Pohanka Automotive Group Privacy Policy
What Does Pohanka Automotive Group Do With Your Personal Information?
Why: |
Financial companies choose how they share your personal information. Federal law gives consumers the right to limit some but not all sharing. Federal law also requires us to tell you how we collect, share, and protect your personal information. Please read this notice carefully to understand what we do. |
What: |
The types of personal information we collect and share depend on the product or service you have with us. This information can include: Social Security number and income, account balances and payment history, credit history and employment information. |
How: |
All financial companies need to share customers’ personal information to run their everyday business. In the section below, we list the reasons financial companies can share their customers’ personal information; the reasons Pohanka Automotive Group chooses to share; and whether you can limit this sharing. |
Reasons We Can Share Your Personal Information |
Does Pohanka Share? |
Can You Limit This Sharing? |
|---|---|---|
| For our everyday business purposes—such as to process your transactions, maintain your account(s), respond to court orders and legal investigations, or report to credit bureaus | Yes | No |
| For our marketing purposes—to offer our products and services to you | Yes | No |
| For joint marketing with other financial companies | Yes | No |
| For our affiliates’ everyday business purposes—information about your transactions and experiences | No | We don't share |
| For our affiliates to market to you | No | We don't share |
| For non-affiliates to market to you | No | We don't share |
For questions, please call (301) 899-7800 or visit www.pohanka.com.
Who We Are
Who Is Providing This Notice?
Pohanka Automotive Group
What We Do
How does Pohanka Automotive Group Protect My Personal Information?
To protect your personal information from unauthorized access and use, we use security measures that comply with federal law. These measures include computer safeguards and secured files and buildings.
How does Pohanka Automotive Group Collect My Personal Information?
We collect your personal information, for example, when you:
- Apply for financing or give us your income information
- Provide employment information or give us your contact information
- We also collect your personal information from others, such as credit bureaus, affiliates, or other companies
Why Can't I Limit All Sharing?
Federal law gives you the right to limit only:
- Sharing for affiliates' everyday business purposes—information about your creditworthiness
- Affiliates from using your information to market to you
- Sharing for non-affiliates to market to you
State laws and individual companies may give you additional rights to limit sharing.
Definitions
Affiliates |
Companies related by common ownership or control. They can be financial and nonfinancial companies. Our affiliates include companies with the Pohanka name, which are primarily automobile dealerships. |
Non-Affiliates |
Companies not related by common ownership or control. They can be financial and nonfinancial companies. Pohanka Automotive Group does not share with non-affiliates so they can market to you. |
Joint Marketing |
WA formal agreement between nonaffiliated financial companies that together market financial products or services to you. Our joint marketing partners include finance and other companies that offer ancillary products; e.g. GAP coverage, Extended Warranties, etc. |
Your Acceptance of Our Privacy Statement
By using this website, you signify your acceptance of this Privacy Statement. If you do not agree with the manner in which we handle data as described in this statement, please do not use this site.
Changes To This Privacy Statement
We will post changes to this online statement and update the effective date when this statement is updated. Last updated September 4, 2013.
Information We Collect. Information You Provide to Us.
You can visit the sites to read and learn about our products, without telling us who we are and without revealing any personal identifiable information. However, to use certain features or to participate in any special programs, you may need to provide certain personal information.
The sites may ask you to provide information that could reasonably be used to contact you or to identify you personally (such as your name, e-mail address, telephone number, or home address (“Personal Information”). For example, Pohanka may collect Personal Information when you register on the sites, request information, submit comments or participate in sweepstakes, contests, games, special events, promotions, blogs and chats, and survey (“Programs”) or other feature of the sites, or otherwise communicate or interact with us. The sites may also ask you to provide other information about yourself, such as demographic information (gender, zip code, age, etc.) or certain information about your preferences and interests. If we combine demographic or other information we collect about you with Personal Information about you, we will treat the combined information as Personal Information. If you do not want your Personal Information collected, please do not submit it.
Blogs and Public Areas: Please remember that blogs are public areas on the sites and chat rooms may be public areas on the sites. Any information posted in these areas can be viewed by other visitors or Internet users. You should not upload or post Personal Information in these public areas. Pohanka is not responsible or liable in any way for the Personal Information posted to or transmitted through these public areas.
Friend-to-Friend: Some features on the sites may permit you to submit information about other people. For example, if you wish to invite your friends to participate in a program offered on the sites or forward particular content from the sites to your friend, you will be asked to submit your friend’s email addresses. Our use, sharing and protection of the other person’s information will also be subject to the terms of the program and this Privacy policy.
Information We Collect Automatically
Whenever you visit or interact with the sites, Pohanka, as well as any third-party publishers or websites and/or service providers, may use a variety of technologies that automatically or passively collect information about how the sites are accessed and used (“Usage Information”). Usage Information may include, in part, browser type, operating system, the page served, the time, and the preceding page views. This statistical data provides us with information about the use of the sites, such as how many visitors visit a specific page on the sites, how long they stay on that page, and which hyperlinks, if any, they “click” on. This information helps us keep our website fresh and interesting to our visitors and tailor content to a visitor’s interests. Usage information is generally non-identifying, but if Pohanka associates it with you as a specific and identifiable person, Pohanka treats it as Personal Information.
