Privacy Policy – We Buy Houses. We Pay Cash. We Close Fast. We Pay ALL Closing Costs.

Effective Date: 2006 – Current

1. INTRODUCTION

This policy describes how Help Us Help You, Inc. collects, shares, and uses your information when you access our services. This policy applies to all of the products and services owned and operated by Help Us Help You, Inc., (collectively, “Help Us Help You, Inc.,” “we,” “us,” or “our”), including the content, features, data, and software available on www.HelpUsHelpYou.org, our mobile applications, and other websites or applications that we operate (“Services”).

2. THE KINDS OF INFORMATION WE COLLECT

a. Information You Provide

We collect content, images, and other information you provide to us when you access our Services, including when you complete web forms on www.HelpUsHelpYou.org or in our mobile application; create an account with us; communicate with us about our Services via comments, direct message, e-mail, SMS message, or telephone; or respond to one of our surveys. When you upload photos of your home to our website, we can see the photos and the metadata that accompanies the image file. Please do not upload home photos with people or other identifying personal information in them or things that you don’t intend on us seeing.

Categories of information you may choose to provide to us include:

Your name, address, telephone number, and e-mail address;

Your account log-in details;

Financial information, including bank account and real estate financing information;

Details about your home and neighborhood;

Circumstances related to your purchase or sale of a home that might help us tailor our Services to you;

Homes you visit or view on our website or mobile application and your opinions about those homes;

Reviews or comments you leave on our website, mobile application, or on other public websites;

Your driver’s license or state ID information;

Real estate offer letters;

Citizenship status (for tax calculation purposes); and

Marital status (for tax calculation purposes).

b. Information We Collect from Your Device(s)

We may collect the following information from the device that you use to access our Services:

Device attributes such as the operating system, hardware and software versions, battery level, signal strength, bandwidth, available storage space, browser type, app and file names and types, and plugins;

Information about operations and behaviors performed on the device, such as mouse movements (which can help distinguish humans from bots) or whether a window is in the foreground or background;

Identifiers unique to you, your device, or your accounts (s), such as device IDs, advertising IDs, and other similar static ID numbers such as those from apps or accounts you use;

Information you allow us to receive through device settings you turn on, such as access to your GPS location;

Network and connection information such as the name of your mobile operator or ISP, language, time zone, mobile phone number, and IP address; and

Data from cookies, tags, pixels, web beacons, and log files stored on your device, including cookie IDs, page views, how often you visit our website or mobile application, and links you click on.

We generally use this information for your convenience and to improve our Services. For instance, we may use it to (i) remember your information so that you do not have to re-enter it; (ii) provide you with customized content and information, including advertising; (iii) monitor the effectiveness of our Services; (iv) monitor aggregate metrics such as the total number of visitors, traffic, and usage patterns; and (v) diagnose or fix technology problems.

c. Information We Collect When You Call Us

We may record telephone calls with you for quality assurance purposes. Our customer service team members also enter certain information you provide into our customer service databases to ensure continuity and consistency throughout your experience with Help Us Help You, Inc.

d. Information We Collect from Partners, Service Providers, and Affiliated Businesses

We may collect information about you from our partners, service providers, and affiliated businesses to provide the Services, along with certain related products and services such as home financing, title insurance, escrow services, home purchasing, home selling real estate agent partnership programs, and, in cases where Help Us Help You, Inc. is not able to buy your home, access to other potential purchasers or brokers, or to listing agents who may be able to help with your home sale.

