Credit Sesame Privacy Policy
Last Updated on January 21, 2021
This privacy policy describes the types of information Credit Sesame, Inc. (“Credit Sesame” or “We”) may collect from you, or that you may provide when you visit www.creditsesame.com (our “Website”) and our practices for collecting, using, maintaining, protecting, and disclosing that information. It also describes the choices available to you regarding our use of your personal information and how you can access and update this information.
This policy applies to information we collect:
- on this Website;
- in email, text, and other electronic messages between you and our Website; and
- through our mobile applications.
The policy does not apply to any information collected:
- by us offline or through any other means; or
- by any third party, including through any application or content that may link to or be accessible from or on the Website.
Please read this policy carefully to understand our policies and practices regarding your information and how we may treat it. If you do not agree with our policies and practices, your choice is not to use our Website. By accessing or using this Website, you agree to this privacy policy. This policy may change from time to time (see Notification of Changes to Our Privacy Policy). Your continued use of this Website after we make changes is deemed to be acceptance of those changes. As a result, please check the policy periodically for updates.
Children Under the Age of 13
Our Website is not intended for children under 18 years of age. No one under age 13 may provide any information to or on the Website. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you are under 13 years of age, do not use or provide any information to this Website or on or through any of the features on this Website, make any purchases through the Website, use any of the interactive or public comment features of this Website, or provide any information about yourself to us, including your name, address, phone number, email address, or any screen name or user name you may use. If you believe we might have any information from or about a child under 13, please contact us at privacy@creditsesame.com.
Information We Collect and How We Collect It
We may collect several types of information from and about users of our Website including: 1) personal information that can be used to identify you like your name, Social Security number, and contact information, 2) other information that is about you but does not identify you, like your gender, household, and income, and 3) information about how you use our Website, like information about the devices you use to access our Website and usage details.
We may collect some of this information 1) directly from you when you provide it to us, 2) automatically as you navigate through the Website or use our mobile application, and 3) from third parties as further described in this policy.
Collection of Information You Provide Us
We may collect the following information from you when you provide this information to us:
- Contact information such as name, email address, mailing address, and phone number.
- Identification numbers such as your Social Security number, passport identification number, and medical card number.
- Financial information such as credit card information and banking information.
- Account information such as user name, password, and details of transactions you carry out through our Website.
- Profile information like your date of birth, gender, marital status, household information, employment information, income, and other similar information.
- Account preferences information such as subscription and marketing preferences.
- User contributions, such as your public comments and postings on our Website, your responses to surveys, and your correspondence with us.
Some of this information, like your Social Security number, is required by the credit bureau when you create an account with Credit Sesame to verify your identity and to fulfill your requests. Information like your driver’s license number and passport identification number may be required for identity theft prevention services if you choose to sign up to receive those services.
Automatic Collection
As is true of most websites, when you navigate through and interact with our Website, we may automatically gather information about your device such as your IP address, browser type, browsing actions and patterns, referring/exit pages, and operating system. We do not intentionally collect any information from youth under 13 years of age.
This information helps us improve our Website and deliver a better, more personalized service by enabling us to estimate traffic and usage patterns, store information about your preferences, speed up your searches, and recognize you when you return to our Website. To learn more about automatic data collection technologies we may use, please see Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies.
Information Obtained from Third Parties
If you provide us personal information about others, or if others give us your information, we will only use that information to provide you with our services. For example, if you choose to open an account with Credit Sesame, you will instruct the credit bureau to share your personal financial information with Credit Sesame to fulfill your request for a free credit score or match you with financial products and services.
Use of Your Information
We may use the information we collect about you to:
- Present our Website and display content based on your interests such as offers, products, and services.
- Carry out our obligations and enforce our rights arising from any contracts entered into between you and us, such as administer your account, fulfill your orders, and provide you notices about your account or changes to our Website.
- Contact you for customer support and about offers for products and services.
- Send you marketing communications, newsletters, and administer contests and sweepstakes.
- Conduct research and analysis.
- In any other way we may describe to you at the time you provide the information.
