Terms of Service

Terms of Service

The agreement between you and VanDates when you use vandates.com and, once it launches, VanDates membership. Please read them. They are written to be understood.

Last updated: 26 September 2026

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The short version.

• You must be 18 or over.
• Be honest, kind and safe. Our Community Guidelines explain what that means.
• You own what you post. You let us display it so VanDates can work.
• We cannot vet everyone, so please read our Safety Tips before meeting anyone.
• We can remove content or accounts that break the rules, and you can appeal.
• Membership is £1.99 a week and you can cancel any time.
• Invite a friend who becomes a member and you get a month free.

1. About us

VanDates is based at High View, Ffrydd Vaughan, Dolfor Road, Newtown, Powys, SY16 4BQ (“VanDates”, “we”, “us”). You can contact us at legal@vandates.com.

By joining the crew or creating an account, you agree to these terms, our Community Guidelines and our Privacy Policy.

2. Who can use VanDates

To use VanDates you must:

• be at least 18 years old;
• be able to enter into a legally binding contract;
• not have been removed from VanDates before;
• not be a registered sex offender, or have been convicted of a violent or sexual offence; and
• have only one account, which is for you alone.

3. The Crew

Joining the crew means we will email you an invite when VanDates opens near you. It does not create an account, and we cannot guarantee when or where we will open. You can leave the list at any time using the unsubscribe link in any email.

4. Your account

• Give us accurate information and keep it up to date.
• Use real, recent photos of yourself.
• Keep your login details private. You are responsible for what happens on your account.
• Tell us straight away if you think someone else has accessed it.

5. How you must behave

You must follow our Community Guidelines. In particular, you must not:

• harass, threaten, abuse or discriminate against anyone;
• send sexual images or messages to anyone who has not clearly asked for them;
• ask any member for money, or use VanDates for scams, selling or advertising;
• share another person’s location, vehicle details or personal information without their permission;
• post anything illegal, or anything involving anyone under 18;
• impersonate someone, or create fake or duplicate accounts; or
• copy, scrape or interfere with the website or app, or try to get around our security.

6. Your content

You keep ownership of the photos, words and other content you post. To run VanDates, you give us a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to store, display and adapt your content (for example, resizing photos) for as long as it is on VanDates. The licence ends when you delete the content or your account, apart from copies we must keep for legal or safety reasons, as explained in our Privacy Policy.

You confirm that you have the right to post your content and that it follows these terms. We may remove content that does not.

7. Meeting other members

VanDates helps people who live on the road find each other. We are not responsible for how members behave, online or in person.

• We do not carry out criminal record checks on members.
• Photo verification confirms that a person matches their profile photos. It does not confirm who they are or that they are safe.
• Always follow our Safety Tips, and report anything that worries you.

This does not affect our responsibility for our own actions, as set out in section 12.

8. Location features

Locations shown on VanDates are approximate by design. Do not rely on them for navigation or to judge your safety.

9. Price and cancelling

VanDates membership costs £1.99 a week, taken by card every week through our payment provider, Stripe, until you cancel. We will always show the price clearly before you pay.

• You can cancel at any time from My membership. Your membership stays active until the end of the week you have already paid for.
• You have the right to cancel within 14 days of joining. If you asked us to start your membership straight away, we may deduct a proportionate amount for the days you have used.
• If we ever change the price, we will tell you in advance and you can cancel before the new price applies.

10. Refer a friend

Members can earn free membership by inviting friends to VanDates.

• The reward: one month (4 weeks) of free membership for each friend who joins using your personal link and becomes a paying member. We apply it as a £7.96 credit to your VanDates membership, which covers your next 4 weekly payments.
• When it applies: once your friend has been a paying member for 14 days. We will add the credit within 30 days after that and let you know.
• Who qualifies: you must be a paying member in good standing who has joined the programme from the Refer a friend page. Your friend must be new to VanDates, aged 18 or over, and join using your link.
• Limits: one reward for each new member you refer. You cannot refer yourself, create extra accounts, or pay or offer incentives to people to sign up. Rewards have no cash value and cannot be transferred or exchanged.
• Fair use: we may withhold or reverse a reward if a referral breaks these rules or appears fraudulent. We may change or end the programme with reasonable notice, and any rewards you have already earned will still be honoured.

