Privacy & Cookie Policy

Our privacy policy explains how we collect, use, share and protect your personal information.  If you require any more details or have any questions about our privacy policy please feel free to email us at info@vehicleconsulting.com

Collecting Personal Data

We can collect your personal data when you:-

• Subscribe to newsletters and to receive special offers
• Ask us for more information about a product or service
• Contact us with a specific question
• Buy a product or service from us (including online, over the phone or face to face)

There are different stages to the levels of personal data we need to collect, use and store.  Vehicle Consulting Group Limited are committed to only use personal data for the purposes for which it has been provided and for a length of time deemed appropriate.  For full details of our General Data Protection Regulations policy, please download here

Any personal data we collect from you will not be transferred outside of the European Economic Area.

For training purposes, we will monitor, record, store and use any telephone and/or email communications with you.

Enquiries

Enquiries received by (including but not limited too) telephone/referral/electronically will be placed on our electronic Sales Management System. We will require the following information for the purposes of providing quotations:-

• Name and address
• Email address
• Telephone number – mobile or landline

The information will only be used for the purposes of providing quotations, as requested.  The information will not be passed to any 3^rd party provider, and no credit search will be undertaken.

Finance Application

As a Data Processor, once (and only when) you have completed an application for finance, we will carefully process your data with a carefully selected panel of funders including but not limited to Lex Autolease, ALD Automotive, Hitachi Capital, Leaseplan and Arval.  The application for finance will only be processed with one finance provider.  If there is a requirement to move to a different funder, we will receive permission from the customer.

It is important that you understand how our different funding partners use ‘Your Information’ in connection with your application.  ‘Your Information’ means the information you have given us, which we pass on to them, or which they receive from their enquiries and searches as credit reference and fraud prevention agencies.  This applies to all applicants, including joint applications and members of the household, and directors or partners if the application is made by a limited company, partnership or unincorporated association.

They’ll check your details with credit reference and fraud prevention agencies, who will record the check.  They will provide the agencies with your current and previous names, addresses and dates of birth of all parties as well as the income and expenditure details that you have provided; so if you are providing information about others on a joint application, you must be sure that you have their agreement.  The agencies will provide them with confirmation of the income and expenditure details provided and public information about you and any third party financially linked to you: information such as county court judgements (CCJs) and bankruptcies, electoral register and fraud prevention on you and your known financial associates, current and previous names, addresses and dates of birth.  If false or inaccurate information is provided and fraud is identified, details will be passed to fraud prevention agencies.  Law enforcement agencies may access and use this information.

Credit Check

The agency searches that they make will leave a search footprint, both in their records and on your credit file at the agencies they’ve used, whether or not the application proceeds.  If the search was for a credit application, the record of that search (but not their name) may be seen by other organisations when you apply for credit in the future.  If you have made a joint application, they will link together the records of joint applicants, called financial associates.  They will also link all your previous and subsequent names and addresses.  Links between financial associates will remain on your and their files until such time as you or your associate successfully files for a disassociation with the credit reference agencies.  It may be necessary to make more than one such search particularly if you provide new or changed information.  If your finance application proceeds in excess of 90 days after the initial application, then it will be necessary for an additional credit reference agency search to be undertaken.

Information provided may be supplied to other organisations and used by agencies and them to assess you and your household for: credit and credit related services, affordability of credit; motor, household, credit, life and other insurance proposals and claims; debt tracing and recovery; checking details of job applicants and employees, prevention of fraud and money laundering; managing your accounts; statistical analysis about credit, insurance and fraud; market research, and to verify your identity if you or your financial associate applies for other facilities, including all types of insurance applications and claims.  They and other organisations may access and use the information recorded by fraud prevention agencies from other countries.  Information about you may also be used for other purposes for which you have given consent, or, in very limited circumstances, when required by law or where permitted under the terms of the Data Protection Act 1998.  Credit scoring and profiling techniques will be used to assess your application.

Credit reference agencies used include Experian, Equifax and others from time to time.

A copy of our personal finance proposal is available here and the following is a summary of the information we will require for the finance application of a private individual to be processed:

Sharing your personal information with other data controllers

We may share information about you with

• Companies within the Vehicle Consulting group
• Credit reference, fraud prevention or business scoring agencies, or other credit scoring agencies
• Finance partners who are underwriting a finance application
• Partners or agents involved in the delivery of the products or services you have ordered. These may include but not limited to a UK Motor Dealer, a UK based fleet motor terms holder or a UK based vehicle delivery company
• Insurance companies

Retention Periods

Vehicle Consulting UK Limited will only retain and use personal information collected on your behalf for a period of time deemed appropriate.  In general terms, if you have requested to/entered into a contract to supply goods or services we will retain the information for a period of 6 years.

‘Enquiry’ is a request for us to enter into the supply of goods or services.  At this stage it isn’t a contract, simply an opportunity to do business.  We will keep you name, address and telephone number up to 6 years after your initial enquiry.

‘Finance application’ is after an acceptance of our quotation has been made by the customer and a full and detailed finance application is to be made.  (Please follow this link to view a finance proposal form). If the application is accepted by one of our carefully selected panel of funders, and you enter into a contract to supply goods or services, we will keep this application for 6 years.  If the application is accepted and you choose not to proceed with the supply of goods or services, we will keep your application for up to 1 year.  If the application is declined by one of our carefully selected panel of funders, we will keep the information for 90 days.

