Terms of Sale & Use

1. Who these terms are between

These Terms of Sale & Use (“Terms”) are an agreement between you and Chimera Brands LLC, a Texas limited liability company doing business as PONCHI™ (“PONCHI”, “we”, “us”, “our”). They govern your use of ponchi.us (the “Site”) and every order you place with us.

By placing an order, ticking the acknowledgement at checkout, or using the Site, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not place an order.

PONCHI™ is a brand of Chimera Brands LLC, a Texas limited liability company with its principal place of business in Houston, Texas. Our full registered address and contact details are in section 30.

2. Eligibility and adult control

You must be at least 18 years old and able to form a binding contract to place an order. Orders involving a child’s artwork or likeness must be placed and approved by that child’s parent or legal guardian.

The purchase and production process is directed to adults, not children. We do not knowingly accept orders from children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 except as described in our Privacy Notice.

By placing an order that includes a child’s artwork, name, age or likeness, you represent that you are that child’s parent or legal guardian, or that you have their parent or guardian’s permission.

3. What we sell

PONCHI makes one-of-one personalised objects and digital products from material you supply:

• Physical editions — PONCHI Basic, PONCHI Kit, Hand-Painted, Signature, Legacy, and PONCHI Landmark™. Each is sculpted in 3D from what you send, resin-printed, and finished according to the edition you chose.
• Digital editions — PONCHI Mini VIDEO game and PONCHI RUN 3D VIDEO game, which are browser-based games delivered by email, and the PONCHI Holo Card™, which is an image file delivered by email. Nothing ships.
• PONCHICKERS™ — two transfer stickers, each 9 × 7.5 cm, made with PONCHI StickMagic™ (UV-cured ink on transfer film). One carries the drawing you sent, the other the PONCHI mascot. Available only on orders made from a drawing. One pack is included free with every drawing edition except PONCHI Basic; on Basic, and for any additional pack, they are $4.99 each. Bought on their own, without a piece to accompany, they are $4.99 plus $2.99 postage. When they accompany a piece they are shipped inside the same parcel and add nothing to postage. They are intended for smooth, nonporous surfaces and are not dishwasher safe; the application and care instructions are printed on every pack and published at ponchi.us/ponchickers. Because a sticker is applied permanently, we cannot accept a return once a pack has been opened, except where it arrives damaged or is not what you ordered.
• Options and add-ons — size (Keepsake or Showpiece), Lifelike sculpting, additional figures, expedited carriage, and the games purchased alongside a figurine.
• Digital gift cards.

Every physical piece is made to order for you. It is not stock, it is not restockable, and it cannot be resold to anyone else. That fact underlies sections 10 and 11.

4. Placing an order

Your order is an offer to buy. A contract is formed only when we accept it, which we do by sending an order confirmation. Until then we may decline or limit any order, including where:

• the uploaded material cannot be produced, or breaches section 15;
• a price, description or availability was listed in error;
• we suspect fraud, chargeback abuse, or resale; or
• we cannot lawfully fulfil the order.

If we decline an accepted order we refund you in full. A listed price is not an offer we are bound to honour if it is obviously wrong.

5. The approval step and revisions

This is the centre of the agreement, so it is stated plainly.

Which orders this section covers. The approval step exists because there is a 3D interpretation to look at. It applies to every piece we sculpt — Basic, the Kit, Hand-Painted, Signature, Legacy, Landmark, and any photograph turned into a piece. It does not apply to the 2D and 3D games, the Holo Card or PONCHICKERS™ stickers: nothing is sculpted for those, so there is nothing to approve and no revision round to spend. Everything below is about the sculpted pieces.

1. After payment and after we have your artwork and details, our artists produce a 3D interpretation of what you sent.
2. We send you that interpretation to review.
3. Nothing is printed, painted or manufactured until you approve it.
4. If it is not right, you say so at that step and the sculptor revises it.

A PONCHI is an interpretation, not a mechanical reproduction. A drawing is flat and a figure is not; someone must decide what the back of the head looks like and how a two-dimensional arm meets a shoulder. Physical constraints also apply: hair-thin antennae, floating parts and paper-flat wings cannot stand up in resin, so our sculptors thicken or anchor them enough to survive being held. We show you exactly what we changed at the approval step. That judgement is the craft you are buying, and your approval is your acceptance of it.

Revisions. Every order includes one round of revisions to the 3D interpretation before you approve it. In that round you may ask for any reasonable corrections — proportions, colour, a feature we read wrongly — and we will make them and show you the result again. Further rounds are available; we will quote the cost in writing and obtain your agreement before any chargeable work begins.