Pohanka also automatically collects your IP address or other unique identifier (“Device Identifier”) for the computer, mobile device, technology or other device (collectively, “Device”) you use to access the sites. A Device Identifier is a number that is automatically assigned to your device when you access a website or its servers, and our computers identify your device by its Device Identifier.
The tracking technologies used on the sites to collect Usage Information, including Device Identifiers, may include, without limitation:
Cookies
Cookies are data files placed on a device when it is used to visit the sites. Pohanka, or our third-party advertising service providers, may place cookies or similar files on your device for security purposes, to tailor our communications with you, facilitate site navigation and to personalize your experience while visiting our sites. Cookies allow us to collect technical and navigational information, such as browser type, time spend on our sites and pages visited. Cookies and other tracking technologies allow us to select which of our advertisements or offers are most likely to appeal to you and display them while you are on the sites; and determine the correlation between Pohanka purchasers and the sites they visit. If you would prefer not to accept cookies, you can change your browser settings to notify you when you receive a cookie, which lets you, choose whether or not to accept it; or set your browser to automatically not accept any cookies. However, please be aware that some features and services on our sites may not work properly because we may not be able to recognize and associate you with your Pohanka account(s). In addition, the offers we provide when you visit us may not be as relevant to you or tailored to your interests.
Pixel Tags
A pixel tag is a transparent graphic image, sometimes called a web beacon, clear FIGs or tracking beacon, placed on a webpage or in an email, which indicated that a page or email has been viewed. In addition, a pixel tag may tell your browser to get content from another server. In order to ensure the safekeeping of your information, network advertising companies and publishers are not permitted to directly collect Personal Information on our sites.
Sharing of Information
Except as provided in this Privacy Policy, we will not provide any of your Personal Information to any third parties without your specific consent. We may share non-Personal Information, such as aggregate user statistics, demographic information, and Usage Information with third parties. We may also share your information as disclosed at the time you provide your information, as set forth in this Privacy Policy and in the following circumstances:
Third Parties Providing Services on Our Behalf |
In order to carry out your requests, to make various features, services and material available to you through the sites, and to respond to your inquiries, we may share your Personal Information, or Usage Information with third parties that perform functions on our behalf (or on behalf our partners), such as companies or individuals that: host or operate our sites; analyze date; provide customer service; sponsors or other third parties that participate in or administer our Programs or provide marketing assistance. |
Program Partners |
If you choose to participate in a Program, your Personal Information may also be shared with our Program Partners and may be used by our Program Partners if you indicate your interest in receiving communications directly from that company. If you elect to receive communications from our business partner, your information will be used by that company in accordance with its policies, and this Privacy Policy will not apply to that company’s use of your information. Sometimes the rules, terms and conditions or disclaimers that apply to a particular Program include information on how we may use the Personal Information that you provide to us through your participate in the Program. If there is a conflict between the rules, terms and conditional that apply to a particular Program and this Policy, those applying to the particular Program will govern. Please review all of the information about a Program before you provide us with any Personal Information. |
Your Agreement to Have Your Personal Information Shared |
While on our sites, you may have the opportunity to opt-in to receive information and/or marketing offers from someone else or to otherwise consent to the sharing of your information with a third party. If you agree to have your Personal Information shared, your Personal Information will be disclosed to the third party and the Personal Information you disclose will be subject to the privacy policy and business practices of that third party. |
Business Transfers |
Your Personal Information may also be used by us or shared with our affiliates and other entities in the Pohanka family of companies, for internal reasons, primarily for business and operational purposes. We may also share your information with our authorized dealers, dealers advertising associations and distributors for their own use. As we continue to develop our business, we may sell or purchase assets. If another entity acquires us or all or substantially all of our assets, or assets related to the sites, Personal Information, Usage Information, and any other information that we have collected about the users of the sites may be disclosed to such entity as part of the due diligence process and will be transferred to such entity as one of the transferred assets. Also, if a bankruptcy or reorganization proceeding is brought by or against us, all such information may be considered an asset of ours and as such may be sold or transferred to third parties. |
Legal Disclosure |
Pohanka may transfer and disclose information, including your Personal Information, Usage Information and Device Identifier, (including IP address), to third parties to comply with a legal obligation; when we believe in good faith that the law requires it; at the request of governmental authorities conducting an investigation to verify or enforce our Terms of Use or other applicable policies; to respond to an emergency; or otherwise to protect the rights, property, safety, or security of the sites, Pohanka, third parties, visitors to our sites or the public, as determined by us in our sole discretion. |
Surveys |
We may ask you to provide certain demographic information (such as your gender and zip code) when we conduct surveys on the sites. We may use the information that you submit, including your responses to the survey questions, for the purposes identified to you prior to your participation in the survey. In some cases, we may publish the results of the survey, but will do so only as aggregate information and you will not be individually identified. As we may be conducting certain surveys with our business partners or other third parties, we may also share the anonymized results of those surveys with those third parties, but we will not share Personal Information. |
Information We Receive From Third Parties
Pohanka may receive information about you from third parties. For example, if you are on another website and you opt-in to receive information from Pohanka that website will forward to us your email address and other information about you so that we may contact you as requested. You may also choose to participate in a third-party application or feature (such as one of our Facebook or Twitter applications or a similar application or feature on a third-party website) through which you allow us to collect (or the third party to share) information about you, including Personal Information. In addition, we may receive information about you if other users of a third party website give us access to their profiles and you are one of their “connections” or information about you is otherwise accessible through your “connections” webpage, profile page, or similar page on a social networking or other third-party website or interactive service.
