Privacy policy

1Who we are

Core Compensation is a trading name of Core Financial Compensation LLP ("we", "us", "our"). We are the data controller for the personal information described in this policy, which means we decide how and why it is used.

If you have any questions about this policy or how we handle your information, contact our Data Protection Officer by email at enquiries@core-claims.com (marked "Data Protection Officer") or by post to our administration office.

2Information we collect

The information we collect depends on how you use our website and services. It may include:

• Identity details: your title, first name, surname, any previous surnames, date of birth and signature.
• Contact details: your current address, previous addresses, email address and mobile or landline number.
• Finance agreement details: the lenders and brokers you have used, agreement and account numbers, vehicle details, agreement dates, amounts borrowed, interest rates, repayments, commission arrangements and the outcome of any complaint.
• Credit file information: details of finance agreements held on your credit file, returned by our soft search provider and credit reference agencies.
• Compensation and payment details: offers made to you, amounts paid, and the information needed to invoice our fee if your claim succeeds.
• Communications: emails, letters, text and messaging conversations, and recordings of telephone calls with us.
• Vulnerability information: information you choose to tell us about your circumstances, which may include your health, so we can support you properly (see section 6).
• Technical information: your IP address, browser and device type, pages visited, and how you arrived at our website, collected through cookies and similar technologies (see section 12).
• Marketing preferences: whether you have agreed to hear from us, and how you prefer to be contacted.

3Where we get your information from

• From you, when you complete our online claim form, speak to us, email us or sign documents.
• From our credit information partner, Valifi Ltd, and credit reference bureaus, when you ask us to search for your finance agreements.
• From lenders and brokers, when they respond to our requests for information and to your complaints.
• From the Financial Ombudsman Service, if your complaint is referred to it.
• From marketing partners, where you have asked a comparison, advertising or lead generation website to pass your details to a claims firm and agreed to be contacted by us.
• From identity verification and fraud prevention services, when we check who you are.
• From your device and analytics providers, such as Google, through cookies and similar technologies when you visit our website.

4How we use your information and our lawful basis

Data protection law says we must have a lawful basis for each way we use your personal information. The table below sets out what we do and the basis we rely on.

Where we rely on legitimate interests, we have considered your rights and expectations and are satisfied they are not outweighed by our interests. You can ask us for more detail about this assessment.

Our legitimate interests

Where we rely on legitimate interests, these include:

• keeping you informed about changes to rules, regulations or processes that could affect your claim,
• contacting you by phone, email, text or post about your claim, with the option to tell us which methods you prefer,
• analysing our customer base so we can improve our services,
• meeting our regulatory duties, including record keeping, staff training, quality monitoring and complaint handling, and
• preventing fraud and reducing credit risk.

We will only refer you to other firms for help with other types of financial mis-selling claim if you have given your consent.

If you don't provide your information

If you do not provide the information we need to pursue your claim, we may not be able to act for you, and we may need to end our agreement with you in line with our Terms of Business.

5Soft credit searches and credit reference bureaus

We may disclose personal data to our partner credit information firm, Valifi Ltd, for the purposes of obtaining your credit file from one or more credit reference bureaus. You can view its privacy policy here: Valifi Ltd.

With your consent, we will carry out a soft credit search through Valifi Ltd to identify and validate any potential claims you may have, and your information will be shared with the following credit reference bureaus:

• Equifax Ltd – www.equifax.co.uk
• TransUnion Information Group Limited – www.transunion.co.uk

If you would like to understand how the credit reference bureaus use and share personal data (including the legitimate interests they pursue), please read the Credit Reference Agency Information Notice (CRAIN): Equifax CRAIN and TransUnion CRAIN.

What a soft search means for you

• A soft search is not visible to lenders and does not affect your credit score.
• It will appear on your own credit report as a "quotation" or "soft" search, which only you can see.
• We use the results only to identify and validate agreements that may give rise to a claim, and to verify your identity through an electronic identity check (e-KYC).
• Credit information firms and credit reference bureaus act as separate controllers of your information under their own privacy policies.

6Health and vulnerability information

You may tell us about your health or personal circumstances, for example a disability, illness, bereavement or financial difficulty, so that we can adapt how we communicate with you. Information about your health is "special category" data and has extra protection.

We only record this information where you choose to share it and it helps us support you. We process it with your explicit consent, or where it is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest in protecting the economic wellbeing of individuals at economic risk, as permitted by the Data Protection Act 2018. We only share it where needed to progress your claim, such as asking a lender to adjust how it contacts you.