Responding to an approval request. When we send a 3D interpretation for approval, please respond within 14 days. If we have not heard from you after 14 days we will pause the order and remind you. If we have still not heard from you 30 days after the approval request, we may cancel the order and refund you under the scale below in section 10, treating the order as cancelled before approval.

6. Prices, taxes and payment

Prices are in U.S. dollars and are those displayed at the time you check out. Sales tax is calculated at checkout where applicable. Standard shipping within the United States is included in the displayed price; expedited carriage is an additional flat charge shown before payment.

Payment is processed by Stripe and, where offered, PayPal. Card details are entered on the payment provider’s page and are never stored on our servers. By paying, you authorise the full amount shown, including tax and any additional charges you selected.

If a payment is reversed, disputed or charged back after production has begun, you remain liable for the work performed, and we may suspend or cancel any open order.

7. Production time and delivery

Lead times shown on the Site are good-faith estimates, not guaranteed delivery dates. Every painted piece is finished by a person, and people are not a queue you can compress.

Stated production periods begin only when all of the following are complete: payment received, artwork and required details received, and your approval of the 3D interpretation. They do not begin on the day you pay.

Delivery may be extended by carrier delays, revision requests, material availability, inaccurate or incomplete addresses, customs review, and events under section 25.

If we cannot meet the time we stated. We apply the United States Federal Trade Commission’s Mail, Internet, or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule (16 C.F.R. Part 435). If we cannot ship your order within the production period stated for your edition — or within 30 days of your approval where no period was stated — we will notify you before that period ends, give you a revised shipping estimate, and offer you the choice of either consenting to the delay or cancelling for a full refund. If you do not consent to the delay, we will cancel and refund you promptly, and in any event within seven working days of your decision. If you do not respond to a delay notice, we will cancel and refund you automatically rather than hold your money. This right applies no matter what else these Terms say about cancellation.

8. Shipping, title and risk of loss

Title and risk of loss pass to you when the carrier takes possession of the finished piece. We remain responsible for transit damage as described in section 11, which is a contractual promise we choose to make and is more generous than the rule above requires.

You are responsible for providing an accurate, deliverable address. Re-shipment caused by an incorrect address supplied by you may be chargeable.

9. International orders

Availability, carriers, duties, import taxes and restrictions vary by country and are confirmed at checkout. Import charges are the recipient’s responsibility unless the order expressly states otherwise. We are not responsible for delays caused by customs, or for a refusal of entry under the destination country’s law.

10. Changes and cancellation

Before you approve the 3D interpretation: you may change details or cancel for a full refund.

After you approve and production begins: cancellation rights are limited, because the piece is a one-of-one object made to your specification and cannot be sold to anyone else. Whether any refund is possible depends on how far the work has progressed. Tell us early rather than waiting.

The refund scale. Because every piece is made to your specification and cannot be sold to anyone else, what we can refund depends on how far we have taken the work:

• Before you approve the 3D interpretation — 100%. Cancel for any reason, or none, and we refund everything you paid.
• After approval, before printing or painting begins — 50%. Sculpting labour has been performed at this point and cannot be recovered.
• Once printing or painting has begun — no refund. The object physically exists and is yours alone.

Tell us as early as you can; the earlier you reach us, the more we can return. These limits do not apply where a piece arrives damaged, is not what you approved, or where the limited warranty or any non-waivable right gives you a remedy — see sections 11, 21 and 27.

11. Returns, remakes and refunds

Change of mind

Because every piece is made for one family and cannot be restocked, we do not offer change-of-mind returns once production has begun. What we offer instead is the approval step, which exists so that you see and accept the piece before it is made.

Damage in transit, or a production fault

Photograph the piece where it sits, including the packaging, and email us within 7 days of delivery. A piece damaged in transit, or that left us with a production fault, is remade. We still hold the sculpt, so a remake is considerably faster than the original. You will not be asked to pay twice for our error.

Not what you approved

If the finished piece does not match the interpretation you signed off, that is on us, and it is remade or refunded at our election.

What is not a fault

Every piece is painted by hand. Small variations in brushwork, and minor differences between a photograph of one piece and the piece you receive, are characteristics of hand finishing and are not defects. Variation from the approved interpretation is a fault; variation between two hand-painted pieces is not.

12. Digital products

The games are licensed, not sold. You receive a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to access and play your game for personal, non-commercial use. You may not redistribute, resell, decompile, or host it elsewhere.

The PONCHI Holo Card™ is a digital image file. You may keep it, print it for your own use, and share it. You may not resell it, offer it as part of a paid collection, or present it as an authenticated, numbered or limited collectible of any third party. The card number printed on it identifies your order; it is not a statement of rarity, value or investment worth, and PONCHI makes no representation that any card will hold or gain monetary value.

