Terms and conditions

1. Who provides the service

AcademiaTal is a chess school that teaches over the internet. In these terms, “we” means AcademiaTal and “you” means the person using the site or buying something on it.

The contact address for anything — support, billing, refunds, personal data, cancellations — is soporte@academiatal.com, the same one shown in the site footer. It's the only official address: we don't handle enquiries through social media or through any third-party platform's chat.

2. Acceptance and changes to these terms

Using the site, creating an account or completing a payment means you accept these terms. If you disagree with any part, don't use the service.

We may update them. Changes are published on this same page with the last-updated date at the top, and where they substantially affect a purchase or an active membership we'll let you know by email thirty days in advance whenever possible. Continuing to use the site after that date means accepting the new version.

What you've already bought is governed by the terms in force on the day of purchase. A later change can't take away something you already paid for.

3. Your account

To have an account and buy, you must be over 18. You can sign in with your email and a password, or with your Google account.

A minor may study with the material, but the account has to be in the name of their mother, father or legal guardian, who is the one contracting and answering for its use. If the minor is going to take private lessons over video call, the responsible adult must be aware of it and may be present in the lesson.

The account is personal and non-transferable: one account is one person. The details you enter must be true and current — above all the email address, which is where confirmations arrive and how access is recovered.

Look after your password: everything done from your account is treated as done by you. If you suspect someone else got in, write to us and change your password.

We may suspend or close an account where there's reasonable ground to think credentials are being shared, material is being redistributed, someone else's payment method was used, or other people on the site are being harmed. If we close an account without any breach on your part, we refund whatever you paid and haven't consumed.

You can request deletion of your account and your data by writing to soporte@academiatal.com. How that's done and what's kept is set out in the Privacy policy.

4. What is sold

There are four different things on the site, and it's worth keeping them apart because they aren't bought or cancelled in the same way:

• Recorded courses. Video lessons, PDF notes and annotated games in PGN. Watch them whenever you like, with lifetime access, on the terms of clause 8.
• Live courses. A group course with a coach, with dates, a time and limited places. It may be in person, over video call or hybrid.
• Private online lessons. A one-to-one lesson over video call, with the coach, language, length and time you choose from those that coach has free.
• Membership. Access to every published recorded course — including those published while it's active — for as long as you keep it.

The membership covers recorded courses only. Private lessons and live courses are paid for separately, whether you have a membership or not.

Each product's page is what governs its content, length, level, dates, format and available places. Descriptions are informative, and material may be corrected, expanded or reordered over time: that's an improvement to the course, not a different product.

5. Prices, currency and taxes

Prices are shown in your country's currency when that currency is available, and in US dollars when it isn't. The currency is determined by the country you're browsing from and is not chosen: you can't ask to be charged in another one to get a different price.

The payment screen offers two ways to pay: the one that corresponds to your country — Mercado Pago in Uruguay and Argentina, card in the rest of the world — and PayPal. When PayPal doesn't process your country's currency, that option charges in dollars, which is the case with the Uruguayan peso and the Argentine peso: the screen says so before you choose it, and the order summary is redrawn in that currency before you pay.

Prices include any applicable taxes. Any bank fee, currency conversion cost or tax charged by your bank, your card issuer or your country for an international purchase is on you and is not part of the price you see.

Prices may change at any time. The price that applies is the one shown at the moment of payment, and a later change doesn't affect a purchase already made.

6. How you pay and when it's confirmed

Payments are processed by external providers — Stripe, Mercado Pago or PayPal — depending on the country you're buying from. Your card details never pass through our servers: they're entered directly into the provider's form and we neither see nor store them.

Access is granted when the provider confirms the payment, not when you get back to the thank-you screen. That screen only informs you; what unlocks the course, the place or the lesson is the provider's confirmation.

Some methods don't clear immediately and have to be treated as what they are:

• Cash (Abitab and Red Pagos in Uruguay, Rapipago and Pago Fácil in Argentina): you take away a payment slip and the payment clears when you pay it at the shop. Until then the purchase shows as pending.
• PayPal under review or by eCheck: the amount may be held for several days before clearing.

While a purchase is pending, a place in a live course or a lesson time slot is not definitively secured: someone who pays sooner may take it. If that happens, we refund you in full or offer you the closest alternative, your choice. The payment slip also has its own expiry and stops working if it isn't paid in time.

