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Effective: June 1, 2005
Information Collection and Use
We will collect and use personal information about you to respond to your
request for products and services offered through this website. We will also
collect information in order to notify you about products, services, and other
opportunities we think will be of interest to you. Although personal
information we collect from you may be considered publicly available through
government records or available through widely distributed media, we will treat
all personal information submitted by you as nonpublic personal information.
The information we collect may be from the following sources:
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Information provided by you in connection with obtaining financial products or
services such as mortgage loans (such as full name, telephone number,
self-assessed property value, and social security number).
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Information you provide us when you register to receive communications from us
(such as your email address).
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Information you provide us when you enter promotions or sweepstakes offered by
Billsmadesimple.com (such as your full name, physical address and email
address).
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Information you provide us through surveys, feedback, or other forms hosted on
our website or the pages of a Billsmadesimple.com partner.
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Information you provide us when you apply for a job with Billsmadesimple.com.
We also collect demographic information. Demographic information is all other
information such as gender, zip code, or any information that is not tied to
your personal information. In addition, we might receive information about you
from other sources (such as service providers) for tracking purposes. We may
add the information we receive about you to your existing account. Like other
websites, we also automatically receive and record certain types of information
every time you visit us. We use " cookies" and the other information to enhance
your experience and present you with personalized offers. Likewise, we
sometimes use third-party advertising companies to serve and track
advertisements appearing on our website. These companies may employ cookies and
action tags to measure advertising effectiveness. Any information that these
third parties collect via cookies and action tags is completely anonymous.
Information Sharing and Disclosure
We do not share personal information about you with other people or
nonaffiliated companies except to provide product or services you have
requested or under the following circumstances:
Loan Products or Service Requests - If you submit a request for
a loan product or service offered through this website we will share the
personal information contained in your request form, such as your full name,
physical address, telephone number, property location and self-assessed value,
and social security number, with lenders in our provider network strictly to
process and fulfill your request. In some circumstances, we may obtain
additional information about you and/or share that information with lenders in
our provider network. For example, we may use your social security number to
obtain your credit score to help us match you with a lender. In addition,
lenders that receive your personal information may use your social security
number to pull your credit score and/or credit report in order to process and
fulfill your request. All lenders in our provider network, which include banks,
mortgage lenders and brokers, have entered into marketing agreements with
Billsmadesimple.com and are required to comply with federal and state privacy
regulations. The lenders may contact you by telephone, email, or mail based on
the information you provided to us in order to process and fulfill your
request, even if you have opted into the National Do Not Call List administered
by the Federal Trade Commission, any state equivalent Do Not Call List, or the
Do Not Call List of an internal company. If one of the lenders contacts you by
telephone and you wish not to be contacted again by that lender with respect to
your inquiry, then you should specifically make a request to that lender not to
contact you again. If the lender disregards your request and contacts you
again, please let us know immediately by sending an email to
Billsmadesimple.com
Customer Care. Please note that the lenders may maintain the
information you provided whether you elect to use their services or not.
Other Products or Service Requests - If you submit a request
for a product or service other than a loan such Internet access, automobile
insurance or long distance telephone service, we will share the personal
information contained in your request form such as your full name, telephone
number and email address with our business partners to process and fulfill your
request. Our business partners may contact you by telephone, email, or mail
based on the information you provided to us, even if you have opted into the
National Do Not Call List administered by the Federal Trade Commission, any
state equivalent Do Not Call List, or the Do Not Call List of an internal
company. If one of our partners contacts you by telephone and you wish not to
be contacted again by that business partner with respect to your inquiry, then
you should specifically make a request to that partner not to contact you
again.
Vendors - We sometimes disclose the information we collect to
companies that host certain services for us such as marketing distribution
services on our behalf. These vendors only have access to personal information
needed to perform their functions, and may not share it with others or use it
for any other purpose. These companies are subject to confidentiality
agreements with us and other legal restrictions that prohibit them from using
the information except to market the specified Billsmadesimple.com products or
services.
Job Postings - We allow for the online submission of resumes
and employment related information. Please note that the information (including
personal information) collected through the online job application process on
the Career Pages section of our website is not subject to this Privacy Policy .
However, we want to assure you that information obtained from our job site will
be used solely for the purpose of accepting and evaluating your submission for
possible employment and the related purposes described on our Career Pages. We
currently use Wet Feet, an outside third party vendor, to handle our employment
related submissions. All personal information collected by Wet Feet is kept
confidential and forwarded to Billsmadesimple.com for the purpose of
recruitment.
As Permitted by Law - We may be required to share your personal
information with law enforcement or government agencies in response to
subpoenas, court orders, federal/state audits or similar circumstances. We
believe it is necessary to share information in order to investigate, prevent,
or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations
involving potential threats to the physical safety of any person, violations of
Billsmadesimple.com's Terms of
Use, or as otherwise required by law.
Business Transfer - As with any other business, it is possible
that Billsmadesimple.com, in the future could merge with or be acquired by
another company. If such an acquisition occurs, the successor company would
have access to the information maintained by Billsmadesimple.com, including
customer account information, but would continue to be bound by this privacy
pledge unless you consent otherwise.
