PRIVACY NOTICE

Who is the Data Controller?

TM Advances Limited

www.tmadvances.co.uk and www.tmadvances.com

Consort House, 12 South Parade, Leeds, LS1 5QS.

We are registered with the Information Commissioner's Office with registration number Z2733875. Our registration can be viewed at https://ico.org.uk/ESDWebPages/Entry/Z2733875 Customer Service Team can be contacted via the above postal address or via email at info@tmadvances.co.uk

Why do we use your information?

We use your personal information for a variety of reasons related to our business activities including processing your application for credit, the administration of your loan agreement, to contact you and to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations. Where you provide your consent we may use it to send you electronic marketing.

What is the legal basis for this use?

In most cases our use of your information is necessary and carried out on the following legal grounds:

  • for the performance of a contract with you (such as your loan agreement).
  • where necessary for our legitimate interests (such as the administration of our business and managing our risks, and the provision, management and improvement of our website, to make sure it is working properly); and
  • where necessary in order to comply with a legal obligation (for example making reports to our regulatory authority or to law enforcement agencies).

Where our use of your data is not necessary for one of the purposes outlined above we may seek your consent to use it in a particular way, for example if we want to send you marketing information, ask you to provide feedback or you tell us about a change in circumstances relating to your health.

Where we ask for your consent you may refuse and can withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us using the details set out below.

What information about you do we use?

We collect and use the following information about you:

  • information about you including your contact and personal details (including your date of birth) and information about your financial and domestic circumstances;
  • information provided to us by the loan broker that introduced you;
  • information about you from third party organisations, such as Credit Reference Agencies (CRAs), Fraud Prevention Agencies (FPAs) and tracing agents;
  • information obtained from other public data sources which might include data from the electoral roll, public records including county court judgments, and bankruptcy and insolvency data;
  • information about your use of our website (see below for details) and call recordings when you speak to us over the telephone (calls are recorded for training and monitoring purposes); and
  • information you (or your third party representative(s)) provide us with or share publically.

In addition, when you visit our website, we will collect information about your visit, such as which pages you visit, how often you visit and any enquiry forms or similar interactive content you complete. We will also automatically collect the following information:

  • technical information, including the Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your device to the Internet, your login information, browser type and version, time zone setting, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform;
  • information about your visit, including the full Uniform Resource Locators (URL) clickstream to, through and from our sites (including date and time); products you viewed or searched for; page response times, download errors, length of visits to certain pages, page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs), and methods used to browse away from the page.

You can exercise control over some of this information, for example by adjusting your settings via your website browser. Please also see our cookies policy here

When might we collect and use sensitive information about you?

We always seek to treat customers fairly and be responsive to their individual needs. Sometimes you may disclose some types of information which are classed as sensitive under the law. A common example of this is information about your mental or physical health. We will ask your consent to record this information. Not agreeing to us recording this information may impact on our ability to make adjustments for your circumstances. We collect this information so that we can treat you fairly and according to your needs.

Who do we share your information with?

We may share your information with:

  • the broker who introduced you for the purpose of managing compliance and fulfilling our contractual requirements with the broker;
  • third parties who provide services to us, such as tracing agents, our legal advisors and our website support;
  • CRAs and FPAs to which we may report positive, delinquent and default data about your account(s) on a regular (minimum monthly) basis;
  • law enforcement agencies or regulatory bodies where we are required to do so;
  • other members of our group of companies, and any purchaser or proposed purchaser of all or part of the same or their assets, together with their professional advisors;
  • you or your third party representatives (in line with your rights); or
  • any person or persons seeking to acquire all or part of our business and/or assets and any potential assignees of your credit agreement, along with their third party advisors;
  • we believe, in good faith, that it is necessary to protect our rights, property, safety or reputation or the rights, property, safety or reputation of any of our clients or partners.

Records remain on file with CRAs and FPAs for 6 years after they are closed, whether settled by you or defaulted. This information may be supplied to other organisations which search your credit record. More information about CRAs and how they use personal information is available at www.experian.co.uk/crain/index.html in a document called the Credit Reference Agency Information Notice (also known as the "CRAIN"). You can also contact the agencies below:

Transunion
Consumer Services Team, PO Box 491, Leeds, LS3 1WZ Tel: 0330 024 7579 or visit www.transunion.co.uk

Equifax PLC
Credit File Advice Centre, PO Box 3001, Bradford, BD1 5US Tel: 0870 010 0583 or visit www.myequifax.co.uk

Experian
Consumer Help Service, PO Box 8000, Nottingham, NG80 7WF Tel: 0870 241 6212 or visit www.experian.co.uk

To find out more about how we share your data with CRAs, click here.

The personal information we have collected from you may be shared by CRAs with FPAs who will use it to prevent fraud and money-laundering and to verify your identity. If fraud is detected, you could be refused certain services, finance or employment. Further details of how your information will be used by us and these fraud prevention agencies, and your data protection rights, can be found in the CRAIN.