- For any other purpose with your prior consent.
Sharing of your Information with Third Parties
We may disclose aggregated information about our users and information that does not identify any individual without restriction. We do not share your personal information with third parties for the third parties’ direct marketing purposes.
We may disclose your personal information as described in this policy:
- To contractors, services providers, and other third parties to support our business. These parties are authorized to use your personal information only as necessary to provide these services to us.
- To third parties with your prior consent to fulfill the purpose for which you provided it.
- As part of a business transfer, if Credit Sesame is involved in a merger, acquisition, or sale of all or a portion of its assets, in which case you will be notified via email and/or a prominent notice on our Website of any change in ownership or uses of your personal information as well as any choices you may have regarding your personal information.
We may also disclose your personal information:
- As required by law, such as to comply with a subpoena or similar legal process.
- When we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, protect your safety or the safety of others, investigate fraud, or respond to a government request.
Links to Other Websites
Our Website includes links to other websites whose privacy practices may differ from those of Credit Sesame. If you submit personal information to any of those websites, their privacy policies govern your information. We encourage you to carefully read the privacy policies of any website you visit.
Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies
Cookies. We, or our third-party service providers, may place cookies (or browser cookies) on your computer to collect information to compile aggregated statistics for us about visitors to our Website. A cookie is a small file placed on the hard drive of your device. We use cookies mostly to improve our Website and to deliver a better and more personalized service. We do not automatically collect personal information using cookies. However, you may choose to allow a cookie to remember your email address when you log into your Credit Sesame account by checking the box next to “Remember my email address.” If you do not want the cookie to collect your email address at the time you log in, do not check this box. We do not collect or keep any other personal information or personal financial information in cookies. You may refuse to accept browser cookies by activating the appropriate settings on your browser. However, if you select this setting, you may be unable to access certain parts of our Website.
Flash Cookies. Certain features of our Website may also use local stored object (or Flash cookies) to collect and store information about your preferences and navigation to, from and on our Website. Flash cookies are not managed by the same browser settings as are used for browser cookies. To learn how you can manage your Flash cookies setting, visit the Adobe Flash Player settings page.
Google Analytics. Among other service providers, we may use Google Analytics to gather information about how you and others use our Website. For example, we will know how many users access a specific page and what links they clicked on. We use this aggregated information to understand and optimize how our Website is used. If you prefer not to have your data used by Google Analytics, please visit the Google Analytics opt-out page.
Web Beacons. Pages of our Website and our emails may also contain small electronic files known as web beacons (also referred to as clear gifs, pixel tags, and single-pixel gifs) that permit us, for example, to count users who have visited those pages or opened an email, and for other related website statistics like recording the popularity of certain website content and verifying system and server integrity.
Do Not Track Signals. At this time, Credit Sesame does not respond to automated signals regarding tracking mechanisms, including “do not track” instructions from your browser. However, you can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies or to alert you when cookies are being sent. Unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse cookies, our system may issue cookies when you direct your browser to our Website. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that our Website may then not function properly or may be inaccessible to you.
Third Party Use of Cookies. Some content or applications, including advertisements, on the Website may be served by third-parties, including advertisers, ad networks and servers, content providers, and application providers. These third parties may use cookies, alone or in conjunction with web beacons or other tracking technologies, to collect information about you when you use our Website. The information they collect may be associated with your personal information or they may collect information, including personal information, about your online activities over time and across different websites and other online services. They may use this information to provide you with interest-based (behavioral) advertising or other targeted content. We do not share your personal information with these parties.
We do not control these third parties’ tracking technologies or how they may be used. If you have questions about an advertisement or other targeted content, you should contact the responsible provider directly.
Your Choices and Opting-Out
Promotional Offers
We want to provide you with choices regarding the information you provide us. We may contact you from time to time by phone, text, direct mail, or email. If you do not want us to contact you about offers and promotions, you can contact us at privacy@creditsesame.com. You may also choose to stop receiving our newsletter or marketing emails by following the unsubscribe instructions included in these emails. As stated in our Terms of Use, in order to administer your account, you will still receive periodic transactional emails pertaining to your account information, alerts and updates, registration confirmations, and responses to direct requests you have made. We will retain your information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide you services.