Anti-Spam Policy
You will not receive Billsmadesimple.com email communications unless you submit
your email address to us and register to receive them. Additionally, you may
also receive emails that advertise Billsmadesimple.com's services from third
party publishers. We have established firm ground rules for dealing with any
third party email services to ensure that advertisements for
Billsmadesimple.com are not sent out through a "Spam" mailing -- ensuring that
our offers are sent only to those individuals who have given their permission
to the third party email service to receive email communications. If any third
party email publisher refuses to abide by Billsmadesimple.com's anti-Spam
policy, we will not use that publisher's services. If you want to stop
receiving emails from a third party, you should follow the opt-out instructions
included in the third party email so that you will not be included in any
future mailings. An "unsubscribe" link should appear within or at the top or
bottom of the email you received. However if for any reason it does not work,
please bring that to our attention by emailing us at Billsmadesimple.com
Customer Care.
Cookies and IP Addresses
To serve you faster and with better quality, we use "cookies" technology.
Cookies are small bits of code, usually stored on a user's computer hard drive,
which enable a Website to "personalize" itself for each user. We generally use
cookies to reduce the time it takes for pages to load on your computer and to
assist with customer tracking. Customer tracking (or "click-stream") data
collected by us is used to optimize your experience by learning whether or not
you successfully used Billsmadesimple.com. Cookies are not tied to your
personal information. Additionally, we may capture click-stream data on some of
our partner's websites, limited to the activity involved with the completion of
offers listed on our website. This information is used to monitor the
performance of our partners.
We also keep track of Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. An IP Address is a
number that is used by computers on the network to identify your computer every
time you log on to the Internet.
Clear Gifs
We employ a software technology called clear gifs (a.k.a. Web Beacons/Web Bugs)
that help us better manage content on our site by informing us what content is
effective. Clear gifs are tiny graphics with a unique identifier, similar in
function to cookies, and are used to track the online movement of Web users.
Clear gifs are not tied to users' personally identifiable information. We also
use clear gifs in our HTML-based emails to let us know which emails the
recipients have opened. This allows us to gauge the effectiveness of certain
communications and the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns.
Confidentiality and Security
The security of your personal information is very important at
Billsmadesimple.com and we take a number of steps to safeguard it. For example:
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We limit access to personal information to those employees or agents who assist
us in providing requested products and services to you. Employees are required
to comply with our strict policies and procedures regarding the handling of
your personal information. Employees who violate these policies are subject to
our normal disciplinary process.
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We maintain physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards that comply with
federal standards to guard personal information about you.
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We use industry standard data encryption technologies when transferring and
receiving consumer data on the Billsmadesimple.com website.
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We have partnered with VeriSign to protect against the loss, misuse or
alteration of information that we collect from you.
Opting-Out
You may register to receive communications from us directly on our website or
through a third party. Upon registering, we will periodically send you
newsletters and other e-mails featuring special and exclusive offers,
promotions and other members-only benefits. If you no longer wish to receive
these communications, please let us know by sending an email to
Billsmadesimple.com
Customer Care (You may also opt-out by clicking on the unsubscribe link
in our emails). Our email database is updated continually. However, you may
continue to receive email communications from us up to ten business days from
the time we receive your unsubscribe request. Please note that
Billsmadesimple.com can only control its own mailing list and policies. Third
party advertisers that maintain their own mailing lists may send communications
that advertise our services, and you may need to contact these parties directly
in order to stop receiving their email communications. Also, please note that
if you enter into a transaction through our website, we may send you a thank
you notice, ask for a satisfaction rating, request a testimonial and give you
periodic product reminders as part of your service.
A Special Note about Children's Privacy
You must be at least 18 years old to use this website. We do not knowingly
collect, use or disclose personal information about visitors under 18 years of
age. If you are under 18 years of age, you can use the services offered on our
website only in conjunction with your parents or guardians Please see our
Terms of Use for more information.
Updating Your Information
If you want to access or update the personal information you submitted to
Billsmadesimple.com, please contact Billsmadesimple.comv Customer Service In
the alternative, you can write us at the address below and request that your
personal information be updated.
Questions and Suggestions
If you have any questions, concerns or suggestions about our Privacy Pledge,
you may contact us by sending an email to:
serviceteam@Billsmadesimple.com
Changes to this Privacy Pledge
Billsmadesimple.com may update or modify this Privacy Pledge from time to time.
If there are material changes to this Privacy Pledge or in how
Billsmadesimple.com will use your personal information, we will post such
changes here. You will be notified if any of the material changes that affect
the use of your personal information and asked to opt-in to the new use of your
personal information. If you do not agree with the changes to how your
information will be used, please do not continue to use this website.
By using this site, you signify your assent to the Billsmadesimple.com Privacy
Pledge. If you do not agree to this policy, please do not use any of the
Billsmadesimple.com site. W hen you request rate quotes or other information
through Billsmadesimple.com, you are authorizing us to share information with
our business partners, who will contact you by phone, email, or mail. If you do
not want further communication from them, please notify the partner directly.
We reserve the right to make changes in this policy at any time. Please check
the policy each time you use our website to ensure you are aware of any changes
in our privacy practices. Our Privacy Pledge will indicate the date it was last
updated. Your continued use of our site will signify your acceptance of the
changes to our Privacy Pledge.
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