Privacy Policy

We have developed this policy because we want you to feel confident about the privacy and security of your personal information. Shopacheck Financial Services is registered under the data protection laws in the United Kingdom and takes all reasonable care to prevent any unauthorised access to your personal information. When we refer to "personal information" in this privacy policy, we mean information, which identifies you as an individual, or is capable of doing so. Accordingly, we may hold and use data about you in your capacity as a consumer, or in any other capacity, for example, when you visit our websites.
Please read this privacy policy carefully. If you are visiting any of our websites or using any of our services, by continuing to do so, you indicate your agreement to our use of your personal information as set out in this privacy policy.

This privacy policy only applies to how Shopacheck deals with your personal information. It does not apply to any other company or to any other company's websites even if you access them through Shopacheck. If you disclose your personal information to other companies your information will be dealt with according to their privacy practices.

We may ask you for information to enable us to provide a service to you and we collect this information by telephone, written correspondence or via a website. We may ask you for information including your name, private/business address, contact telephone numbers, and email address. We may also ask you for other information that relates to the service you are using or ordering. For example, we may need details of your financial circumstances when processing your loan application.

We have information about your use of our website and services (such as the amount of time you spend our website), which we use to optimise our services and your experience with us. We may also use this information for marketing products and services but we will give the option to opt out of receiving this material.

• If you enter into any of our competitions or promotions, we may ask for information about you, which will be made clear at the time you enter. We will also inform you of the purposes for which the information you provide may be used.

• We may ask you from time to time about what use you make of the services we provide, what other services you would like us to provide in the future, and for other information, such as lifestyle data.

• We collect information from visitors to our websites to help us to make improvements to the websites and to the services we make available. We know, for instance, how many visitors there are to each website, when they visited, for how long and to which areas of our website they went. We may share this information with our advertisers and to other companies which offer their goods or services on our websites. It helps to show these organisations how effective our websites are as sales channels for their products. You or any other individual cannot be identified from the information we share as the data is aggregated and anonymised.

• We may also monitor and record our communications with you, including e-mails and phone conversations. Information which we collect may then be used for training purposes, quality assurance, to record details about the products and services you order from us, and in order to meet our legal and regulatory obligations generally

We do not use this information to:

• Analyse your visits to any other websites (except that we do track you if you go to websites carrying our banner, but we do not identify personal details while we do this)

• We may receive personal information about you from other companies and organisations (for example, for marketing purposes) and we rely on these third parties to obtain your consent for us to use this information. Where required, we will also ask you to confirm and accept conditions and terms associated with each of our services you use . For example, we will ask you to agree to our using your data when this has been passed to us by one of our carefully selected partners.

1. Please note that when you apply for a loan with Shopacheck we may make enquiries about you for credit reference purposes. These enquiries include searching your records held by Experian/Equifax or any other Credit Reference Agency (CRA) and checking any details held on you by the Interactive Media in retail Group (IMRG) Security alert or other Fraud Prevention Agencies (FPAs). When CRAs receive a search from us they will place a footprint on your file that may be seen by other organisations. At all times where your information is disclosed to us we may retain it and we will protect it in accordance with this policy and keep it secure. We will retain the outcome of searches we carry out with CRAs to avoid having to make repeat searches against your credit file in circumstances where we may need to carry out further credit checks in respect of additional products or services ordered by you. We will only retain this data for a reasonable period.

2. We will carry out checks while assessing your application for telephone service and will verify your identity. We do this to help protect you from identity theft and fraud, and also to prevent and detect crime and money laundering. We may also make periodic searches at CRAs and FPAs to manage your account with us.

3. Information on applications will be sent to CRAs and will be recorded by them. We may also give them details of your accounts and billing information, including how you manage it/them to CRAs We may tell them about payments you make to us, your account balances, and payment defaults [We may also give them historical information we hold about your payment history with us.] If you do not pay your bills on time, CRAs will record this information and it may be supplied to other organisations by CRAs and FPAs to perform similar checks and to trace your whereabouts and recover debts that you owe to them as well as us.

How to find out more

You can contact the CRAs currently operating in the UK; the information they hold may not be the same so it is worth contacting them all. They will charge you a small statutory fee.

