Privacy Policy
Privacy Policy
Privacy Notice
We are committed to protecting the personal information that you provide. As you have placed your trust in us when providing your information, it is essential that we are transparent with you about how it’s handled.
How we use your information
Your personal information is used for a number of different reasons depending on what it is. We only collect what is necessary in order to provide the best possible service to you. The tables below set out what information is collected, our purpose and our lawful basis (why we need to) in line with data protection legislation.
| Your personal details, such as your name, date of birth, address, email address and phone number. | |
| What we do and why | Our lawful basis |
| Identify who you are when you contact us as it helps us protect you and us against fraud. | Legally we are required to do so and it’s important to us. |
| Deliver the products you’ve purchased. | This is part of our contract with you. |
| Send account and service updates such as changes to our Terms and Conditions and order confirmations to inform you of any changes to our service. | Legally and contractually we are required to do so. |
| Send order updates via email so you know when your order is arriving. | This is part of our contract with you. |
| Send you information about our products and services. We want to keep you up to date with new products, items we think you and your pet will be interested in and the exciting things we’re doing. Find out more in our ‘Marketing’ section below. | This is based on your consent so it entirely up to you. |
Your payment information
This would be your chosen payment method, for example if you were to pay by card or PayPal. Don’t worry, we don’t process card details, these are done via WorldPay. PayPal facilitates payment in the same way; your card details are not stored on our system.
| What we do and why | Our lawful basis |
| Take payments and provide refunds for the products you’ve purchased. | This is part of our contract with you. |
| Keeping a record of financial transactions so we know what you’ve paid for. | This is a legal requirement |
Your contact history with us
Things you’ve said, whether that be via email, the ‘Contact Us’ page, live chat or our customer helpline. Calls made to our customer support team are recorded.
| What we do and why | Our lawful basis |
| Provide customer service and support so we can give you the best experience! | This is part of our contract with you. |
| Improve our support services to ensure our customer service is the best it can be. | It’s important to keep our team trained to the highest standard. |
Purchase history and scheduled orders
Products you’ve purchased from us, where you want to be notified when an item is back in stock and when you set up scheduled orders from us.
| What we do and why | Our lawful basis |
| Help you keep track of when a product you want is available so that you can get what you want when we have it. | This is entirely up to you whether you request back in stock notifications. |
| Handle returns in accordance with our Terms and Conditions as we need to know what you’ve bought so we can process the return. | This is part of our contract with you. |
Your feedback and competition entries
| What we do and why | Our lawful basis |
| We sometimes ask for your feedback about our products or our overall service. More often than not, they are anonymised but we may want to respond to you directly, if you’re unhappy with something. We want to make sure you, and your pet, are enjoying our products and we use the information to improve our service. | It’s entirely up to you if you choose to provide feedback. |
| Manage the competitions that you choose to enter and get prizes to the winners. We need to let you know if you win! | If you take part then this is an important part of our contractual commitment to you. |
You don’t have to provide all of this information, it’s your choice and we respect that but if you don’t then we are unable to provide you with the optimal customer experience.
Personal information is also used for things like testing out IT systems, research, data analysis, improving our site and developing new products and services. Don’t worry though, this is all anonymised and aggregated so you aren’t identifiable.
Preventing and detecting fraud
We are also legally and contractually required to use any of the information above for the purposes of preventing and detecting fraud, against either you or us. Whilst it’s an unfortunate part of our service it is essential that we protect you and ourselves from fraud.
Sharing your information
First things first, we want you to know that we do not, and will not, sell any of your information to a third party. This is of the utmost important to us in earning and maintaining your trust.
However, in order for us to provide our services to you, we do share your personal data with the following categories of companies:
- Companies within the CVS group, as we have companies that undertake certain activities for us.
- Delivery providers, so that we can get your purchases to you.
- Product suppliers, so that they can fulfil your order as some goods are provided directly by the supplier on our behalf.
- Marketing agencies and website hosts, who help us run our business.
- Banks and payment service providers, so that we can deal with payments and refunds where necessary. Third party payment providers such as PayPal if you choose to use their service.
