Privacy policy

1. Scope

This Privacy Policy explains how CrediQ Inc, a Wyoming corporation doing business as Instacredit.us, collects, uses, shares and protects personal information when you use the website at instacredit.us and the Instacredit application (the “Service”). It also serves as our privacy notice under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which applies to the nonpublic personal information we hold about you as a consumer of a financial product. It forms part of our Terms of Service.

2. Information we collect

Information you give us

• Account details: email address and password (stored only as a one-way hash).
• Identity details, needed to locate your credit file: full name, date of birth, Social Security number, current address and phone number.
• Your goal, if you set one: a target score, a date and, optionally, a reason.
• Authorizations you give, such as your authorization to obtain your credit information and, if you choose it, your authorization for partner offers, together with the time, page and network address from which you gave them.
• Correspondence when you contact support.

Information we receive about you

• Credit information from nationwide consumer reporting agencies, obtained through our credit data provider under your authorization: credit reports, credit scores, score factors, and alerts about changes to your file. Your reports are retrieved and displayed inside the Service by our credit data provider. Our own systems keep only the fact and category of each alert (for example, “new inquiry, TransUnion”) and, for score changes, the old and new score, so that we can count and notify you of them; we do not store the contents of your credit report.
• Payment information from Stripe, our payment processor: subscription status, renewal dates, the last four digits and brand of your card, and receipts. We never receive or store your full card number.
• Offer activity, if you use partner offers: which offers were shown to you and which you clicked.

Information collected automatically

When you use the Service we record your IP address, browser and device type, the pages you visit and the times you sign in, for security, fraud prevention and to operate the site. We use a single cookie to keep you signed in. We do not use advertising or tracking cookies.

3. How we use information

• To verify your identity and obtain your credit information at your instruction.
• To show you your scores, reports, score factors, simulations and alerts.
• To notify you by email when something changes on your credit file.
• To match you to partner offers, only if you have authorized it (Section 5).
• To bill you and manage your subscription.
• To send you service messages: confirmations, receipts, reminders, security notices.
• To provide support.
• To secure the Service, prevent fraud and enforce our Terms.
• To comply with law and respond to lawful requests.
• To contact you about Instacredit after you close your account, unless you ask us not to.

We do not use your credit information for advertising, and we do not sell personal information.

4. How we share information

We share personal information only as follows:

• Consumer reporting agencies and our credit data provider (Array US, Inc.), which receive your identity details to locate and verify your credit file and to supply your credit information to you through the Service.
• Service providers that process information on our behalf and under contract: Stripe (payments), Resend (email delivery) and DigitalOcean (hosting and database). They may use it only to provide their service to us.
• Offer partners, only if you authorize partner offers and then choose to proceed with an offer: at that point you leave the Service and provide information to the partner directly, under the partner’s own privacy policy. We do not send your identity or credit information to a partner.
• Legal and safety: to comply with law, a court order or a lawful request; to protect the rights, property or safety of Instacredit, our users or others; or to investigate fraud.
• Business transfers: to a successor in a merger, acquisition or sale of assets, who will be bound by this policy for the information transferred.

We do not share your nonpublic personal information with nonaffiliated third parties for their own marketing, and we do not sell or share personal information for cross-context behavioural advertising. Because we share only as permitted by law, there is no opt-out to exercise under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act; the choices you do have are in Section 7.

5. Partner offers

Partner offers are optional. They are shown only if you, on a paid subscription, read and accept a separate written authorization inside your dashboard and submit a request. Under that authorization our credit data provider obtains your credit report and applies criteria set by our partners to select the offers you see. The request is a soft inquiry and does not affect your credit score. We keep a record of the offers selected for you and of any you click, and we may receive compensation from a partner when an offer is shown, clicked or taken up. A partner learns nothing about you unless you click through and provide information to them. You may withdraw the authorization at any time in your account settings, after which no further requests are made.

6. Security

Your Social Security number and date of birth are encrypted at rest with keys held separately from the database, and all information is encrypted in transit. Passwords are stored as one-way hashes. Sign-in attempts are rate-limited, sessions expire, and access within Instacredit is limited to the people who need it to operate the Service. No method of storage or transmission is completely secure; if we learn of a breach affecting your information we will notify you as the law requires.

7. Your choices and rights

Access and correction

Your identity details, goal and plan are visible and editable in your account settings. Changes to identity details are passed to our credit data provider so your file stays matched.

Partner offers

Give or withdraw your authorization at any time in your account settings.

Closing your account

You can close your account at any time from your account settings. That cancels your subscription, ends our access to your credit files, and erases your Social Security number, date of birth and address from our systems. We keep your name, email address and phone number as an inactive record so that we can contact you about Instacredit, and we keep billing records for as long as tax and accounting law requires. To have the contact record removed as well, email [email protected].

Email

Alert and service emails are part of the Service and continue while your account is open. Any marketing email we send includes an unsubscribe link.

State privacy rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to know what personal information we hold about you, to receive a copy of it, to correct it, to delete it, and not to be discriminated against for exercising these rights. Much of the information we hold is subject to the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which state privacy laws generally exempt; we honour these rights for the rest. To make a request, email [email protected] from the address on your account. We will verify the request and respond within the time the applicable law allows. You may authorize an agent to make a request for you; we will ask for proof of that authority. We do not sell personal information and have not done so in the preceding twelve months.

8. Retention

• Identity details and credit alert records: while your account is open, then erased on closure.
• Account and billing records: while your account is open and afterwards as long as the law requires.
• Authorization records: seven years after they are given or withdrawn.
• Technical logs and inbound event logs from our providers: 90 days.
• Contact record after account closure: until you ask us to remove it.

9. Children

The Service is for adults. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If you believe a minor has given us information, contact us and we will delete it.

10. Where information is processed

The Service is operated from, and information is stored in, the United States. It is intended for United States residents only.

11. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy. If a change is material, we will notify you by email or by a notice inside the Service before it takes effect. The effective date at the top of this page shows when the current version took effect.

12. Contact

CrediQ Inc, a Wyoming corporation doing business as Instacredit.us. Privacy questions and requests: [email protected].