Information we gather about you from our partners, service providers, and affiliated businesses may include:

Multiple Listing Service (MLS) information about your home or the home(s) you are interested in buying;

Prequalification letters from financial institutions;

Construction or purchase contracts;

Verification of your identification and a risk score about you before allowing your smart-lock-enabled entry into a Help Us Help You, Inc. owned home(s);

Information related to the completion of the construction of your new home (if you are working with a homebuilder);

Information about the condition of, and repairs to, your home and property;

Information related to your home purchase, sale, moving dates, and financing in connection with helping us facilitate “trade-in” deals;

Information about whether you may need homeowners insurance; and

Information about how you engaged with a Help Us Help You, Inc. advertisement or social media post.

e. Information We Collect from Public Sources

Much of the information necessary to help you buy or sell your home is available from public government sources. We sometimes collect information from these sources so that you do not have to spend time looking for and aggregating it for us. For example, we may collect the following information about you and your home from public sources:

Tax assessments of your home;

The school district and public transportation available near your home;

Information contained on the deed to your home, such as name, address, liens, encumbrances, and title;

Sale prices of homes similar to your home (called “comparables”);

The number of bedrooms and bathrooms in your home;

Whether your home has access to features like a beach, boat dock, or parking garage;

Whether your home is in an earthquake or flood zone or has any other condition that would affect its market value;

Permits issued for remodels and additions;

The finished and unfinished square footage of your home; and

The year your home was built.

f. Information We Collect Through Our Mobile Applications

When you access our Services through our mobile applications, we may receive certain mobile device data such as a unique identification number associated with your device, your device type, and manufacturer, your mobile carrier, subscriber status, payment method, phone number, caller ID data, and, depending on your mobile device settings, your location information, including GPS coordinates.

We generally collect this information to provide and improve your experience with the Services and to verify the identity and location of people who access Help Us Help You, Inc. homes. This helps us keep you and our properties safe.

When you first launch our application or when you use it to visit a Help Us Help You, Inc. home, you may be asked to allow us to access your geographic location. If you initially consent to this and change your mind, you can revoke your consent by changing the geolocation preferences in your device settings.

g. Information We Collect When You Visit a Help Us Help You, Inc. Home

If you use our application to unlock a Help Us Help You, Inc. home, we will know the date and time the home was unlocked. Some of our homes also have additional monitoring technologies such as motion sensors that tell us when there is activity in a house and video cameras monitored by a security service provider.

We may also request that you use your smart device to verify your identity by uploading an image of a government ID before we remotely unlock a home. We use an identity verification service provider to manage our ID verification. Help Us Help You, Inc. typically would obtain it from our identity verification service provider in connection with a significant trust and safety incident or if requested by law enforcement. We do, however, retain certain information obtained from the ID such as your name, address, and whether you are over the age of 18, and such information is shared with the Closing Agency or company or our partners when selling your home or when you rent, lease or purchase a Help Us Help You, Inc. home from us.

There are some situations where we cannot get enough information from you to remotely unlock the door to one of our homes using a smart lock. When this happens, you can still tour the home with the help of a real estate agent or a Help Us Help You, Inc. Acquisitions Manager.

3. HOW WE USE THIS INFORMATION

a. To Provide Our Services to You

We use the information that we collect about you to deliver our Services, including to personalize features and content to you. We use the information you provide to give you options for home buying and selling that may be relevant to your individual circumstances. As discussed in more detail below, you have choices about how and whether we process some of your information.

b. To Learn About the Home You May Want to Sell or Buy

We use information you provide to us about your home or the type of home you are interested in buying and, in some cases, combine it with information from MLSs and public property and tax records to help us provide the Services to you. Before you sell your home to us, we will examine photos of your home that you upload and review information about the condition of your home provided to us by our home assessors. If you are interested in buying a home using our Services, we may consider property profiles that you have “liked,” rated or otherwise indicated your interest in through our website or mobile application to try to match you with homes you might want to purchase.

c. To Keep You, Your Information, and Our Properties Safe

Help Us Help You, Inc. cares about your safety. We use the monitoring and identity verification technologies described above to help keep you safe when you visit a Help Us Help You, Inc. home and to prevent property damage and fraud.

d. To Advertise Our Services

We may use information collected about you to provide you with relevant information about additional Services that Help Us Help You, Inc. or our affiliated companies offer. Specifically, we use information about how you interact with our website and mobile application, combined with information you provide us and information we collect from other sources, to serve you relevant advertising.