Delivery of the Holo Card. We aim to deliver it by email within 24 to 48 hours of a completed payment. That is an estimate made in good faith and not a guaranteed delivery time. If we have not delivered it within 30 days, you may cancel and receive a full refund, and we will tell you before that point if we expect to miss the window. Delivery depends on our receiving usable artwork from you; if what you send cannot be used, we will contact you and the clock starts again when replacement artwork arrives.

Digital products are delivered by email and are non-refundable once delivered, because they cannot be returned. If a game does not work in a current mainstream browser, or a Holo Card file arrives corrupt or unopenable, contact us and we will fix it or refund it.

We do not guarantee compatibility with every device, browser, operating system or network, or uninterrupted availability of any hosted content.

13. Digital Passport, Charm and Time Capsule

Where your edition includes a Ponchi Charm™, a Digital Passport, or the Legacy Time Capsule, the following applies.

• These are services attached to a physical product, and depend on our systems remaining operational.
• We store the content you submit and make it available as described for your edition. You may download your own copy at any time, and we encourage you to keep one.
• A Time Capsule message is released on the date you set. We do not open it early, and we cannot recover a message you have deleted.
• We do not promise indefinite storage. If we discontinue a service we will give you notice and a means of exporting your content.

How long we keep it. We host your Digital Passport, and hold any Time Capsule message, for as long as Chimera Brands LLC operates the service. We do not promise it forever, because no company honestly can. If we ever discontinue the service, or decide to stop hosting your content, we will give you at least 90 days’ written notice to the email on your order and provide a means of exporting your passport and any stored message before it ends. You may download your own copy at any time, and we encourage you to keep one. A sealed Time Capsule is released on the date you set; we do not open it early, and we cannot recover a message you have deleted.

14. Gift cards and promotion codes

Digital gift cards are redeemable against PONCHI products, have no cash value except where law requires otherwise, are not reloadable, and are not redeemable for cash. We are not responsible for lost or mis-delivered cards caused by an incorrect recipient address or email filtering.

Promotion codes carry their own terms and expiry, cannot be combined unless stated, have no cash value, and may be withdrawn or voided where we reasonably suspect abuse.

Expiry and fees. PONCHI gift cards do not expire and carry no dormancy, service or inactivity fees of any kind. We have taken this position deliberately so that the card you buy keeps its full value for as long as you hold it, consistent with the federal Credit CARD Act of 2009 and Chapter 604 of the Texas Business & Commerce Code. Any unspent balance remains on the card after a purchase.

15. What you upload, and what you promise about it

When you upload a drawing, photograph or other material, you represent and warrant that:

• you own it, or have permission from the person who does;
• you have the permission of every identifiable person shown in it, or of their parent or guardian if they are a child;
• it does not infringe anyone’s copyright, trademark, publicity or privacy rights; and
• it is not unlawful, obscene, hateful, or depicting a minor in any sexualised way.

We may refuse or cancel any order whose material breaches this section, and we may refuse material that depicts a third party’s protected character, logo or design. Refusal under this section is not a judgement about you; it is a limit on what we can lawfully manufacture.

16. Ownership of artwork and the licence you grant

The artwork remains yours. A child who draws a character owns that drawing, and nothing about ordering changes that.

You grant us a limited, worldwide, royalty-free licence to use the material you upload only to review, sculpt, manufacture, document, deliver and support the order you placed, and to keep the records that a provenance product requires.

We do not publish, advertise with, or train machine-learning models on your material without your separate, specific, written permission. Buying a PONCHI is not consent to any of those, and we do not treat it as such.

The 3D model we create is our work product, produced to fulfil your order. We retain it so that we can remake your piece, and we do not licence it to anyone else as a depiction of your character.

Can you buy the 3D file? Not at present. The 3D model is our work product and is not sold, licensed or released as a file, in any format, as part of any edition. We may offer this as a separate product in future; if we do, it will be on terms published at that time. Nothing in this section affects your ownership of the original drawing or photograph you sent us, which remains entirely yours.

17. Our intellectual property

PONCHI™, PONCHIFY, Ponchi Charm™, PONCHI Landmark™, PONCHI Aura™, Aura Missions™, the PONCHI logo, the Site, its text, photography, video, software and games are owned by Chimera Brands LLC or its licensors and are protected by copyright, trademark and other laws. Nothing in these Terms transfers any of it to you. Patent pending where stated.

