amount that group paid us in those twelve months, or £100 if that is more. Nothing in these terms limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, or for anything else the law does not let us limit, and nothing takes away your legal rights as a consumer.

11. Ending things

You can stop using Swindl. at any time and ask us to delete your account or your group. We may end these terms with 30 days' notice, and immediately for a serious breach. Either way, a paid period already paid for is refunded pro rata if we are the ones ending it.

12. Changes to Swindl. itself

Swindl. is always being worked on, and features change. We will not take away something a paid plan depends on in the middle of a period you have paid for without emailing the group's owner at least 30 days ahead. If that change matters to you, you can cancel before it happens and we will refund the unused part of the period.

13. Who owns what

Everything your group puts into Swindl. — its members, events, scores and results — is your group's. You give us permission to store it and show it so that Swindl. can do its job, and for nothing else. The Swindl. software, name and design are ours; these terms let you use them, not copy or resell them.

14. If Swindl. changes hands

We may transfer Swindl., with our rights and duties under these terms, to a company set up to run it or to somebody who takes it over. Your rights are not affected, and we will tell group owners when it happens. A subscription belongs to its group and stays with it if the group's owner changes.

15. Complaints

If something has gone wrong, email privacy@swindl.golf. A person reads it, and we aim to reply within a week. We would much rather put it right than argue about it. If we cannot settle it between us, the courts are open to you (section 1); we are not signed up to an alternative dispute resolution scheme.

16. Changes to these terms

We may change these terms to keep up with the law, to cover new or changed features, or to make them clearer. When we do, we update the date at the top. For a change that matters — anything that reduces what you get or adds to what you owe — we email group owners at least 30 days before it takes effect. If you do not accept it you can cancel before then, and we will refund the unused part of any period you have paid for. If you carry on using Swindl. after it takes effect, the new terms apply.

Cancellation form

For the 14 days in section 4. You do not have to use it — any clear message will do — but you can copy this into an email to privacy@swindl.golf.