We may also supplement the information we collect about you through the sites with our site records from third parties in order to enhance our ability to serve you, to tailor our content to you and to offer you opportunities to purchase products or services that we believe may be of interest to you. We may combine the information we receive from these third parties with information we collect through the sites. In those cases, we will apply this Privacy Policy to any Personal Information received, unless we have disclosed otherwise.
In accordance with our routine record keeping, we may delete certain records that contain Personal Information you have submitted through the sites. We are under no obligation to store such Personal Information indefinitely and disclaim any liability arising out of, or related to, the destruction of such Personal Information. In addition, you should be aware that it is not always possible to completely remove or delete all of your information from our databases without some residual data because of backups and other reasons.
Children’s Privacy
The sites are not intended for children under the age of 13. Pohanka does not knowingly collect Personal Information from children that young. If you are under the age of 13, please do not submit your email address or any other Personal Information to us through the sites.
Security of Your Information
We use certain reasonable security measures to help protect your Personal Information. However, no electronic data transmission or storage of information can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. Please note that we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us, and you use the sites and provide us with your information at your own risk.
Beware of Phishing Scams
There have been noticeable increases in the number of suspicious emails claiming that the email recipient has won a Pohanka lottery or other promotion. Sometimes the email claims that the recipient has won a new Pohanka Vehicle. In order to claim the prize, the email asks that Personal Information be sent to a Hotmail™ or Yahoo™ email address. Samples of these hoax emails can be found at this website.
This type of email solicitation is known commonly as a “phishing” scam, with the primary objective being to obtain one’s personal information. The information can then be utilized to steal a person’s identity. For example, a “Pohanka Lottery” phishing scam is often sent from Chinese (.cn), German (.de), or British (.co.uk) addresses, but can originate from anywhere and look very official even to the most, savvy of Internet users. Pohanka will never ask you to send passwords, login names, Social Security numbers, or other personal information through email or U.S. mail, fax or text message. If you receive an email or letter by U.S. mail, fax or text message from Pohanka asking you to update your credit card information, do not respond: this is a phishing scam. Recipients of suspicious emails like this should delete the message from their inbox and, if possible, update their email filter settings to block emails from the email address being used. The Federal Trade Commission and the Anti-phishing Workgroup are also good sources of information about these types of security threats and how they may be reported to the authorities.
Links to Other Websites
The sites include links to other websites, such as to websites for vehicle history reports such as CARFAX. These websites are not under our control, even though they may use the Pohanka name or logo on their site through an agreement with us. Such other websites do not necessarily follow our Privacy Policy, and may place their own cookies on your device. This practice is standard on the web, and we do not control cookies or web beacons that may be placed on your device by third parties whose advertising or links appear on our sites. These websites may have their own privacy policy and information security policy and terms and conditions. Visitors should consult the other websites’ privacy notices as we have no control over information that is submitted to, or collected by, these third parties. To reach the privacy policy for Pohanka Financial Service or Pohanka dealer sites, please reach out to Pohanka at(301) 899-7800.
Consent to Processing and Transfer of
The sites are operated in the United States. If you are located in the European Union, Canada or elsewhere outside of the United States, please be aware that information we collect may be transferred to and processed in the United State. By using the sites, or providing us with any information, you consent to the collection, processing, maintenance and transfer of such information in and to the United States and other applicable territories in which the privacy laws may not be as comprehensive as or equivalent to those in the country where you reside and/or are a citizen.
Changes
Please note, we may change information on the sites and/or this Privacy Policy, at any time without prior notice to you, and any changes will be effective immediately upon the posting of the revised Privacy Policy on the sites. However, Pohanka will use your Personal Information in a manner consistent with the Privacy Policy in effect at the time you submitted the information, unless you consent to the new or revised policy.
How to Contact Us
To contact us with a question, call us at (301) 899-7800 or mail your inquiry to:
Pohanka Privacy Policy
1772 Ritchie Station Court
Capitol Heights, MD 20748