Where is your information stored?

The information we collect about you will be held on our secure servers within the European Economic Area (the EEA) and will not be transferred or stored outside the EEA.

Data Security

We implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect the security of your information and to prevent unauthorised access, including [encryption, fire walls, data back-ups, policies and procedures, access protocols]. Unfortunately, transmission of information via the internet may never be completely secure and you should ensure when using our website as with any other online services that you have appropriate protections in place (such as anti-virus software and an up-to-date web-browser).

We never ask for payment details (such as your account or card number) via email so if you receive a suspicious email purporting to be from us, please contact us via telephone 020 3983 5656 or email info@tmadvances.co.uk. Your use of our website is subject to our website terms of use which are available here.

How long will your information be kept on file?

We keep your information for as long as it is needed to provide you with the services you have requested and, to the extent it is necessary for the protection of our legitimate interests, for six years from the end of your credit agreement with us (if you take out a loan).

Your rights

Right of access
You have a right to access the personal information we hold about you and be told why we use it.

Right of rectification
You can ask us to correct or update your information to ensure it is accurate and complete.

Right to erasure and right to restrict processing
You can ask us to stop processing and to delete your data in certain circumstances (for example where it is processed with your consent, or it is no longer necessary for us to process it).

Right to data portability
You have a right to ask us to provide you with information in a form that suits you, and/or to provide your information to a third party.

Right to object
You have a right to object to our processing of your information.

Rights: profiling and automated decisions
You have a right not to be subject to automated decisions which have a legal effect and to be protected by safeguards in respect of any profiling.

Right to object to direct marketing
Where you have consented to receive direct marketing you can change your mind at any time by contacting us or following the directions in each message. Please allow a few days for us to action your request.

Rights in relation to CRAs
You have a right to be told which CRAs we have used and obtain a copy of your file from CRAs.

You can exercise the above rights by contacting us. Further information is also available from the ICO's website (www.ico.org.uk).

Contact and complaints

If you have question, want to exercise your rights or make a complaint about our use of your information, please contact us using the details above, or by email to info@tmadvances.co.uk

You can also make a complaint to the ICO, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF, telephone 0303 123 1113. www.ico.org.uk.

Automated decision making

We may perform automated processing (i.e. processing that is carried out without human intervention) on your personal information, to evaluate certain things about you. In particular, we may do this to analyse or predict (amongst other things) your economic situation, credit history, age, personal preferences, interests or behaviour. This could mean that automated decisions (i.e. decisions that are made without human intervention) are made about you using your personal information. For example, if you do not meet an element of our lending criteria (such as being over 18 or being a resident in the UK) any application for credit will be automatically declined. If you do meet our lending criteria, the amount we lend, the term of your loan and the interest we charge on your loan will be determined by your credit status.

Updates

Updates to this notice may be published to this page on our website from time to time, so please check back for updates. Where appropriate, we may also send updates by email.

Annex 1

In order to process your application, we will perform credit and identity checks on you with one or more credit reference agencies (CRAs). Where you take banking services from us we may also make periodic searches at CRAs to manage your account with us.

To do this, we will supply your personal information to CRAs and they will give us information about you. This will include information from your credit application and about your financial situation and financial history. CRAs will supply to us both public (including the electoral register) and shared credit, financial situation and financial history information and fraud prevention information.

We will use this information to:

  • Assess your creditworthiness and whether you can afford to take the product;
  • Verify the accuracy of the data you have provided to us;
  • Prevent criminal activity, fraud and money laundering;
  • Manage your account(s);
  • Trace and recover debts; and
  • Ensure any offers provided to you are appropriate to your circumstances.

We will continue to exchange information about you with CRAs while you have a relationship with us. We will also inform the CRAs about your settled accounts. If you borrow and do not repay in full and on time, CRAs will record the outstanding debt. This information may be supplied to other organisations by CRAs.

When CRAs receive a search from us they will place a search footprint on your credit file that may be seen by other lenders.

If you are making a joint application, or tell us that you have a spouse or financial associate, we will link your records together, so you should make sure you discuss this with them, and share with them this information, before lodging the application. CRAs will also link your records together and these links will remain on your and their files until such time as you or your partner successfully files for a disassociation with the CRAs to break that link.

The identities of the CRAs, their role also as fraud prevention agencies, the data they hold, the ways in which they use and share personal information, data retention periods and your data protection rights with the CRAs are explained in more detail in the CRAIN (see the links in our Privacy Notice).

THE CRAIN is also accessible from each of the three CRAs. Clicking on any of these three links will also take you to the same CRAIN document:

TransUnion:

www.transunion.co.uk/crain

Equifax

www.equifax.co.uk/crain

Experian:

www.experian.co.uk/crain