• Callcredit, Consumer Services Team, PO Box 491, Leeds, LS3 1WZ or call 0870 0601414 or log on to; www.callcredit.co.uk

• Equifax PLC, Credit File Advice Centre, PO Box1140, Bradford, BD1 5US or call 0844 3350550 or log on to; www.equifax.co.uk

• Experian, Consumer Help Service, PO Box 8000, Nottingham NG80 7WF or call 0844 4818000 or log on to; www.experian.co.uk

As a normal part of our business we may share your details with other carefully selected partner companies to help provide you the service (or loan) you have applied for, We sometimes use other companies to provide services to you or to provide services to us. To enable them to do this, we may need to share your personal information with them. When we do so, these companies are required to act in accordance with the instructions we give them and they must meet the requirements of the Data Protection Act to keep the information secure. We may share your personal information with other parts of Welcome Financial Services and 3rd Party Companies to enable them to conduct their own businesses and to market their products and services to you. If your Loan Account with us falls into arrears, we may pass your details to The Lewis Group and other Collection Agencies for collection.

We may share your personal information with other companies so that they can contact you with details of other products or services you may be interested in. We will only do this if you have agreed to this and where the companies agree to use your personal information for that purpose only. If you have agreed to receive information about products and services from another company and later decide not to you will need to contact that company yourself to let them know. You can of course ask us not to continue to provide your personal information to any more companies in future.

We may provide information, in response to properly made requests, for the purposes of the prevention and detection of crime, and the apprehension or prosecution of offenders. We may also provide information for the purpose of safeguarding national security. In either case we do so in accordance with the Data Protection Act. We also provide information when required to do so by law, for example under a court order, or in response to properly made demands, under powers contained in legislation.

If there is a change (or prospective change) in the ownership of Shopacheck Financial services or any of its assets, we may disclose personal information to the new (or prospective) owner. If we do so, we will require them to keep it confidential.

The time period for which we keep information varies according to what the information is used for. In some cases, there are legal requirements to keep data for a minimum period. Unless there is a specific legal requirement for us to keep the information, we will retain it for no longer than is necessary for the purposes for which the data was collected or for which it is to be further processed.

Under the Data Protection Act, you are entitled to see personal information we may hold on you.

This may include (but is not limited to):

• Copy of your Loan Agreement

• Your Loan Application Form (S33)

• Your payment history with us

• Statement of Account

• Customer Notes

• Any charges applied to your account

If you would like us to provide copies, you must put your request in writing, enclosing a cheque for £10 made payable to Shopacheck Financial Services Ltd and send to Shopacheck Financial Services, Customer Services Team, Kingston House, Centre 27 Business Park, Woodhead Road, Birstall, Batley
WF17 9TD

In addition, you are entitled to the following information under the Consumer Credit Act:

• A copy of your current or active Loan Agreement(s)

• A copy of your Statement of Account for your current or active Loan Agreement(s)

We are entitled to make a nominal charge of £1 to process this information under the Consumer Credit Act.

If you would like us to provide copies, you must put your request in writing, enclosing a cheque for £1 made payable to Shopacheck Financial Services Ltd and send to Shopacheck Financial Services, Customer Services Team, Kingston House, Centre 27 Business Park, Woodhead Road, Birstall, Batley
WF17 9TD

You will also need to provide the following information so that we can process your request:

• The relevant account number/s

• The relevant telephone number/s

• The relevant address/s

If you have any information such as reference numbers, dates and times of contact then please include them in your request.

(Shopacheck does record some calls for Quality and Training purposes, however, not all calls are recorded. Calls are only held for a short period of time. If you want a call recording it is essential that you provide the information requested above, otherwise we will not be able to proceed with your request).
Once we have all the relevant information we will process your request within the 40 day time limit allowed under the terms of The Data Protection Act.

If the information we hold about you is inaccurate, please let us know and we will make the necessary amendments and confirm that these have been made.

You may choose not to receive marketing information from Shopacheck and, if you are already receiving such information from us, you can ask us to stop at any time. If you would like Shopacheck not to call or mail you with details of products, services and special offers, please let us know by writing to Shopacheck Financial Services, Customer Services Team, Kingston House, Centre 27 Business Park, Woodhead Road, Birstall, Batley,WF17 9TD.

We are serious about guarding the security of your personal information and the details of any transactions or applications made. We take appropriate organisational and technical security measures to protect your data against unauthorised disclosure or processing. We use a secure server to store the information you give us when you register or make an order (including your credit card details and your password). Any personal data you send us on-line is securely encrypted.

We may change our privacy policy from time to time. New policies will be published on our web sites.