At VHobbies.com LLC, we care deeply about privacy. We believe in transparency, and we’re committed to being upfront about our privacy practices, including how we treat your personal information. We know you care about your privacy too, so we provide settings that allow you to choose how certain information is used by VHobbies.

This Privacy Policy was published on May 24, 2018.
It will take effect on May 25, 2018.
The previous version of this policy can be viewed here

This Privacy Policy discloses the privacy practices for the site and various related services (together referred to as the "site"). VHobbies.com, LLC, the provider of the site (referred to as "us" or "we"), is committed to protecting your privacy online. Please read the information below to learn the following regarding your use of this site. 

1. Accepting the Privacy Policy

You acknowledge that this Privacy Policy is part of our Site Terms of Use, and by accessing or using our site, you agree to be bound by all of its terms and conditions. If you do not agree to these terms, please do not access or use this site.

We reserve the right to change this Privacy Policy at any time. Such changes, modifications, additions or deletions shall be effective immediately upon notice thereof, which may be given by means including, but not limited to issuing an E-mail to the E-mail address listed by registered users and posting the revised Policy on this page. You acknowledge and agree that it is your responsibility to maintain a valid E-mail address as a registered user, review this site and this Policy periodically and to be aware of any modifications. Your continued use of the site after such modifications will constitute your: (a) acknowledgment of the modified Policy; and (b) agreement to abide and be bound by the modified Policy. 

2. Types of Information Collected

In order to better provide you with our numerous services, we collect two types of information about our users: Personally Identifiable Information and Non-Personally Identifiable Information. Our primary goal in collecting information from you is to provide you with a smooth, efficient, and customized experience while using our site.

Personally Identifiable Information: This refers to information that lets us know the specifics of who you are. When you engage in certain activities on this site, such as registering for a membership, ordering a product or service, submitting content and/or posting content in discussion forums or other public areas, entering a contest or sweepstakes, filling out a survey, or sending us feedback, we may ask you to provide certain information about yourself by filling out and submitting an online form. It is completely optional for you to elect to engage in these activities, however, we may ask that you provide us personal information, such as your first and last name, mailing address (including zip code), E-mail address, employer, job title and department, telephone and facsimile numbers, and other personal identifying information. When ordering products or services on the site, you may be asked to provide a credit card number. Depending upon the activity, some of the information we ask you to provide is identified as mandatory and some as voluntary. If you do not provide the mandatory data with respect to a particular activity, you will not be able to engage in that activity.

Non-Personally Identifiable Information: This refers to information that does not by itself identify a specific individual. We gather certain information about you based upon where you visit on our site in several ways. This information is compiled and analyzed on both a personal and an aggregated basis. This information may include the Web site's Uniform Resource Locator ("URL") that you just came from, which URL you next go to, what browser you are using, and your Internet Protocol ("IP") address. A URL is the global address of documents and other resources on the World Wide Web. An IP address is an identifier for a computer or device on a Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol ("TCP/IP") network, such as the World Wide Web. Networks like the Web use the TCP/IP protocol to route information based on the IP address of the destination. In other words, an IP address is a number that is automatically assigned to your computer whenever you are surfing the web, allowing web servers to locate and identify your computer. Computers require IP addresses in order for users to communicate on the Internet.

3. Collection Methods and Use of Information

We do not collect any Personally Identifiable Information about you unless you voluntarily provide it to us. You provide certain Personally Identifiable Information to us when you (a) register for our services and register your E-mail address with us; (b) enter sweepstakes or contests sponsored by us or one of our partners; (c) sign up for special offers from selected third parties; (d) send E-mail messages, submit forms or transmit other information by telephone or letter; or (e) submit your credit card or other payment information when ordering and purchasing products and services on our site. We may also collect information from you at other points on our site that state that such information is being collected.

In addition, we may also collect, or our third party ad server and/or content server may collect, certain Non-Personally Identifiable Information. This information is ultimately stored in the form of store categories, and, in some cases, specific URLs. We use your IP address to diagnose problems with our servers, software, to administer our site and to gather demographic information. Our third party ad servers will also provide us with summary, but not individual, reports that will tell us how many ads were presented and clicked upon at our site.

We will primarily use your Personally Identifiable Information to provide our services to you, as required by our agreements with you. We will also use Personally Identifiable Information to enhance the operation of our site, fill orders, improve our marketing and promotional efforts, statistically analyze site use, improve our product and service offerings, and customize our site's content, layout, and services. We may use Personally Identifiable Information to deliver information to you and to contact you regarding administrative notices. We may also use Personally Identifiable Information to resolve disputes, troubleshoot problems and enforce our agreements with you, including our Site Terms of Use, Sales Terms and Conditions, and this Private Policy.

