Shipping, Refunds and Returns
At present, there are no taxes, tariffs or duty on the online courses I host. For the EU, this is because they have the “Ask me Anything” sessions, which means it is not a purely digital product. If any charges do become due, these will be charged by me to you when you purchase the item, through the standard checkout process.
For my Patreon supporters, this counts as a digital service, which is taxable in many countries. More often than not, the tax liability is based on the location of you, my supporter/member, and not where I am based. Patreon takes care of this on my behalf, charging tax where required and sending it on to the relevant authorities. For EU VAT, they do this through an Irish subsidiary. If you are a VAT registered business inside the EU, you should be able to reclaim the VAT on your contribution, but I have yet to determine how to get Patreon to send you a VAT invoice for your payments, so you can put it through your accounts.
For online courses, you may ask for a refund at any time until the date that access to the course expires (given to you on your welcome email), so long as you have not logged in to start the course.
For in-person courses, you can ask for a full refund up to 4 weeks before the start of the course. After that, you can either opt for a refund of 50% of what you paid, or you can have a credit note that you can spend on other courses or items that I am offering. The voucher may not be exchanged for cash.
If I have made an error (I enrolled you on the wrong course, for example) then generally I can sort it out, but if this proves impossible I will offer a refund.
Pots and Other Physical Items
I can ship to virtually any address in the world. When purchasing, you will be given a list of shipping options and prices for your address. Please note that the shipping rates for many items are weight based. Packages are sent using a signed for, tracked service so that any problems in shipping can be identified and sorted easily; you will be given tracking details when your order is shipped.
If there is not an option to ship to your address, please contact me and I may be able to sort something out.
If an item is shipped to you and does not arrive, please let me know. I’ll take this up with the carrier. Hopefully they will find it and deliver it to you, but if they admit to having lost it then, upon receiving confirmation of this from them, I will issue a full refund.
Goods are insured from when they leave here to when they are delivered to you. Note that if the carrier gives you the option of having the package delivered to a safe place, and it disappears from that place before you retrieve it, that is not covered by our insurance or by the carrier.
I can gift wrap your order if you select the gift wrapping option. The inner carton will be attractively gift wrapped, and a card enclosed which can carry whatever message you would like. An additional charge is made for this service.
If someone bought an item from me and had it sent directly to you as a gift, and you want to return it to me, you’ll receive a gift certificate for the value of the item, which will be sent to you once I have received the item.
If the item was shipped to the gift giver, who then gave it to you later, I will send a refund to the gift giver, and they will find out about your return.
To ensure that your item arrives safely and intact, all items are heavily wrapped.
I double wrap orders for larger or multiple items. Your items are first wrapped inside an individual carton, and then all the items are packed into a second outer carton, with padding between them.
Where possible, we use biodegradable or recyclable packaging, or reuse packaging that we have received.
For orders outside of the United Kingdom, the order may be subject to duty, tariffs, taxes and other customs charges. This includes VAT in member states of the EU. I do not pay these (unless specified with your invoice); it is your responsibility to pay them (and any administration fee charged) when the goods arrive in your country, if asked. If you refuse, and the goods are returned to me, I will issue a refund for the items but not for the cost of shipping to you, or any other costs I may incur.
You may return your order within 14 days of receipt. If the return is a result of our error (you received an incorrect or defective item, for example) I will reimburse your return shipping costs as well as the full cost of your purchase. If you are returning the item because you have changed your mind, we require the item to be returned in as new condition, and we will refund the cost of the item, but not your purchase or return shipping costs.
Bespoke items, i.e. items made specifically for you, or standard items modified for you, can only be refunded if they are faulty.
If your order was damaged when sending it to you, please take some photos and contact me. I need photos to be able to claim on my insurance, so without adequate photos I will not be able to issue a refund. As ceramics is hard to repair, I may give you a refund and just ask you to dispose of the remains.
If returning goods to me, it is your responsibility to ensure that they arrive in the same condition that you received them in. I suggest that, if undamaged, you use the same packaging that you received the goods in, and also use a tracked and signed for delivery service. Also, please include either the delivery note or your name in the returns box.
If you need to return an item, please contact me with your order number and details about the product you would like to return. I will respond quickly with instructions on how to return items from your order.
Once I have received the return, I will confirm receipt and either accept or reject the refund. If I reject it, I will say why, e.g. the item was damaged in transit, or it isn’t a piece of mine. I will then issue any refund due, using the same payment method as you used when purchasing the item.
Last updated: 6 October 2026
This website, tim-thornton.com, is run by me, Tim Thornton, trading as Tim Thornton Ceramics. I decide how and why your personal data is used, which makes me the “controller” under data protection law.
I run a small business on my own and have no data protection officer. I am personally responsible for how your data is handled, including for the purposes of Canada’s privacy law (PIPEDA).
I am registered with the ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office), registration reference ZC264589.
The table summarises what I hold, why, the legal basis I rely on, and how long I keep it. The following sections give the detail.
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Where my tools do not delete data automatically, I review what I hold once a year, when I prepare my tax records, and delete anything I no longer need.
Payment providers keep their own records under financial regulations, which I cannot shorten. PayPal keeps data for as long as you have a PayPal account plus 10 years; Stripe keeps transaction records for as long as anti-money-laundering rules require.