11. Moderation, suspension and closing accounts

We may remove content, restrict features, or suspend or close an account if we reasonably believe it breaks these terms or the law, or puts other people at risk. Where it is safe to do so, we will tell you what we have done and why, and how to appeal. See our Reporting & Complaints page.

You can close your account at any time from your account settings or by emailing us.

12. Our responsibility to you

We will provide VanDates with reasonable care and skill. It is a young service, so there may be times when it is unavailable or something does not work as it should. We will do our best to fix problems quickly.

If we break these terms, we are responsible for loss or damage you suffer that is a foreseeable result of our breach. We are not responsible for business losses, as VanDates is for personal, non-commercial use.

Nothing in these terms limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot be limited by law. Your statutory rights as a consumer are not affected.

13. Our name and design

The VanDates name, logo, website design and software belong to us. Please do not copy them without our permission.

14. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms as VanDates develops. If we make significant changes, we will tell you in advance by email or in the app. If you do not agree to the new terms, you can close your account.

15. Law and disputes

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales. You can bring legal proceedings in the courts of England and Wales. If you live in Scotland or Northern Ireland, you can also bring proceedings in your local courts.

If you have a problem, please contact us first. Most things can be sorted out quickly.

16. Contact us

VanDates
High View, Ffrydd Vaughan
Dolfor Road
Newtown, Powys
SY16 4BQ
Email: legal@vandates.com

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Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

What personal information VanDates collects, why we collect it, and the control you have over it. Written in plain English. If anything is unclear, just ask us.

Last updated: 26 September 2026

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Where we are right now. VanDates is in its early days. At the moment the only personal information we collect through this website is the email address you give us to join the crew, plus standard technical data. This policy also explains how we will handle information once membership opens, so you know exactly what to expect before you create an account.

1. Who we are

VanDates (vandates.com) is based at High View, Ffrydd Vaughan, Dolfor Road, Newtown, Powys, SY16 4BQ.

We are the controller of your personal information under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018. That means we decide how and why it is used, and we are responsible for looking after it.

For anything to do with your privacy, email privacy@vandates.com.

2. Information we collect now

When you join the crew

• Your email address.
• The date and time you signed up, and a record that you agreed to hear from us.

When you contact us

• Your name, email address and anything you choose to tell us.

When you visit the website

• Technical information such as your IP address, browser type, device type and the pages you visit. Our server records this in logs to keep the website secure and working.
• Our fonts are loaded from Google Fonts, which means Google receives your IP address when a page loads. See our Cookie Policy for details.

3. Information we will collect when membership opens

When you create a VanDates account we will collect:

• Account details: your email address, a password (stored in scrambled, hashed form), your display name and your date of birth so we can confirm you are 18 or over.
• Profile information: photos, a short bio, details of your van or motorhome, your interests and what you are “down for”.
• Location: an approximate location based on the town or area you enter, stored at reduced precision (roughly to the nearest kilometre). Other members only ever see a rough area, and you can hide your location completely. We never show your exact pitch to other members.
• Nearby alerts: if you choose an alert distance, we compare your approximate location with other members’ approximate locations and new plans, and let you know when someone is within that distance. Choose Off at any time and you will stop receiving alerts, and other members will not be alerted about you either.
• Payments: if you take out a paid membership, a record of your subscription and payments (but never your card details).
• Referrals: if you join through a member’s invite link, which member invited you, the page you arrived on and, if you allow the referral cookie, when you visited. If you join the Refer a friend programme, the people who join through your link and the rewards you earn.
• Messages and meetups: the messages you send, plans you post or join, meetups you create or join, and road friends you save.
• Verification: if you verify your profile, a selfie that is compared with your profile photos. This may involve biometric data, so we only do it with your explicit consent. We delete the selfie once the check is finished and keep only the result.
• Safety records: reports you make or that are made about you, blocks, and our moderation decisions.

Sensitive information

Some things you might choose to share, such as who you would like to date (which can reveal your sexual orientation), your religion or health information, count as special category data. Sharing them is always optional. If you do, we only use that information with your explicit consent, and you can remove it at any time.