4. Release of Information

We do not sell, trade, or rent your Personally Identifiable Information to others. We do provide some of our services through contractual arrangements with affiliates, services providers, partners and other third parties. We and our service partners use your Personally Identifiable Information to operate our sites and to deliver their services. For example, we must release your address information to the delivery service to deliver products that you ordered; and provide order information to third parties that help us provide customer service.

We will encourage our service partners to adopt and post privacy policies. However, the use of your Personally Identifiable Information by our service partners is governed by the privacy policies of those service partners, and is not subject to our control.

Occasionally we may be required by law enforcement or judicial authorities to provide Personally Identifiable Information to the appropriate governmental authorities. We will disclose Personally Identifiable Information upon receipt of a court order, subpoena, or to cooperate with a law enforcement investigation. We fully cooperate with law enforcement agencies in identifying those who use our services for illegal activities. We reserve the right to report to law enforcement agencies any activities that we in good faith believe to be unlawful.

We may also provide Non-Personally Identifiable Information about our customers' sales, traffic patterns, and related site information to third party advertisers, but these statistics do not include any Personally Identifiable Information.

5. Choice & Control

We know that our members value having control over their own information, so VHobbies gives you the choice of providing, editing or removing certain information, as well as choices about how we contact you. You may change or correct your VAuctions account information through your account settings. You may also remove certain optional information that you no longer wish to be publicly visible through the Services. You can also request the deletion of the personal information in your account.

Depending on your location, you may also have certain additional rights with respect to your information, such as: (i) data access and portability (including the right to obtain a copy of your personal data you provided to VHobbies, via your settings); (ii) data correction (including the ability to update your personal data, in many cases via settings); (iii) data deletion (including the right to have VHobbies delete your personal information, except information we are required to retain, by contacting us); and (iv) withdrawal of consent or objection to processing (including, in limited circumstances, the right to ask VHobbies to stop processing your personal data, with some exceptions, by contacting us).

6. Your Rights

You may benefit from a number of rights in relation to your information that we process. Some rights apply only in certain limited cases, depending on your location. If you would like to manage, change, limit, or delete your personal information, you can do so via your VAuctions account settings or by contacting us. Upon request, VHobbies will provide you with information about whether we hold any of your personal information. By visiting your account settings, you can access, correct, change, and delete certain personal information associated with your account. In certain cases where we process your information, you may also have a right to restrict or limit the ways in which we use your personal information. In certain circumstances, you also have the right to request the deletion of your personal information, and to obtain a copy of your personal information in an easily accessible format. If you need further assistance, you can contact VAuctions clicking here. We will respond to your request within a reasonable timeframe.

You may also access and correct your personal information and privacy preferences by writing us at:

162 Teal Rdg
Canyon Lake, TX 78133
Unites States

Or send us an email to privacy[at]vhobbies.com
Please include your name, address, and/or E-mail address when you contact us.

7. Information Uses, Sharing & Disclosure

When you access or use the Services, we collect, use, share, and otherwise process your personal information as described in this policy. We rely on a number of legal bases to use your information in these ways. These legal bases include where:

• necessary to perform the contractual obligations in our Terms of Use and in order to provide the Services to you;
• you have consented to the processing, which you can revoke at any time;
• necessary to comply with a legal obligation, a court order, or to exercise or defend legal claims;
• necessary for the purposes of our or a third party’s legitimate interests, such as those of visitors, members, or partners;
• you have expressly made the information public;
• necessary in the public interest; and
• occasionally necessary to protect your vital interests, or those of others.

Note that we principally rely on consent (i) to send marketing messages, (ii) for third-party data sharing related to advertising, and, to the extent applicable, (iii) for the use of location data for advertising purposes.

You also have choices with respect to cookies, as described below. By modifying your browser preferences, you have the choice to accept all cookies, to be notified when a cookie is set, or to reject all cookies. If you choose to reject all cookies some parts of our site may not work properly in your case.

8. Data Transfers

VHobbies operates a global service. By using our Services, you understand that VHobbies.com LLC may share some of the information it gathers with other VHobbies affiliates for purposes described in this Privacy Policy, including for ID verification and transaction reviews.

The United States, European Economic Area (“EEA”) Member States, and other countries all have different laws. When your information is moved from your home country to another country, the laws and rules that protect your personal information in the country to which your information is transferred may be different from those in the country in which you live. For example, the circumstances in which law enforcement can access personal information may vary from country to country. In particular, if your information is in the US, it may be accessed by government authorities in accordance with US law.

To the extent that VHobbies is deemed to transfer personal information outside of the EEA, we rely separately, alternatively, and independently on the following legal bases to transfer your information:

Model Clauses

The European Commission has adopted standard contractual clauses (also known as Model Clauses), which provide safeguards for personal information that is transferred outside of Europe. We often use these Model Clauses when transferring personal information outside of Europe.