- Credit reference agencies, law enforcement and fraud prevention agencies, so we can help tackle fraud and assist with any investigations.
Marketing communications
We’ll send you marketing messages to keep you updated on the latest products, services and special promotions but only if you’ve said we can.
If you no longer wish to receive them then you can unsubscribe via the following methods:
- Click the ‘unsubscribe’ link at the bottom of any marketing email communication that we send you.
- Email our customer support team at info@vet-direct.com and ask to be removed from our mailing list.
- Changing your preferences within ‘My Account’
If you decide to opt-out of marketing messages, we will continue to send ‘service communications’ such as order confirmations, delivery updates or where you ask to be notified when a product is back in stock.
Where your data is stored
We can offer you the best products for you and your pet because we use a number of suppliers located all over the world. Some of these locations will not offer the same level of protection for your personal data than the UK or Europe. Your privacy is of the utmost importance to us so if we do need to transfer your information to one of these countries, we have taken steps to ensure your data and rights are protected using methods approved within Data Protection laws such as contractual requirements. If you would like further information about the locations your personal data may have been transferred to, or how we protect information to specific locations then please contact us via the details below.
How long we keep your information
We will keep your data for as long as you are a customer of ours and for as long as we are required to retain it to ensure we meet our legal obligations.
You can contact us if you no longer wish to be a customer and ask that we close your account. However, we have a legal requirement to keep some of your personal data even after you have asked us to delete it. We will only keep what we absolutely need to, and only to make sure we can meet our legal or regulatory requirements, resolve disputes, prevent fraud and abuse, or enforce our Terms & Conditions.
Your rights
You have a number of rights relating to your personal information, which are as follows:
- The right to be informed about how your personal information is used, a lot of which is within this notice.
- The right to access personal information we hold about you.
- The right to rectify personal information we hold about you if it is inaccurate or incomplete. You can update your personal information via ‘My Account’.
- The right to request that we delete your data, stop processing it or collecting it in some circumstances.
- The right to stop marketing messages, further information of which is above in the ‘Marketing’ section.
- The right to portability where we would port or transfer elements of your personal information to you or another service provider.
Changes to this notice
We are consistently reviewing this notice to ensure you are kept up to date on how we are protecting your personal information.
If we make significant changes, we will make that clear on our website or via email if necessary so that you are able to review the changes before you continue to use our services.
This notice was last updated on 09/08/2022
How to contact us
Customer feedback is essential in ensuring that we provide the best possible service to you. If you have any questions about this notice, want us to stop using your information or exercise any of your rights then please don’t hesitate to contact us via the following methods:
Post
Data Protection Officer
CVS House
Owen Road
Diss
Norfolk
IP22 4ER
dataprotection@cvsvets.com
For further information about or service in general, please see our FAQs.
Your right to complain
If you have any concerns about our use of your Personal Information, you can make a complaint to us via the contact details above.
You can also complain to the ICO if you are unhappy with how we have used your data.
The ICO’s address:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Helpline number: 0303 123 1113
Website: https://www.ico.org.uk
Cookie policy
Our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This enables us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site. By continuing to browse the site without changing your settings, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that we store on your browser or the hard drive of your computer if you agree. Cookies contain information that is transferred to your computer’s hard drive. By law, we are permitted to store cookies on your machine providing that they are essential to the operation of the site (“Strictly necessary cookies” as set out below), but for all other we need your permission to do so.
We use the following cookies:
- Strictly necessary cookies. These are cookies that are required for the operation of our website. They include, for example, cookies that enable you to log into secure areas of our website, use a shopping cart or make use of e-billing services.
- Analytical/performance cookies. They allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around our website when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way our website works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily.
- Functionality cookies. These are used to recognise you when you return to our website. This enables us to personalise our content for you, greet you by name and remember your preferences (for example, your choice of language or region).
- Targeting cookies. These cookies record your visit to our website, the pages you have visited and the links you have followed.
We will use this information to make our website and the advertising displayed on it more relevant to your interests. We may also share this information with third parties for this purpose.
You block cookies by activating the setting on your browser that allows you to refuse the setting of all or some cookies. However, if you use your browser settings to block all cookies (including essential cookies) you may not be able to access all or parts of our site.