If the payment fails nothing is charged and you can try again, with the same method or another. The provider issues its own receipt for the charge; if you need an invoice in a company's name, write to us before paying.

7. Discount codes

A code is applied on the payment screen, before paying, and discounts the list price.

Each code has its own conditions: validity dates, which products it covers, minimum purchase amount, total usage cap and per-person usage cap. They don't stack with each other unless expressly stated.

A code has no cash value, is not transferable and cannot be exchanged or refunded for cash. The use is consumed when the payment is confirmed; if the purchase is refunded in full, the use becomes available again.

We may void a code obtained or used fraudulently, or published in error with a value that shouldn't have applied.

8. Recorded courses: what “lifetime access” means

It means the course has no expiry date: it's yours for as long as your account exists and the site keeps running, and any updates we publish to that course are included at no cost.

We may withdraw a course from the catalogue — stop selling it: anyone who already bought it keeps it.

If we ever discontinued the site, we'll give at least ninety days' notice so you can download the downloadable material (the PDF notes and the PGN games). Videos are watched inside the platform and are not downloadable, for the reasons set out in clause 14.

9. Membership

The membership is a recurring payment that renews by itself at the end of each period until you cancel it. It gives you access to every published recorded course while it's active, new ones included. It doesn't include live courses or private lessons.

To cancel, write to soporte@academiatal.com from your account's email address. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the period you already paid for: you keep access until that date and you aren't charged again. The current period isn't pro-rated or refunded, except as set out in clause 13.

If a charge fails, it's retried; if it keeps failing, access is suspended until it's sorted out.

A course you bought separately stays yours when the membership ends. What you had solely through the membership stops being available when it ends.

A price change is announced at least thirty days in advance and applies from the following renewal. If it doesn't suit you, you can cancel before that date.

10. Live courses

What you buy is a place, and it's confirmed when the payment clears. Places are limited and do run out.

In a hybrid course, in-person and video-call places are counted separately: you choose the format when booking, and changing it later depends on places being left in the other one, so it has to be requested by email.

If we couldn't give you the place you bought — because of a technical error, a capacity problem or force majeure — we refund you in full or give you a place in the next edition, your choice.

We may change the coach, a date, a time or the venue for justified reasons, letting you know as soon as we know ourselves. If the change doesn't suit you, you're entitled to a full refund even if the course has already started. If we're the ones cancelling the course, the refund is always full.

Missing a session doesn't entitle you to a refund or to a repeat, and there's no guarantee it will be recorded unless the course page says so.

For in-person courses, travel and accommodation are on you, and the venue's rules must be respected.

11. Private online lessons

You choose the coach, language, length, day and time from the slots that coach has free. Times are shown in your time zone, and the booking also keeps the coach's zone for reference, so there's never any doubt about when the lesson is.

The slot is held for a few minutes while you pay and is confirmed when the payment clears. If it doesn't clear within that window, the slot is released and becomes available to someone else.

The lesson is held over video call. The link appears under “My bookings” before the session: it may be a room created for that lesson in the coach's calendar, or their fixed room. You need a device with a camera and microphone and a stable connection; connection problems on your side don't entitle you to a refund.

To cancel or reschedule, write to us at soporte@academiatal.com with at least 24 hours' notice: we'll reschedule the lesson or refund you, your choice. With less than 24 hours, or if you don't show up, the lesson counts as given and isn't refunded.

If the coach can't give the lesson, it's rescheduled or refunded in full, your choice.

The coach waits at least fifteen minutes. The lesson ends at the scheduled time even if you arrived late.

Recording the lesson requires the other party's consent. Neither the student nor the coach may record, capture or share the lesson without express permission.

12. The coaches

Coaches are independent professionals with a public profile on the site. Within the platform they manage their profile, their rate, their availability and their schedule.

AcademiaTal handles the sale, the payment and the platform, and answers to you for the service you contracted.

A profile may be taken off the catalogue. That doesn't affect lessons already paid for, which are given as normal or refunded.

13. Refunds

You have 14 calendar days from purchase to request a refund, provided you haven't consumed what you bought. You request it by writing to soporte@academiatal.com from your account's email address, and you don't have to explain why.