Web

Like many other web sites www.vehicleconsulting.com makes use of log files.  These files merely log information on visitors to the site – usually a standard procedure for hosting companies and a part of hosting service’s analytics.  The information inside the log files includes internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, Internet Service Provider (ISP), date/time stamp, referring/exit pages, and possibly the number of clicks.  This information is used to analyse trends, administer the site, track users’ movement around the site and gather demographic information.  IP addresses and other such information is not linked to any information that is personally identifiable.

www.vehicleconsulting.com uses cookies to store information about visitor preferences, to record user-specific information on which pages the site visitor accesses or visits, and to personalise or customise our web page content based upon visitors’ browser type or other information that the visitor sends via their browser.

Direct Marketing

If you have opted-in to receive our direct marketing, we will use your email address to tell you about products and services which may be of interest.  We may use this email address to tell you about products and services from other carefully selected business partners.

Third Party Privacy Policies

Where links appear on our website, you should consult the respective privacy policies of these third-party sites for more detailed information on their practises as well as instructions about how to opt-out of certain practises.  www.vehicleconsulting.com’s privacy policy does not apply to, and we cannot control the activities of, other websites.

Protecting your Privacy

Anyone who deals with Vehicle Consulting can rest assured that all of the company’s employees, franchisees, contractors, agents and all other parties working on its behalf are contractually required to maintain data privacy and confidentiality at all times.

Simultaneously, Vehicle Consulting strives to continuously enhance its administrative, organisational, physical and technical security measures and procedures to ensure that personal data collected and processed by the company is protected to the strictest degrees possible against access by unauthorised persons, unwarranted manipulation, loss and/or destruction.

Encryption, firewalls, SSL/TSL and HTTPS are used wherever legally acceptable for accessing any data stored within Vehicle Consulting’s systems, from the company’s website and internal customer relationship management (CRM) admin system to documentation, invoices and other information. Vehicle Consulting may monitor network traffic in order to maintain optimum service delivery, security and/or backups.

Any individual accessing the Vehicle Consulting website acknowledges by default that they do so entirely at their own risk and that the company disclaims any liability or responsibility for the security and privacy of personal information transmitted via the internet and/or email.

Should Vehicle Consulting become aware of the use of false identities being used and/or any attempts to gain unauthorised access to our systems including customers’ accounts being made, we reserve the right to suspend or block such individuals and take legal redress. Similarly, cross-network hacking in an attempt to breach another organisation’s security is also an illegal criminal offence. No Vehicle Consulting systems should be used for the transmission, receipt and/or access of any material deemed offensive, indecent, illegal or otherwise unacceptable according to UK law.

Anyone who creates or is assigned login credentials or other security details pertaining to their relationship with Vehicle Consulting is responsible for ensuring such details’ privacy.

Breaches

Vehicle Consulting will without delay notify the Information Commissioner and all relevant stakeholders including customers, suppliers and agents if it becomes apparent at any time that a data privacy and/or security breach has occurred.

Individual Rights

The General Data Protection Regulations provides the following rights from us, for individuals where we are processing data.

• The right to be informed
• The right of access
• The right of rectification
• The right of erasure
• The right of restricting processing
• The right to data portability
• The right to object
• The right of refusal in relation to automated decision making and profiling

Your right to be informed

Individuals have the right to be informed about how we collect and use their personal data.

This document provides individuals with the information about the data we collect and use on their behalf.  We provide detailed information including our purposes for processing your personal data, our retention periods for that personal data, and who it will be shared with.  If there are any elements where you require additional clarification please place this in writing to:

Data Protection Officer

Vehicle Consulting Group Limited

2 Acorn Business Park

Heaton Lane

Stockport

SK4 1AS

Your right of access

Individuals have the right to access their personal data and supplementary information.  The right of access allows individuals to question and verify the lawfulness of the processing.

You have the right to obtain the following information:

• Confirmation that their data is being processed;
• Access to your personal data; and
• Other supplementary information

Vehicle Consulting Group Limited will not charge a fee for all reasonable right of access requests.  However, we do reserve the right to charge a ‘reasonable fee’ when a request is manifestly unfounded or excessive, particularly if it is repetitive.  In addition, we may charge a reasonable fee with requests for further copies of the same information.  The reasonable fee charged will be based on the administrative cost of providing the information.

Please note that Vehicle Consulting Group Ltd can only receive requests from the named client, and reasonable steps will be undertaken to ensure the authenticity of such requests.

Your right of rectification

Vehicle Consulting Group Limited endeavour to create accurate data information records of all clients.  If you feel information held by us is inaccurate or incomplete (this may require providing supplementary information) then please notify us immediately.

You may make the request for rectification verbally or in writing, and we will correct the information within 28 days.  If the data held is inaccurate and is used to make significant decisions we will make the changes within 3 hours.

Your right of Erasure

Individuals have the right to have personal data erased, also known as the ‘right to be forgotten’.  Your right of erasure is not absolute and only applies in the following circumstances.

• The personal data is no longer necessary for the purposes for which we collected it
• If we are relying on consent as the lawful basis for holding the data, and you withdraw your consent
• If we are processing your personal data for the purposes of direct marketing and you object to the processing of your data
• If we, unknowingly, have processed your data unlawfully
• If we have to comply with a legal obligation

If we have disclosed information to others, or it is in the public interest, we will tell other organisations about your request to erase personal data.

Your right of erasure does not apply for the following reasons:

• To exercise the right of freedom of expression and information
• To comply with a legal obligation
• For archiving purposes in the public interest
• For the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims

We reserve the right to refuse a request for erasure if it is manifestly unfounded or excessive, considering whether the request is repetitive in nature.

Children’s Information

We believe it is important to provide added protection for children online.  www.vehicleconsulting.com does not knowingly collect any personally identifiable information from or relating to children under the age of 16.  If a parent or guardian believes that www.vehicleconsulting.com has in its database the personally identifiable information of a child under the age of 16, please contact us immediately and we will use our best efforts to promptly and securely remove such information from our records.