Privacy Shield

VHobbies.com LLC does not participate in Privacy Shield at this time.

Necessary for the performance of the contract between VHobbies and its members

VHobbies provides a voluntary service; you can choose whether or not you want to use the Services. However, if you want to use the Services, you need to agree to our Terms of Use, which set out the contract between VHobbies and its members. As we operate in countries worldwide (including in the US) and use technical infrastructure in the US to deliver the Services to you, in accordance with the contract between us, we need to transfer your personal information to the US and to other jurisdictions as necessary to provide the Services. Simply put, we can’t provide you with the Services and perform our contract with you without moving your personal information around the world.

9. Security of Information

At our site you can be assured that your Personally Identifiable Information is secure, consistent with current industry standards. The importance of security for all Personally Identifiable Information associated with our user is of utmost concern to us. Your Personally Identifiable Information is protected in several ways. Access by you to your Personally Identifiable Information is available through a password and unique customer ID selected by you. This password is encrypted. We recommend that you do not divulge your password to anyone. In addition, your Personally Identifiable Information resides on a secure server that only selected VHobbies.com, LLC personnel and contractors have access to via password. We encrypt your Personally Identifiable Information and thereby prevent unauthorized parties from viewing such information when it is transmitted to us.

Personal information that you provide that is not Personally Identifiable Information also resides on a secure server and is only accessible via password. Since this information is not accessible from outside, you will not be asked to select a password in order to view or modify such information.

In order to most efficiently serve you, credit card transactions and order fulfillment are handled by established third party banking, processing agents and distribution institutions. They receive the information needed to verify and authorize your credit card or other payment information and to process and ship your order.

Unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet or any wireless network can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your Personally Identifiable Information, you acknowledge that: (a) there are security and privacy limitations of the Internet which are beyond our control; (b) the security, integrity and privacy of any and all information and data exchanged between you and us through this site cannot be guaranteed; and (c) any such information and data may be viewed or tampered with in transit by a third party.

10. Cookies

When you use our site we will store cookies on your computer in order to facilitate and customize your use of our site. A cookie is a small data text file, which a Web site stores on your computer's hard drive (if your Web browser permits) that can later be retrieved to identify you to us. Our cookies store randomly assigned user identification numbers, the country where you are located, and your first name to welcome you back to our site. The cookies make your use of the site easier, make the site run more smoothly and help us to maintain a secure site. You are always free to decline our cookies if your browser permits, but some parts of our site may not work properly in that case.

We may use an outside ad serving company to display banner advertisements on our site. As part of their service, they will place a separate cookie on your computer. We will not provide any third-party ad server with any of your Personally Identifiable Information or information about your purchases. We and our third party ad server will collect and use Non-Personally Identifiable Information about you, such as your IP address, browser type, the server your computer is logged onto, the area code and zip code associated with your server and whether you responded to a particular ad. Other advertisers may also place banner ads on our site in the same manner as above, but we will not disclose any Personally Identifiable Information to them.

A more detailed explanation of the technologies we use, and how to opt out when applicable, can be found in Cookie Policy.

11. Privacy Policies of Third Party Sites

Except as otherwise discussed in this Privacy Policy, this document only addresses the use and disclosure of information we collect from you. Other sites accessible through our site have their own privacy policies and data collection, use and disclosure practices. Please consult each site's privacy policy. We are not responsible for the policies or practices of third parties. Additionally, other companies which place advertising on our site may collect information about you when you view or click on their advertising through the use of cookies. We cannot control this collection of information. You should contact these advertisers directly if you have any questions about their use of the information that they collect.

12. Miscellaneous Privacy Issues

You must be at least 18 years old to have our permission to use this site. Our policy is that we do not knowingly collect, use or disclose Personally Identifiable Information about visitors that are under 18 years of age.

You should also be aware that when Personally Identifiable Information is voluntarily disclosed (i.e. your name, E-mail address, etc.) in the discussion forums or other public areas on this site, that information, along with any information disclosed in your communication, can be collected and used by third parties and may result in unsolicited messages from third parties. Such activities are beyond our control and this Policy does not apply to such information. Any submissions to chat rooms or other public areas on this site are accepted with the understanding that they are accessible to all third parties. If you do not want your comments to be viewed by third parties, you are advised not to make any submissions. Ultimately, you are solely responsible for maintaining the secrecy of your password and/or account information. Please be careful and responsible whenever you're online.

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, the practices of this site, or your dealings with this site, please contact us by sending an email to privacy[at]vhobbies.com.

Last updated on May 24, 2018