e. To Do Market Research

We are constantly striving to improve our customer experience. We research all aspects of the home buying and selling process to try to identify ways to make it better. Sometimes we use partner companies to conduct surveys of willing participants who offer suggestions as to how we might improve our Services. We also aggregate and analyze consumer information that we collect on our website, mobile applications, and from conversations with our customer service representatives to identify trends that inform how we change and grow.

f. To Support Information Security and Debugging

We may use information about you and your use of the Services to detect security incidents, protect against malicious, fraudulent, or illegal activity, and improve the security of our Services. We may also use this information to debug our Services to identify and repair errors that impair existing intended functionality.

g. In Connection with a Dispute

We may use personal information to prosecute or defend against claims in court and other dispute resolution forums.

4. WHY AND HOW WE SHARE YOUR INFORMATION

a. At Our Direction

We may share your information when you specifically direct us to do so. Examples of these situations include:

Help Us Help You, Inc. Partnerships. Help Us Help You, Inc. works with different others who are related to our purchasing process. We may share your information with them to pair you with the right ones who can help you through the home buying or selling process.

Builder partnerships. Help Us Help You, Inc. partners with homebuilders to provide buyers who are purchasing new homes from these builders with the opportunity to request offers from Help Us Help You, Inc. for their current homes. When you are working with a home builder, we may share your information with them.

Financing providers. At our own discretion and to the extent you authorize us to do so, we may share your information with home financing providers.

Other potential home buyers. Sometimes Help Us Help You, Inc. is not able to purchase a home. In these instances, we may work with trusted home buyers and institutional home buyers to try to find a purchaser for your home. In these circumstances, we may share your information with these potential buyers.

Escrow, closing attorney, title, homeowners’ insurance. If you need escrow, closing attorney, title insurance services, or homeowner’s insurance services, we may share your information with escrow, closing attorney, title, and homeowner’s insurance companies.

Other related partners with whom you ask us to share your information. Help Us Help You, Inc. will share your personal information with other parties at your direction.

c. With Service Providers Who Facilitate Our Ability to Provide You with the Services

We may share your information with service providers, including payment processors, technology and infrastructure providers, digital communications services, commercial data and market research analysts, consumer report providers, auditors and accountants, physical site security providers, IT security and bug-fix partners, customer service providers, and other providers who perform services for and on our behalf for the sole benefit of us and our customers.

d. With Law Enforcement, Courts, or Government Agencies

We may share your information as necessary to respond to a legal process or regulatory authorities (such as according to a subpoena, warrant, investigative demand from law enforcement, regulators, or others; national or international security letters; etc.); to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding suspected or actual illegal activities (including fraud or stalking) and security or technical issues; to respond to or participate in commercial disputes (e.g., lawsuits or investigations); or to protect against fraud, claims, or other liability or harm to you, us, or others.

5. WHEN THIRD PARTIES BENEFIT FROM HELP US HELP YOU, INC. SHARING YOUR INFORMATION WITH THEM

a. “Selling” Your Data

Help Us Help You, Inc. is not a data broker. However, in some circumstances we share your information with third parties not owned by or co-branded with Help Us Help You, Inc. Specifically:

Social media. If you use our Services, we may provide information about that use to social media networks who will use it to better target advertising.

Third-party home buyers. If Help Us Help You, Inc. cannot purchase your home, or if we determine one of our home buyer partners may be able to make a better offer for your home than Help Us Help You, Inc., we may share your personal information with these potential buyers.

Home insurance agencies. If you may need homeowners insurance, we may share your information with homeowners insurance agencies and those agencies may reach out to offer you a quote.

Vendor due diligence. If you are an individual or business that wishes to provide services to Help Us Help You, Inc., we may share your information with a due diligence service to perform vendor due diligence. The due diligence provider may use this information to inform and further refine its risk analysis tools.