18. Product nature, age and safety

A PONCHI is a display keepsake, not a toy. It is a rigid resin object with small sculpted details that can break off. It is not suitable for children under 3. Painting kits are an adult-supervised activity and the supplied instructions are the ones to follow.

We do not publish a formal age grade or a safety certification until the exact commercial materials have completed testing. When they have, the results will be stated plainly.

PONCHI is a creative keepsake. It is not a therapy, an assessment, or an educational product, and it does not diagnose, treat, or guarantee any psychological, developmental or academic outcome.

19. Accounts

You are responsible for the accuracy of your account details and for activity under your account. Tell us promptly if you believe it has been used without your permission. We may suspend or close an account used for fraud, abuse, or breach of these Terms.

20. Schools programme

Where PONCHI runs a classroom activity, the school purchases nothing and handles no payment data, students are never asked to purchase, and every student takes part whether or not their family orders. Family purchases are made privately with PONCHI and are governed by these Terms. Separate written agreements govern the school relationship and prevail over this section where they conflict.

21. Limited warranty

We warrant that your piece will substantially conform to the 3D interpretation you approved, and will be free from manufacturing defects, for 90 days from delivery. Our sole obligation, and your sole remedy, under this limited warranty is repair, remake, or refund of the purchase price, at our election.

This warranty does not cover damage from misuse, dropping, handling by a young child, exposure to heat or direct sunlight, attempted repair, or normal variation in hand finishing.

22. Disclaimer of other warranties

23. Limitation of liability

Nothing in these Terms excludes liability that cannot lawfully be excluded, including liability for fraud, for personal injury caused by our negligence, or for anything the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act does not permit us to limit. See section 27.

24. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Chimera Brands LLC and its members, officers and contractors from claims, damages and reasonable legal costs arising from material you uploaded in breach of section 15, or from your breach of these Terms.

25. Events beyond our control

We are not liable for delay or failure caused by events outside our reasonable control, including natural events, fire, flood, epidemic, war, civil unrest, strikes, carrier failure, utility or internet outage, government action, customs action, and shortage or failure of materials or equipment.

26. Disputes, arbitration and Texas law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Texas, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules.

Talk to us first

Before starting any formal proceeding, email crayon@ponchi.us with a description of the problem and what you would like done. Most things are fixable in a week.

Arbitration

If we cannot resolve it, any dispute will be resolved by binding individual arbitration administered under the Federal Arbitration Act, seated in Harris County, Texas, or conducted remotely at the consumer’s election. You and we each waive the right to a jury trial and to participate in a class or representative action.

Small claims and opt-out

Either party may bring an individual claim in small-claims court instead. You may opt out of this arbitration section by emailing us within 30 days of your first order, stating your name and order number; opting out does not affect any other part of these Terms.

How arbitration works. Arbitration is administered by the American Arbitration Association (AAA) under its Consumer Arbitration Rules in force when the claim is filed, available at adr.org. One arbitrator decides the claim. The seat is Harris County, Texas, and Texas law governs, but you may elect to appear by telephone or video, or to have the matter decided on documents alone, and we will not ask you to travel.

Who pays. You pay no more than the consumer filing fee set by the AAA Consumer Arbitration Rules. We pay the remainder of the filing, administration and arbitrator fees for any claim arising from a consumer order, whatever the outcome. If the arbitrator finds your claim was not frivolous, we will not seek our costs from you. We make this commitment so that the cost of arbitrating never exceeds the cost of suing us.

27. Your Texas DTPA rights

The Texas Deceptive Trade Practices–Consumer Protection Act (Tex. Bus. & Com. Code ch. 17) gives Texas consumers rights that, in most circumstances, cannot be waived. Nothing in these Terms is intended to waive, limit or disclaim any right or remedy you have under the DTPA, and any provision that would do so unlawfully does not apply to you to that extent.

28. Changes to these terms

We may update these Terms. The version in force for your order is the version published when you placed it, and we keep prior versions. Material changes will be noted on this page with a new version number and date. Continued use of the Site after a change means you accept the updated Terms for future orders.

29. General

If any provision is held unenforceable, the rest remains in force and the unenforceable part is limited to the minimum extent necessary. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of it. You may not assign these Terms; we may assign them to a successor in connection with a merger or sale of the business. These Terms, together with the Privacy Notice and your order confirmation, are the entire agreement between us regarding your order and supersede any prior discussion.

30. How to reach us

Chimera Brands LLC — PONCHI™
Email: crayon@ponchi.us

Chimera Brands LLC — PONCHI™
Houston, Texas, United States
Email: crayon@ponchi.us

Registered postal address: to be completed before publication — a physical postal address is required on commercial email under the CAN-SPAM Act and is expected on a consumer terms page.