4. How we use your information and our lawful bases

The law requires us to have a valid reason, called a lawful basis, for each way we use your information.

What we do	Lawful basis
Send Crew Updates and your invite	Consent. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Create and run your account, profile, messages and meetups	Contract. We need it to provide the service you signed up for.
Keep members safe: moderation, investigating reports, preventing fraud, fake profiles and repeat offenders	Legitimate interests, and our legal obligations under the Online Safety Act 2023.
Nearby alerts about members and plans within the distance you choose	Contract. It is a feature you switch on, and you can turn it off at any time.
Taking membership payments and managing your subscription	Contract, and our legal obligations to keep financial records.
Setting the optional referral cookie	Consent. You can change your choice at any time.
Running the Refer a friend programme: recording who invited whom, checking referrals are genuine and giving rewards	Contract (for members who join the programme) and legitimate interests (crediting the member who invited you and preventing abuse).
Photo verification	Explicit consent.
Using dating preferences or other sensitive details you choose to share	Explicit consent.
Essential service emails, such as password resets and safety notices	Contract.
Keeping the website secure and fixing problems	Legitimate interests.
Responding to lawful requests from the police or courts	Legal obligation.

We do not use your information to make decisions about you that have legal or similarly significant effects using automated means alone.

5. Who we share it with

• Other members see only what you put on your profile and a rough area, never your exact location, email address or date of birth.
• Service providers who help us run VanDates, such as our web hosting company, email delivery service and, once launched, our photo verification provider. They may only use your information to provide their service to us, under a written contract.
• Stripe, our payment processor, which receives your payment card details directly to take membership payments. We never see or store your full card details.
• OpenStreetMap’s geocoding service (Nominatim, run by the OpenStreetMap Foundation), which turns the town or area name you enter into rough coordinates for the map and nearby alerts. We send only the place name, never your name or account details.
• The police, courts or regulators where the law requires it, or where we believe it is necessary to protect someone from serious harm.
• A new owner if VanDates is ever sold or merged, who would have to protect your information in line with this policy.

We never sell your personal information, and we never share it with advertisers.

6. International transfers

Some of our service providers may store or process information outside the UK. When that happens we make sure it is protected, either because the UK government has confirmed the country offers adequate protection, or by using the Information Commissioner’s approved International Data Transfer Agreement or UK Addendum to the EU standard contractual clauses.

7. How long we keep it

• The Crew email addresses: until you unsubscribe, or 12 months after VanDates opens in your area if you have not created an account.
• Account and profile information: while your account is open. We delete it within 30 days of you closing your account.
• Messages: deleted with your account, except messages that have been reported, which we may keep for up to 12 months to deal with safety issues.
• Verification selfies: deleted as soon as the check is complete.
• Records of banned accounts: up to 3 years, so we can stop people who have been removed for safety reasons from signing up again.
• Website server logs: up to 30 days.

8. Your rights

You have the right to:

• get a copy of the personal information we hold about you;
• ask us to correct anything that is wrong;
• ask us to delete your information;
• ask us to limit how we use it, or object to us using it;
• ask for a copy in a portable format; and
• withdraw your consent at any time, where we rely on consent.

To use any of these rights, email privacy@vandates.com. It is free, and we will respond within one month. We may need to confirm your identity first.

9. Keeping your information secure

We use encrypted connections (HTTPS), store passwords in hashed form, limit who can access personal information and keep our software up to date. No system is completely secure, but if a data breach puts you at risk we will tell you and the Information Commissioner’s Office where the law requires it.

10. Age limit

VanDates is for adults only. You must be 18 or over to join the crew or create an account. If we learn that someone under 18 has given us their information, we will delete it.

11. Cookies

We explain the cookies we use, and how to control them, in our Cookie Policy.

12. Complaints

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, please contact us first at privacy@vandates.com so we can try to put it right.

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK’s data protection regulator, at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113.

13. Changes to this policy

We will update this policy as VanDates grows. The date at the top shows when it last changed. If we make significant changes, we will tell you by email or in the app before they take effect.

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