6. HOW WE PROTECT YOUR INFORMATION

a. Safeguards

We use commercially reasonable physical, electronic, administrative, and procedural safeguards to preserve the integrity, confidentiality, and security of all personal information collected through the Services. However, no security measure, system, or control is infallible. Therefore, like all businesses, we cannot guarantee that our Services are invulnerable to attack or misuse.

b. Your Role

You have a major role in the security and privacy of your own information. For example, you should not provide us with personal information that we do not request. Additionally, you are responsible for controlling access to any personal computing device through which your information may be stored or accessed. You are also responsible for safeguarding any passwords or other log-in credentials that may be used to access your information, including in the Help Us Help You, Inc. environment. We recommend that you log out of any account when you are done using it.

c. Third Parties

Please remember to review the privacy settings and security policies of third-party sites and services that you use, such as social networks. We are not responsible for the privacy or security measures of any third party.

d. Incident Response

If the security of any personal information under our control is compromised, we will take reasonable steps to investigate and mitigate the situation, including, when appropriate, notifying those individuals whose information may have been compromised and taking other steps per applicable laws and regulations.

7. OPTING OUT OF OUR COMMUNICATIONS

If you are interested in no longer being contacted by Help Us Help You, Inc., we want to facilitate that. You may click on the unsubscribe links in our marketing emails, text STOP in response to marketing texts, and request removal from our mailer list.

If you prefer to no longer use our app, you can follow the standard process to uninstall it from your device.

We are also happy to place you on our do-not-call list.

8. TEXAS CONSIDERS CONSUMER PRIVACY ACT AND PRIVACY PROTECTION ACT

Texas has joined the states considering privacy legislation.

9. UPDATES AND QUESTIONS

This policy is updated regularly. We will promptly make any changes available on HelpUsHelpYou.org. Changes will be effective as soon as the updated policy is posted unless otherwise stated. Questions contact us at Support@HelpUsHelpYou.org

10. COMMENTS

When visitors leave comments on our website, we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

Media

If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

Contact Forms

Please do not include any pictures or information that you do not want Help Us Help You, Inc. or our partners or third parties to see.

Cookies

If you leave a comment on our website, you may opt-in to saving your name, email address, and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies may last for one year.

If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

Embedded content from other websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Analytics

Who we share your data with

How long do we retain your data

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profiles. All users can see their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username or name). Website administrators can also see but edit the information.

What rights do you have over your data?

If you have an account on this site or have left comments, please note that we have full control over the data that you provided to us. You can request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

Where we send your data

Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.

Your contact information

Additional information

How we protect your data

What data breach procedures do we have in place

What third parties do we receive data from

What automated decision making and/or profiling do we do with user data

Industry regulatory disclosure requirements

What information do we collect?

We collect information from you when you subscribe to our newsletter, fill out a form, or submit property information.

We may collect information about your computer, including your IP address, operating system, and browser type using Google Analytics, this is to improve browsing for everyone and does not identify any individual. You can learn more about how data is collected with Analytics here.

When ordering or registering on our site, as appropriate, you may be asked to enter your: name, e-mail address, mailing address, and or phone number. You may, however, visit our site anonymously. We transfer information about you if Help Us Help You, Inc. is acquired by or merged with another company. In this event, Help Us Help You, Inc.

What do we use your information for?

Any of the information we collect from you may be used in one of the following ways:

To process transactions

Your information, whether public or private, will not be sold, exchanged, transferred, or given to any other company for any reason whatsoever, without your consent, other than for the express purpose of purchasing your property or delivering the purchased product or service requested.

To send periodic emails

The email address you provide may be used to send you information, respond to inquiries, and/or other requests or questions.

How do we protect your information?

We implement a variety of security measures to maintain the safety of your personal information when you enter, submit, or access your personal information.

Do we disclose any information to outside parties?