Privacy Notice
We are committed to protecting the personal information that you provide. As you have placed your trust in us when providing your information, it is essential that we are transparent with you about how it’s handled.
How we use your information
Your personal information is used for a number of different reasons depending on what it is. We only collect what is necessary in order to provide the best possible service to you. The tables below set out what information is collected, our purpose and our lawful basis (why we need to) in line with data protection legislation.
| Your personal details, such as your name, date of birth, address, email address and phone number. | |
| What we do and why | Our lawful basis |
| Identify who you are when you contact us as it helps us protect you and us against fraud. | Legally we are required to do so and it’s important to us. |
| Deliver the products you’ve purchased. | This is part of our contract with you. |
| Send account and service updates such as changes to our Terms and Conditions and order confirmations to inform you of any changes to our service. | Legally and contractually we are required to do so. |
| Send order updates via email so you know when your order is arriving. | This is part of our contract with you. |
| Send you information about our products and services. We want to keep you up to date with new products, items we think you and your pet will be interested in and the exciting things we’re doing. Find out more in our ‘Marketing’ section below. | This is based on your consent so it entirely up to you. |
Your payment information
This would be your chosen payment method, for example if you were to pay by card or PayPal. Don’t worry, we don’t process card details, these are done via WorldPay. PayPal facilitates payment in the same way; your card details are not stored on our system.
| What we do and why | Our lawful basis |
| Take payments and provide refunds for the products you’ve purchased. | This is part of our contract with you. |
| Keeping a record of financial transactions so we know what you’ve paid for. | This is a legal requirement |
Your contact history with us
Things you’ve said, whether that be via email, the ‘Contact Us’ page, live chat or our customer helpline. Calls made to our customer support team are recorded.
| What we do and why | Our lawful basis |
| Provide customer service and support so we can give you the best experience! | This is part of our contract with you. |
| Improve our support services to ensure our customer service is the best it can be. | It’s important to keep our team trained to the highest standard. |
Purchase history and scheduled orders
Products you’ve purchased from us, where you want to be notified when an item is back in stock and when you set up scheduled orders from us.
| What we do and why | Our lawful basis |
| Help you keep track of when a product you want is available so that you can get what you want when we have it. | This is entirely up to you whether you request back in stock notifications. |
| Handle returns in accordance with our Terms and Conditions as we need to know what you’ve bought so we can process the return. | This is part of our contract with you. |
Your feedback and competition entries
| What we do and why | Our lawful basis |
| We sometimes ask for your feedback about our products or our overall service. More often than not, they are anonymised but we may want to respond to you directly, if you’re unhappy with something. We want to make sure you, and your pet, are enjoying our products and we use the information to improve our service. | It’s entirely up to you if you choose to provide feedback. |
| Manage the competitions that you choose to enter and get prizes to the winners. We need to let you know if you win! | If you take part then this is an important part of our contractual commitment to you. |
You don’t have to provide all of this information, it’s your choice and we respect that but if you don’t then we are unable to provide you with the optimal customer experience.
Personal information is also used for things like testing out IT systems, research, data analysis, improving our site and developing new products and services. Don’t worry though, this is all anonymised and aggregated so you aren’t identifiable.
Preventing and detecting fraud
We are also legally and contractually required to use any of the information above for the purposes of preventing and detecting fraud, against either you or us. Whilst it’s an unfortunate part of our service it is essential that we protect you and ourselves from fraud.
Sharing your information
First things first, we want you to know that we do not, and will not, sell any of your information to a third party. This is of the utmost important to us in earning and maintaining your trust.
However, in order for us to provide our services to you, we do share your personal data with the following categories of companies:
- Companies within the CVS group, as we have companies that undertake certain activities for us.
- Delivery providers, so that we can get your purchases to you.
- Product suppliers, so that they can fulfil your order as some goods are provided directly by the supplier on our behalf.
- Marketing agencies and website hosts, who help us run our business.
- Banks and payment service providers, so that we can deal with payments and refunds where necessary. Third party payment providers such as PayPal if you choose to use their service.
- Credit reference agencies, law enforcement and fraud prevention agencies, so we can help tackle fraud and assist with any investigations.
