How Cambridge Credit Counseling handles your personal information

Cambridge Credit Counseling’s privacy notice

Over the years, clients have trusted Cambridge Credit Counseling Corp. (“Cambridge Credit Counseling”) to protect the security and confidentiality of their personal information. We are grateful for this trust, and would like to take this opportunity to familiarize clients with the manner in which Cambridge Credit Counseling gathers, uses and maintains nonpublic personal information about consumers and clients. This Privacy Notice complies with Federal Law and regulations concerning the privacy of the nonpublic personal information of individuals.

We collect nonpublic personal information about you from the following sources:

• Information we receive from you on an application or other forms (examples include, but are not limited to: name and address, social security number, account numbers, balances, creditors and unsecured loans);
• Information about your transactions with us, our affiliates, or others.

We do not disclose any nonpublic personal information about our customers or former customers to anyone, except as permitted by law. We restrict access to nonpublic personal information about you to those employees who need to know that information to provide services to you. We maintain physical, electronic and procedural safeguards that comply with federal regulations to guard your nonpublic personal information.

Cambridge Credit Counseling takes the security of your private information very seriously and will never give your email address to anyone for any reason unless compelled to do so by legal authority.

No mobile information will be shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. The only exceptions would involve data the consumer expressly allowed us to share by giving their consent.

What this website collects

The section above is Cambridge Credit Counseling’s privacy notice, and it describes information held about clients. This section describes the website itself, which is where most people meet us first.

The enquiry form

The contact form is the only place on this site where anyone types anything. It asks for a first and last name, an email address, a phone number, a state and a ZIP code. It also offers three optional fields: permission to send a text message, which is switched off unless you switch it on, a rough band for how much you owe, and a space for anything you want to tell us in your own words.

What the form does not ask for matters as much as what it does. There is no field for a Social Security number, no field for a date of birth, and no field for an account, card or bank number. These are not settings that could be changed by accident. There is nowhere on this site to type them.

Three technical details are stored with each enquiry: the page you were on, the site you came from if you followed a link, and any campaign tag the link carried.

Your IP address is not stored

This site uses your IP address to stop one machine from flooding the form, and it does that by converting the address into a one-way value that cannot be turned back into the original. That value is deleted within the hour. No raw IP address is written to disk anywhere in this system.

Analytics

This site uses Google Analytics, which is Cambridge Credit Counseling’s own account and the same one used on the previous website. It records which pages are visited and how people arrive, so that Cambridge can see what is useful. It sets cookies in your browser to do that.

There is nothing else. No advertising pixels, no session recording, no heatmaps, and no data is sold or shared for marketing. One other cookie exists, the key that lets Cambridge staff preview the site before it opens, and it holds no personal information.

Who else is involved

Three other companies are involved in running this site. Cloudflare serves every page. Supabase holds the database of enquiries and page content, hosted in the United States. Google provides the analytics described above, which means your browser contacts Google on every page. The testimonial video is embedded in a mode that loads nothing from YouTube unless you choose to press play.

Who can read your enquiry

Every table holding personal information refuses all access unless the request carries a key that exists only on the server and is never sent to a browser.

How long we keep it

If you give permission to be contacted by text message, or withdraw it, that record is kept for five years. Your enquiry itself is kept while Cambridge Credit Counseling needs it for the purpose you gave it, which includes answering you and keeping a record of the advice given. This website’s own copy of your enquiry is kept for 24 months, after which your name and contact details are removed from it automatically. You can ask for your details to be removed at any time.

Download Cambridge Credit Counseling’s privacy notice (PDF)

Questions

Privacy questions go to Cambridge Credit Counseling’s Quality Assurance Manager: email the Quality Assurance Manager. Customer Care can be reached on 800-527-7595, and new enquiries on 800-857-2808.

Keeping Your Information Safe Online#

Most Americans are connected through one technology or another, and that connection comes with a false sense of security. Here is how you can help keep your data safe.

Your Cell Phone Is Your Weak Point

Many cell phones lack the anti-virus software that computers are equipped with, so visiting sketchy websites and downloading files from sources you don’t fully trust are easy ways to accidentally acquire malware, which is designed to discreetly steal information from you. If your computer is better protected, use it to access sites you’re unsure about, not your phone.

Don’t Shop on Public Wi-Fi

If your phone is set to connect to the nearest and strongest Wi-Fi signal available, turn that off. Sending information while connected to public Wi-Fi, on a laptop, tablet or cellphone, makes it very easy for your information to be stolen. If you’re making an online purchase, don’t save your checkout information on your phone or PC: if a hacker gains access to your online shopping accounts and your information has been saved, it will be served to the thief.

Change Your Passwords Often

Passwords for several different sites are often the same, or similar, and go unchanged. Experts say that the safest password is more of a pass-phrase: string together three or four words, which can make a sentence or be random. If you’re worried about remembering your passwords, you can write them down and keep them in a safe place, such as a file with other important documents. Remember, the real threat is online.

Your Data Is Still at Risk

Your data is at risk more often than you think, especially if you frequently shop or pay bills online. Even apps designed by trusted companies carry risk: those companies spend a great deal of time and money developing new ways to keep your data safe, but there are thousands of hackers working just as hard to defeat the latest software protection.

Common questions

Does this website ask for my Social Security number?

No. There is no field for it anywhere on this site, and none for a date of birth or an account number.

Does Cambridge Credit Counseling sell my information?

No. Cambridge Credit Counseling does not disclose nonpublic personal information about customers or former customers to anyone except as permitted by law.

Is my IP address stored?

No. It is converted into a one-way value used only to stop one machine flooding the form, and that value is deleted within the hour.

Does this site use cookies?

Yes, for Google Analytics, which is Cambridge Credit Counseling’s own account and records which pages are visited and how people arrive. There are no advertising pixels, no session recording and no heatmaps, and nothing is sold or shared for marketing.