7Who we share your information with

We only share your information where it is needed for the purposes in section 4, and we require the organisations we work with to keep it secure. We may share it with:

• Lenders, brokers and car dealers named in your claim, so we can make your complaint and request your records. We send them a Letter of Authority you have signed.
• The Financial Ombudsman Service, and the Financial Services Compensation Scheme where relevant, if your complaint is referred to them.
• Valifi Ltd and credit reference bureaus, to carry out soft searches and electronic identity checks.
• Identity verification and fraud prevention agencies, to confirm who you are and prevent fraud.
• Aiker Legal Ltd, an SRA-regulated law firm we work with. As set out in our Terms of Business, Aiker Legal may act for you to conclude and settle your claim, and compensation may be paid into its client account before being passed on to you.
• Other solicitors and law firms, where it would be in your interests for your claim to be handled by a law firm. We will tell you before doing this and ask for your agreement.
• Service providers who act on our instructions, including providers of case management and CRM software, e-signature, email, text messaging and telephony services, cloud hosting, IT support and secure document storage. They may only use your information to provide services to us.
• Our professional advisers, including lawyers, accountants, auditors, compliance consultants and insurers.
• Printing and mailing providers, to send you letters about your claim.
• Regulators and authorities, including the Financial Conduct Authority, the Information Commissioner's Office, the Legal Ombudsman, HM Revenue & Customs, the police and other law enforcement agencies, where we are required or permitted to by law.
• A buyer or successor, if all or part of our business is sold or restructured, in which case your information would continue to be protected in line with this policy.

We never sell your personal information, and we do not share it with other companies for their own marketing.

8Transfers outside the UK

We aim to store your information in the UK. Some of our service providers may process information outside the UK, for example on cloud servers. When this happens, we make sure your information is protected by one of the safeguards required by UK data protection law, such as a UK adequacy regulation for the destination country or the UK International Data Transfer Agreement. You can contact us for more information about these safeguards.

Draft applications and optional contact preferences

When you start an application, an essential session cookie lets this browser resume your saved draft. We save completed, valid details as you provide them, including contact details before you sign. Our team can inspect an unfinished enquiry. Saving a draft is separate from agreeing to marketing.

Unsigned drafts without contact details are normally deleted after 24 hours of inactivity. Unsigned drafts with contact details are normally deleted after 30 days of inactivity. An inactive draft with contact details may be classified as abandoned. No marketing message is sent by this application.

Email and WhatsApp marketing choices are optional, initially unchecked and recorded separately. You can withdraw by contacting us using the details below. We retain limited suppression evidence to respect opt-outs.

Business approval required before production: the lawful basis for retaining and handling unfinished enquiries, these retention periods, provider disclosures and this notice must be approved. Existing client-file retention remains as described below.

9How long we keep your information

We keep personal information only for as long as we need it for the purposes in this policy, including to meet legal, regulatory and accounting requirements.

We may keep information for longer if we are required to by law or a regulator, or if it is needed in connection with legal proceedings. When we no longer need your information, we securely delete or anonymise it.

10Keeping your information secure

We use appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your information. These include encryption of data sent through our website, secure systems with restricted access, staff training on data protection, and contracts requiring our service providers to protect your information. Only people who need your information to do their job can access it.

No system can be completely secure. If a personal data breach happens that is likely to result in a high risk to you, we will tell you and the Information Commissioner's Office as required by law.

11Marketing

We will only send you marketing about other claims or services you may be eligible for if you have agreed to it. You can withdraw your consent at any time by:

• clicking "unsubscribe" in any marketing email,
• replying STOP to any marketing text message, or
• emailing enquiries@core-claims.com or calling 0203 957 7177.

Opting out of marketing will not affect messages about your existing claim.

12Cookies

Cookies are small files stored on your device when you visit a website. We use:

• Essential cookies, which are needed for our website and claim form to work securely. These do not need your consent.
• Analytics cookies, which help us understand how visitors use our website so we can improve it. We only set these with your consent.
• Advertising cookies, which help us measure the effectiveness of our advertising. We only set these with your consent.

You can find out how to manage cookies in your browser here: Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Microsoft Edge. For general information about cookies, visit aboutcookies.org, and to opt out of interest-based advertising, visit youronlinechoices.com.

You can change your cookie choices at any time through our cookie settings, or block cookies in your browser settings. Blocking essential cookies may stop parts of the website working.

13Automated decisions

Our soft search uses automated matching to identify finance agreements linked to your details. We do not make decisions about you based solely on automated processing that have a legal or similarly significant effect on you. Every claim is reviewed by a member of our team.

14Your rights

Under UK data protection law you have the right to:

• Access the personal information we hold about you and receive a copy of it.
• Correct information that is inaccurate or incomplete.
• Delete your information where we no longer have a valid reason to keep it.
• Restrict how we use your information in certain circumstances.
• Object to our use of your information where we rely on legitimate interests, and to direct marketing at any time.
• Data portability, meaning to receive information you gave us in a commonly used electronic format or have it sent to another organisation.
• Withdraw consent at any time, where we rely on your consent. This does not affect anything we did before you withdrew it, or any contractual obligations already in place, such as fees owed under our Terms of Business.

To use any of these rights, email enquiries@core-claims.com, call 0203 957 7177 or write to our administration office. We may need to confirm your identity before responding. We will respond within one month, and there is normally no charge. We may charge a reasonable fee, or refuse to act, if a request is clearly unfounded or excessive, or if you ask for further copies of information we have already provided.

Some rights are limited. For example, we may need to keep certain records to meet our legal and regulatory obligations even if you ask us to delete them. If so, we will explain why.

15Complaints

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal information, please contact us first so we can try to put things right. Our complaints procedure explains how we handle complaints.

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office, the UK regulator for data protection. We would appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO.

16Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time, for example if the law changes or we change how we use your information. The latest version will always be on this page, with the date it was last updated. If we make significant changes, we will tell our clients directly.