Marketing communications
We’ll send you marketing messages to keep you updated on the latest products, services and special promotions but only if you’ve said we can.
If you no longer wish to receive them then you can unsubscribe via the following methods:
- Click the ‘unsubscribe’ link at the bottom of any marketing email communication that we send you.
- Email our customer support team at info@vet-direct.com and ask to be removed from our mailing list.
- Changing your preferences within ‘My Account’
If you decide to opt-out of marketing messages, we will continue to send ‘service communications’ such as order confirmations, delivery updates or where you ask to be notified when a product is back in stock.
Where your data is stored
We can offer you the best products for you and your pet because we use a number of suppliers located all over the world. Some of these locations will not offer the same level of protection for your personal data than the UK or Europe. Your privacy is of the utmost importance to us so if we do need to transfer your information to one of these countries, we have taken steps to ensure your data and rights are protected using methods approved within Data Protection laws such as contractual requirements. If you would like further information about the locations your personal data may have been transferred to, or how we protect information to specific locations then please contact us via the details below.
How long we keep your information
We will keep your data for as long as you are a customer of ours and for as long as we are required to retain it to ensure we meet our legal obligations.
You can contact us if you no longer wish to be a customer and ask that we close your account. However, we have a legal requirement to keep some of your personal data even after you have asked us to delete it. We will only keep what we absolutely need to, and only to make sure we can meet our legal or regulatory requirements, resolve disputes, prevent fraud and abuse, or enforce our Terms & Conditions.
Your rights
You have a number of rights relating to your personal information, which are as follows:
- The right to be informed about how your personal information is used, a lot of which is within this notice.
- The right to access personal information we hold about you.
- The right to rectify personal information we hold about you if it is inaccurate or incomplete. You can update your personal information via ‘My Account’.
- The right to request that we delete your data, stop processing it or collecting it in some circumstances.
- The right to stop marketing messages, further information of which is above in the ‘Marketing’ section.
- The right to portability where we would port or transfer elements of your personal information to you or another service provider.
Changes to this notice
We are consistently reviewing this notice to ensure you are kept up to date on how we are protecting your personal information.
If we make significant changes, we will make that clear on our website or via email if necessary so that you are able to review the changes before you continue to use our services.
This notice was last updated on 09/08/2022
How to contact us
Customer feedback is essential in ensuring that we provide the best possible service to you. If you have any questions about this notice, want us to stop using your information or exercise any of your rights then please don’t hesitate to contact us via the following methods:
Post
Data Protection Officer
CVS House
Owen Road
Diss
Norfolk
IP22 4ER
dataprotection@cvsvets.com
For further information about or service in general, please see our FAQs.
Your right to complain
If you have any concerns about our use of your Personal Information, you can make a complaint to us via the contact details above.
You can also complain to the ICO if you are unhappy with how we have used your data.
The ICO’s address:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Helpline number: 0303 123 1113
Website: https://www.ico.org.uk
Cookie policy
Our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This enables us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site. By continuing to browse the site without changing your settings, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that we store on your browser or the hard drive of your computer if you agree. Cookies contain information that is transferred to your computer’s hard drive. By law, we are permitted to store cookies on your machine providing that they are essential to the operation of the site (“Strictly necessary cookies” as set out below), but for all other we need your permission to do so.
We use the following cookies:
- Strictly necessary cookies. These are cookies that are required for the operation of our website. They include, for example, cookies that enable you to log into secure areas of our website, use a shopping cart or make use of e-billing services.
- Analytical/performance cookies. They allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around our website when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way our website works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily.
- Functionality cookies. These are used to recognise you when you return to our website. This enables us to personalise our content for you, greet you by name and remember your preferences (for example, your choice of language or region).
- Targeting cookies. These cookies record your visit to our website, the pages you have visited and the links you have followed.
We will use this information to make our website and the advertising displayed on it more relevant to your interests. We may also share this information with third parties for this purpose.
You block cookies by activating the setting on your browser that allows you to refuse the setting of all or some cookies. However, if you use your browser settings to block all cookies (including essential cookies) you may not be able to access all or parts of our site.
