Privacy Statement Updated:
September 25, 2023
Sterling Financial recognizes the importance of informing you how we treat information about you that we may receive. This Privacy Policy Statement (“Privacy Statement”) of Sterling Financial covers the collection, use, and disclosure of personal information (“Personal Information”) that may be collected by Sterling Financial anytime a customer interacts with Sterling Financial, such as, when you visit our website, when you purchase or lease products from Sterling Financial online or in one of the stores or offices, or when you call our sales or support representatives.
Please take a moment to carefully read the following to learn more about our information practices, including what type of information we gather, how the information is used and for what purposes, to whom we disclose the information, and how we safeguard your personal information. Your privacy is a priority at Sterling Financial, and we go to great lengths to protect it.
Reasons Sterling Financial Collects Personal Information.
Sterling Financial collects your personal information because it helps us deliver a superior level of customer service to our customers. It enables us to give our customer convenient access to our products and services. Sterling Financial collects your Personal Information to contact you, electronically or otherwise, in the future to tell you about news, promotional offers, account update, alerts, and other important information we believe will be of interest to you. If you do not want Sterling Financial to keep you up to date with news, promotional offers, account updates, alerts, and other important information, and update your personal contact information and preferences.
Information Sterling Financial Collects and How the Information May be Used.
Sterling Financial may ask for your personal information when discussing service issues on the phone, participating in surveys, or purchasing or leasing products. If you provide Personal Information for a certain reason, we may use it in connection with the reason for which it was provided. For instance, if you contact us by e-mail, we may use the Personal Information you provide to answer your question or resolve your problem.
If you contact us about a job listing, we may use your Personal Information to consider you for the position. Sterling Financial collects and uses various types of information to service your account, save you time and money, and better respond to you needs.
Customer information can be categorized in the following ways:
- Application Information: this includes information that you provided to us on application and through other means. I.e. assets, income, and debt.
- Transaction and Experience Information: This includes information about your transactions and account experience, as well as information about our communications with you. I.e. account balance, payment history, parties to transactions, credit card usage, pre-approved offers.
- Consumer Report Information: This includes information from a consumer report obtained from a consumer reporting agency. I.e. credit history.
Other General Information:
This includes information from outside sources. i.e. public records, employment history.
Sterling Financial also collects information regarding customer activities on our websites. This helps us determine how best to provide useful information to you and to understand which parts of our website, products, and services are of most interest.
This information may be shared with third parties to provide you with the products and services you requested; to offer you additional products and services, from us or from others, that may be interest to you; to comply with reports and other legal requirements; business transfers that may require the transfer of Personal information; and/or to otherwise conduct business.
When Sterling Financial Discloses Your Information.
Sterling Financial takes your privacy very seriously. We are not in the business of selling information about our users. We consider this information to be a vital part of our relationship with our customers and we treat it with great care and respect. There are, however, certain circumstances in which we will share your Personal Information with certain third parties, who will take steps to safeguard your Personal Information in accordance with our Privacy Statement. The third-party will assist Sterling Financial in maintaining physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards to guard any non-public personal information you may provide.
There are also times when it may be advantageous for Sterling Financial to make certain Personal Information about you available to affiliated companies and/or third-party companies that Sterling Financial has a strategic relationship with or that performs work for Sterling Financial to provide products and services to you on our behalf. These affiliated companies and/or third-party companies may help us process information, fulfill customer orders, deliver products to you, manages and enhance customer data, provide customer services, assess your interest in our products and services, or conduct customer research or satisfaction surveys. In such situations, these companies are prohibited from using your Personal Information for any unauthorized purposes and are also obligated to protect your information in accordance with Sterling Financial’s Privacy Statement, except if we inform you otherwise at the time of collection. Without such information being made available, it would be difficult for you to purchase or lease products, have products delivered to you, receive customer service, provide us feedback to improve our products and services, or access certain services, offers, and content on our website.
We also reserve the right to disclose your Personal Information for any reason if, in our sole discretion, we believe it is reasonable to do so, including law enforcement, litigation, or to satisfy laws, such as Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the Child Online Privacy Act, regulations, or governmental or legal requests for such information. We may also disclose Personal Information that is necessary to identify, contact, or bring legal action against someone who may be violating our contracts, policies, and procedures. Finally, we may disclose information about you if we determine that for national security, law enforcement, or other issues of public important, disclosure is necessary.
How Sterling Financial Protects Your Information.
Sterling Financial takes precautions – including administrative, technical, and physical measures – to safeguard your Personal Information against loss, theft, and misuse, as well as unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, and destruction. In addition, to help safeguard your Personal Information, Sterling Financial may provide your Personal Information to third-party companies to assist in maintaining electronic and physical safeguards to guard Personal Information you may provide. While we make every effort to ensure the integrity and security of our website and systems, we cannot guarantee that our security measures will prevent third-party “hackers” from illegally obtaining your Personal Information.
Integrity of Your Personal Information.
Sterling Financial, affiliated companies, and/or third-party companies who are hired to assist in managing security services, have safeguards in place to keep your Personal Information accurate, completed, and up to date for the purposes for which it is used. You always have the right to access and correct the Personal Information you have provided and can help us ensure that your contact information and preferences are accurate, completed and up to date.
Third-Party Sites, Cookies, & Other Technologies.
As is standard practice on other websites, our website may use “cookies” and other technologies to help us understand which parts of our website is the most popular, where our visitors are going, and how much time they spend there. We may also use cookies and other technologies to make sure that our online advertising is bringing customers to our products and services. If you prefer not to enable cookies, you can disable cookies through your device.
You may be able to access Internet Websites owned by third parties (“Third-Party Sites”) available through links from our website. You understand and agree that your use of such Third-Party Sites will be governed by the privacy policies of those sites and not by this Privacy Statement. Sterling Financial shall not be responsible for the actions of any Third-Party Site operators.
SMS Notification Terms.
You may receive text messages, multimedia messages, and emails from or on behalf of Sterling Financial. You understand the messages may include, but are not limited to, promotional offers, account updates, alerts, and other information related to leased utility trailers and similar products and services offered by Sterling Financial. See the SMS Notice and Consent Form for more details. If we do so, each communication that we send to you will contain instructions permitting you to “opt-out” of receiving future communications. Please follow the disclosed instructions if you wish to “opt-out” of receiving future communications.
Commitment to Your Privacy.
As we have said, Sterling Financial takes protecting your privacy very seriously. To make sure your Personal Information is secure, we communicate these guidelines to our employees and strictly enforce privacy safeguards within Sterling Financial.
Effective Date; Updates to Privacy Statement.
If we decide to change our Privacy Statement, we will post those changes to this Privacy Statement on our website and other places we deem appropriate so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it. We reserve the right to modify this Privacy Statement at any time, so please review it frequently. If we make material changes to this policy, we will notify you here, by email, or by means of a notice.
If you have questions or concerns regarding this Privacy Statement, you should first contact Sterling Financial by sending an e-mail to [email protected] or by calling Sterling Financial at (267) 540-3027.