We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your personally identifiable information. This does not include trusted third parties who assist us in operating our website, conducting our business, or servicing you, so long as those parties agree to keep this information confidential. We may also release your information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with the law, enforce our site policies, or protect our or others’ rights, property, or safety. However, non-personally identifiable visitor information may be provided to other parties for marketing, advertising, or other uses.

Third-party links

Occasionally, at our discretion, we may include or offer third-party products or services on our website. These third-party sites have separate and independent privacy policies. We, therefore, have no responsibility or liability for the content and activities of these linked sites. Nonetheless, we seek to protect the integrity of our site and welcome any feedback about these sites.

Third-Party Services
In general, the third-party providers used by us will only collect, use and disclose your information to the extent necessary to allow them to perform the services they provide to us.

However, certain third-party service providers, such as payment gateways and other payment transaction processors, have their own privacy policies concerning the information we are required to provide to them for your purchase-related transactions.

For these providers, we recommend that you read their privacy policies so you can understand how your personal information will be handled by these providers.

In particular, remember that certain providers may be located in or have facilities that are located in a different jurisdiction than either you or us. So, if you elect to proceed with a transaction that involves the services of a third-party service provider, then your information may become subject to the laws of the jurisdiction(s) in which that service provider or its facilities are located.

As an example, if you are located in Canada and your transaction is processed by a payment gateway located in the United States, then your personal information used in completing that transaction may be subject to disclosure under United States legislation, including the Patriot Act.

Once you leave our store’s website or are redirected to a third-party website or application, you are no longer governed by this Privacy Policy or our website’s Terms of Service.

Remarketing

Help Us Help You, Inc. may use 3rd party vendor re-marketing tracking cookies, including but not limited to the Google Adwords tracking cookie. This means we may show ads to you across the internet, specifically on the Google Content Network (GCN). As always we respect your privacy and are not collecting any identifiable information through the use of Google’s or any other 3rd party remarketing system.

The third-party vendors, including Facebook and Google, whose services we use – will place cookies on web browsers to serve ads based on past visits to our website. – Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on a user’s prior visits to your website. This allows us to make special offers and continue to market our services to those who have shown interest in our service.

In addition to using cookies and related technologies as described above, we also may permit certain third-party companies to help us tailor advertising that we think may be of interest to users and to collect and use other data about user activities on our Sites and/or Services (e.g., to allow them to tailor ads on third-party services). These companies may deliver ads that might also place cookies and otherwise track user behavior.

For example, we may use Google’s “remarketing” service to target our ads to you based on your prior use of the Site when you visit other sites in Google’s content network.

This website may use Google AdWords

This website uses the Google AdWords remarketing service to advertise on third-party websites (including Google) to previous visitors to our site. It could mean that we advertise to previous visitors who haven’t completed a task on our site, for example using the contact form to inquire. This could be in the form of an advertisement on the Google search results page or a site in the Google Display Network. Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on someone’s past visits to the Help Us Help You, Inc. Homes website. Of course, any data collected will be used per our own privacy policy and Google’s privacy policy.”

California Online Privacy Protection Act Compliance

Because we value your privacy we have taken the necessary precautions to comply with the California Online Privacy Protection Act. We, therefore, will not distribute your personal information to outside parties without your consent other than stated in this Privacy Policy.

Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Compliance

We comply with the requirements of COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act), we do not collect any information from anyone under 13 years of age. Our website, products, and services are all directed to people who are at least 13 years old or older.

Personal, Financial, And Property Information

Our company is a real estate services firm that may require you to submit certain information so we can help you in your situation. This information may include your contact info, information about your property, or even in some cases financial information needed to help us analyze your property and situation. This information is for our use only and will not be shared with outside parties unless required to Help Us Help You, Inc. solve your real estate situation.

Online Privacy Policy Only

This online privacy policy applies only to information collected through our website and not to information collected offline.

Changes to our Privacy Policy

If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes on this page.