What “consumed” means in each case:

• Recorded courses: within 14 days and having completed no more than 20% of the lessons. Beyond that the course counts as consumed.
• Membership: the first charge is refunded within 14 days on the same 20% basis applied to what you watched during that period. Renewals are not refunded: cancellation is requested before the renewal date.
• Live courses: full refund up to 7 days before the start. Between those 7 days and the start, 50% is refunded. Once the course has started there's no refund, except in the cases in clause 10.
• Private lessons: clause 11 applies — 24 hours' notice.

A duplicate charge, a charge for something that wasn't delivered, and any purchase we can't fulfil are always refunded, with no time limit and no conditions.

The refund is made to the same payment method and through the same provider you paid with. How long it takes depends on the provider and your bank: usually between 5 and 15 business days. If you paid in cash, we may need bank details in order to refund you.

If you used a discount code, what's refunded is the amount you actually paid.

If you're a consumer resident in the European Union, the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, you keep the statutory 14-day right of withdrawal. For digital content supplied immediately, that right is lost when you expressly ask to start straight away and acknowledge losing it; our policy above is at least as favourable as that right, so we apply it regardless and we don't ask you to waive anything.

14. Intellectual property and what you can do with the material

All the content on the site — videos, notes, annotated games, texts, images, design and code — belongs to AcademiaTal or to the authors who licensed it, and is protected by copyright law.

Buying gives you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable and revocable licence to use the material for the purpose of your own learning. It doesn't transfer ownership of anything.

You may: watch it as many times as you like from your devices; download and print the PDF notes and the PGN games for your personal use; open those games in whichever analysis program you prefer.

You may not: download, copy, record or capture the videos; republish, share, sell, lend or upload the material anywhere; share your credentials or your access with another person; use the material to teach third parties or inside another course; remove authorship marks or notices; use automated means to bulk-download content; or use the content to train artificial intelligence models.

Breaching this clause allows us to suspend access without a refund and to claim for the damage caused.

The analysis engine that runs in your browser is Stockfish, free software published under the GPL-3 licence; its licence is available on the site itself.

15. Conduct

You may not interfere with the running of the site, attempt to access other people's accounts or materials, run security tests without written authorisation, extract data by automated means, use programs to repeat payments or sign-ups, impersonate another person, or upload illegal or offensive content in the notes of a booking.

In live courses and private lessons, respect is expected in both directions. Serious misconduct — harassment, insults, discrimination — allows us to end the lesson without a refund and to close the account.

16. Service availability

We aim to keep the site available at all times, but we don't guarantee uninterrupted or error-free service. There may be interruptions for maintenance, through failures of the services we depend on — hosting, video delivery, payment gateways, calendars — or through force majeure.

We may change, add or withdraw features and modify the catalogue. What you've already bought is preserved under clauses 8 and 9.

We aren't responsible for interruptions caused by your connection, your device or your browser.

17. Liability

The material is educational. We teach as well as we know how, but we don't guarantee any specific outcome: not a rating, not a tournament result, not a title.

To the extent the law allows, our liability for any claim connected to a purchase is limited to the amount actually paid for that product in the last twelve months.

None of this limits liability for wilful misconduct or gross negligence, nor the rights the law gives you as a consumer.

18. Personal data

What data we collect, what for, who it's shared with, how long it's kept and how to request its deletion is explained in the Privacy policy, which forms part of these terms.

19. Communications

Transactional emails — purchase confirmation, booking confirmation, password recovery, notices about a lesson — are part of the service and are sent for as long as you have an account: you can't unsubscribe from a purchase confirmation.

Commercial emails — promotions, reminders about an unpaid cart, news — are only sent where appropriate and always with an unsubscribe link.

The valid address for every notice is your account's. Keep it up to date.

20. Governing law and jurisdiction

These terms are governed by the law of the Eastern Republic of Uruguay, and disputes are submitted to the courts of Montevideo.

If you're a consumer resident in another country, this clause takes no protection away from you. You keep the rights granted to you by the mandatory law of where you live, and you can bring a claim before the courts of your country of residence. Where Uruguayan law and the law of your residence say different things, whichever is more favourable to you as a consumer applies — among others, the 14-day right of withdrawal if you reside in the European Union, the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, and the consumer protection regimes of Uruguay (Law 17,250) and Argentina (Law 24,240).

If a court declared any clause void, the rest remains in force and that clause is replaced by the closest valid provision to its intent.

21. Contact

For any question, complaint, refund, cancellation or request about your data: soporte@academiatal.com. We reply by the same means.