When you book a course I create an account for you and a record in my customer database. Both are stored on my own website and/or my office computer, not with a third-party CRM. I hold your name, email address, country, and, if you give them, your preferred name, pronouns and preferred language.
While you take a course, my course software (TikiWiki or LearnDash, depending on the course) records which lessons you have opened and completed, quiz answers and scores, and how much of each lesson video you have played. Video progress comes from the Vimeo player embedded in the lesson. I use this to see whether the course is working, to help anyone who gets stuck, and to confirm completion. If you join live sessions, the video-conferencing service (currently ClickMeeting, possibly Zoom in future) records your attendance.
When you buy something I need your name, billing address, email and phone number to process the order and contact you about it. For physical items I also need your shipping address. Payment card details are entered directly with Stripe or PayPal; I never see or store them. WooCommerce records how you reached the site (for example a search engine, an email or an advert) against your order, so I can tell which kinds of promotion are effective.
Messages sent through the contact form are stored on the website and emailed to me. I use them only to reply and to keep a record of the conversation.
If you sign up, or if you are a customer and have not opted out, I send occasional emails about courses and related news. Emails are sent through Brevo. They contain small tracking images and tracked links that tell me whether an email was opened and which links were clicked; I use this to judge which content is useful and to remove contacts who never open anything. Every email has an unsubscribe link.
The community area is private. Only students on my courses and my supporters can join, and its contents are not visible to the public or to search engines. Anything you post there, and your profile, can only be seen by other members. If you leave a comment elsewhere on the site, I store your IP address and browser details to help detect spam. If the community software checks whether you have a Gravatar profile picture, a scrambled version of your email address is sent to Automattic, which runs Gravatar.
If you send a testimonial and agree to it being published, I show it with your name, business name and country. You can ask me to remove it at any time.
If you support me through Patreon or my own membership scheme, I hold your name, email address, membership tier and payment status. Patreon has its own privacy policy for the data it holds.
Cookies are small files your browser stores for a website. “Similar technologies” here means tracking pixels, the small images or scripts that report a page view, and local storage in your browser. I use them in two groups.
Always on: these are set for every visitor, because the site and the courses cannot work properly without them, or because they only adapt the site to how you use it. They are allowed without consent under UK law.
Only with your consent: analytics, advertising and visit tracking are only set if you choose Accept on the cookie banner. If you choose Decline, or ignore the banner, none of them load. Your choice is applied to all of them; you can’t change them individually.
You can change your mind at any time with the Cookie settings link at the bottom of every page, or by clearing cookies for this site in your browser. A year after your cookie settings were last changed, the settings are deleted and you are asked again.
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Cookie names and lifetimes are set by the providers and can change. Whilst this information is believed to be correct at the time of writing, please verify with the organisation managing the cookie if that is important to you.
Videos are embedded from Vimeo with Vimeo’s “do not track” setting, so Vimeo does not set tracking cookies. It still receives your IP address and browser details in order to play the video. For logged-in students, the Vimeo player reports how far each lesson video has been played, and my site saves this in your account as part of your course progress. It is not shared with anyone else.
The map on the contact page is provided by Google Maps and loads with the page. When it loads, Google receives your IP address and may set cookies under its own privacy policy.
Tracking in my emails is described under Newsletters and course announcements above.
I do not sell your data. I share it only with the service providers below, so they can do a job for me, and with HMRC or other authorities where the law requires. Providers marked own controller also decide for themselves how they use the data, under their own privacy policies.
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For two kinds of processing, Meta and I count as joint controllers, meaning we share responsibility for them:
How responsibility is shared is set out in Meta’s Page Insights Controller Addendum and its Business Tools Terms. For UK and EU users the Meta company responsible is Meta Platforms Ireland Limited, Merrion Road, Dublin 4, D04 X2K5, Ireland. Requests about data Meta holds are best made to Meta directly; if you send one to me, I will pass it to Meta within 7 days.
I use my Facebook page and Instagram account to tell people about my courses and activities, and to answer messages. My legal basis is legitimate interests. When you like, follow, comment or message me, Meta handles that data under its own privacy policy. You can control how Meta uses your activity for adverts in your Facebook ad preferences.
Some providers process data outside the UK. When they do, the transfer is protected in one of these ways:
If you are in the EU, data you send me is transferred to the UK, which the EU recognises as providing adequate protection.
These rights apply to anyone whose data I hold, whether or not you have an account. To use any of them, contact me using the details at the top of this policy. It is free. I may need to confirm who you are first, and I will reply within one month (longer for complex requests, in which case I will tell you why).
I do not make decisions about you by purely automated means.
If you are unhappy with how I have handled your data, please tell me first. I will acknowledge your complaint within 30 days and try to put things right.
You can also complain to a data protection authority:
The website is served over an encrypted connection (HTTPS), and access to its administration area, my customer records and my backups is restricted to me. Backups are kept on a storage device in my office and in Microsoft OneDrive. The web server is protected by my hosting provider’s firewall, and my own computers by their firewall. I keep software up to date.
If a breach puts your data at risk, I will report it to the ICO within 72 hours of becoming aware of it, as the law requires. If it is likely to cause you serious harm, I will also tell you directly without undue delay, saying what happened and what you can do.
I update this policy when what I do with data changes, for example when I add a new service. The date at the top shows when it last changed. I do not keep records of previous versions of this policy. If a change significantly affects how I use data I already hold about you, I will tell you by email.