If you wish to terminate your account or request that we no longer use your information to provide you services, please follow one of the steps below. We will retain and use your information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements.
Free Credit Sesame Members Not Enrolled in Sesame Cash
To terminate your free Credit Sesame membership, click here to log in to your account. From the drop-down in the top right near your name, select “profile” and click “terminate” at the bottom of the profile page.
Premium Subscribers Not Enrolled in Sesame Cash
Self-Cancellation (Web):
To cancel your premium subscription on web and mobile-web, visit the “Profile” section of your Credit Sesame account and select the “Premium Plan” to make any changes. Please note that cancelling any premium service does not mean your free membership has been terminated.
Self-Cancellation (Mobile App):
If you have subscribed through in-app billing via your device (ie; Apple ID or Google account), you can cancel your subscription directly in the respective App Store or Play Store.
To cancel your premium subscription via the Credit Sesame mobile app, select the menu option in the top right corner of your Overview tab, select “Profile and Settings” and under “Subscriptions”, select “Sesame Premium”. Then select the Credit Sesame app and confirm “Unsubscribe”. Please note that cancelling any premium service does not mean your free membership has been terminated.
General Notes:
Once set for cancellation, your premium subscription will still be active until the billing period expires. Should you wish to terminate your free Credit Sesame membership once your premium subscription is expired, you can log into your account and terminate your account following the process above for free members. In the event you do not wish to keep your premium subscription active until the end of the billing period, please submit a separate request to premium@creditsesame.com.
If you are using our mobile application and decide to delete the application from your device, your account will not be automatically terminated. You will still need to terminate your Credit Sesame account by one of the methods described in this section.
For Assistance:
Please send a request to Member Success for any additional assistance including issues with self-cancellation.
Please be sure to use the email address associated with your premium subscription when contacting Member Success.
Be sure to also include all of the following information in your request:
- full name on the account
- email address associated the account
Members Enrolled in Sesame Cash
Please contact Sesame Cash Support to terminate your Sesame Cash profile first and follow the process(es) above for your Credit Sesame membership.
Tracking Technologies
To learn about your options on how your information may be used by tracking technologies, please see Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies.
Security
The security of your personal information is important to us. When you enter sensitive information, such as your credit card number, on our order forms, we encrypt the transmission of that information using secure socket layer technology (SSL). We follow generally accepted industry standards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during transmission and once we receive it. However, no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure. Therefore, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.
Where we have given you, or you have chosen, a password for access to certain parts of our Website, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share your password with anyone, because it could compromise the security of your personal information.
If you have any questions about security on our Website, you can contact us at privacy@creditsesame.com.
Public Forums Disclaimer
Our Website offers publicly accessible blogs or community forums. You should be aware that any information you provide in these areas are posted and transmitted at your own risk and may be read, collected, and used by others who access them. We urge you to carefully consider your submissions in these public areas and ask you not to share information that could identify you. The information you share in public forums may be viewed by the public or other users of the Website.
Correcting and Updating Your Personal Information
You may review and update your personal information by logging into the Website and visiting your account profile page. You may also contact us at privacy@creditsesame.com to request access to and update the personal information you have provided to us.
Your California Privacy Rights
If you are a California resident, you may be entitled to additional rights over your personal information. For more information about those rights and how to exercise them, please see our California privacy notice here, which is incorporated by reference into this policy.
Notification of Changes to Our Privacy Policy
We may update this privacy policy to reflect changes to our information practices. If we make any material changes to how we treat users’ personal information, we will notify you by email (sent to the email address specified in your account) or by means of a notice on this Website. You are responsible for ensuring we have an up-to-date active and deliverable email address for you and encourage you to periodically review this page for the latest information on our privacy practices.
Contact Information
You can contact us about our privacy policy by writing or emailing us at the address below:
Credit Sesame
444 Castro St., Ste 500
Mountain View, CA, United States 94041
Email: privacy@creditsesame.com