Privacy & Data Security

At Chums we respect your privacy and promise to use any information we hold about you and your account in a safe and responsible way. By choosing to shop with us, you are agreeing to our Privacy Policy, in particular, our use of your information, as outlined below. You have the right to object to this processing if you so wish and if you do wish to change your mind please click here to find out how.

However, please understand that if you do object, then this may affect our ability to carry out the tasks outlined below that are designed for your benefit.

We process and retain your personal information for certain legitimate Interests, which include some or all of the following:

• Where the processing enables us to enhance, modify, personalise or otherwise improve our services and communications for the benefit of our customers
• To identify and prevent fraud by verifying your identity
• To enhance the security of our network and information systems
• To better understand how people interact with our websites, email and catalogue communications
• To provide postal, telephone and email communications which we think will be of interest to you
• where we have a legal right or duty to use or disclose your information (for example in relation to an investigation by a public authority or in a legal dispute).
• To determine the effectiveness of promotional campaigns and advertising.

The information we gather on our site falls into two categories: (1) personal information you supply when you become a customer, order, complete a survey, post in a discussion forum, post news articles, or provide your email address, and (2) tracking information collected as you navigate through our site.

1. Personally identifiable information. To use certain features on our site, we ask you to become a registered user. When you do this, we collect personally identifiable information about you such as your name, mailing address, e-mail address, telephone number, date of birth, user name and password. We may also ask you for personal information when you place an order for our products or when we ask for your help to complete a survey. We use this information to process your order, your request or to help improve our site. When personally identifiable information is collected, you will know because you will have to fill out a form on our site and this is clearly stated.
2. Aggregate information. When you use our site, we may collect tracking information such as your browser type, the type of operating system you use, the domain name of your Internet service provider, and pages visited on the site. None of this information identifies you personally; we collect it for aggregate reporting on site activity to help us mange the performance of the site for a better shopping experience.

We may contact you with our latest offers and/or promotions that we think might interest you, as part of our market research, either by mail, telephone or e-mail.

Our communications are designed to tell you about the benefits we can offer, so that you have exclusive access to our best deals. We use the information we have about you to tailor the content and try to ensure that the offers are as relevant to you as possible.

In addition, the personal information you provide may be used for the purposes of identity verification, credit and risk management, revenue collection, database verification and enhancement.

We may also share your details with carefully selected and trusted partners whose product or services we think might interest you, either directly or through a data co-operative. We only share your details with our trusted partners whom will only contact you via postal communications and we never share email or telephone contact information for marketing communication purposes.

The sharing of postal data for direct marketing purposes is practiced by many mail order  and home shopping companies, sometimes as mutual exchanges or for financial purposes, which helps mail order and home shopping companies to fund product development and marketing activities to the benefit of their existing customers and to attract new customers with ever higher levels of service, value and choice.

 You have the right to object to your information being shared with our partners and if you wish to do so you click here .

Data Co-operatives are companies whose members contribute information about their consumers in exchange for information about other consumers that may be interested in their products. They are just as protective as we are regarding the security and privacy of your data and adhere to the latest standard and regulations to prevent the loss or unauthorised use.

We currently share your data with the following Data Co-operatives:

Epsilon Abacus - https://www.epsilon.com/abacus
We work with Epsilon Abacus (registered as Epsilon International UK Ltd), a company that manages the Abacus Alliance on behalf of UK retailers. The participating retailers within the alliance are active in the clothing, collectables, food & wine, gardening, gadgets & entertainment, health & beauty, household goods, and home interiors categories. They share information on what their customers buy. Epsilon Abacus analyses this pooled information to help the retailers understand consumers’ wider buying patterns. From this information, retailers can tailor their communications, sending people suitable offers that should be of interest to them, based on what they like to buy. Epsilon Abacus may transfer data outside the EEA. The transfer will take place in the presence of appropriate safeguards, including standard data protection clauses adopted by the EU Commission

Experian - http://www.experian.co.uk/cip
Chums share your data with Experian Ltd for the purposes of managing a service called Club Canvasse, a home shopping and direct retailer data co-operative of which Chums are members. By sharing information on what customers buy and pooling that with contributions from other members of the co-operative, the service allows Chums to better understand our customers and to communicate with you more effectively. Please note, your personal information is not shared with any of the other members of the co-operative, and only aggregated data on the number and value of purchases is provided to members e.g. we will receive a report which states how many customers who have bought from us within a certain time frame and who have also bought from other members of the co-operative.  To understand more please click through to Experian’s website to understand more about their marketing services

Other trusted partners that we may share your data with where we think they offer a product or service that may be of interest to you, but are not limited to, one of the following categories:

Retailers/ Mail Order

• Automotive
• Fashion/clothing
• Household
• Gardening
• Gifts
• Food & drink 

Charities

• Animal
• Arts & Culture
• Community
• Environmental
• Elderly
• Disability
• Housing
• Medical
• Overseas Aid
• Public Service & Military

Lifestyle

• Health & Wellbeing
• Leisure
• Outdoor activities

Finance

• Insurance - home, car, pet, personal
• Banking
• Pensions
• Investments
• Planning for your/or your families future
  

Utility

• Gas
• Electric
• Water
• Telecoms

We may randomly monitor and record you calls to us because this helps us to ensure that we provide you with the highest level of services and maintain quality standards. We may also pass information about you to agents, services providers and/ or employees to carry out services using your data.

Our website uses Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates that ensure your data is encrypted when transmitted over the Internet. We have upgraded our site to ensure that all pages are secure in line with the latest best practise. When you are in the secure section of the site, a padlock symbol appears in your browser. In most web browsers this appears to the right or left of the address bar at the top depending upon the web browser you are using.

'Verified by Visa' and 'MasterCard SecureCode' are additional security measures for customers using payment cards from Visa and MasterCard.We also provide the option for you to pay securely using Paypal. This allows you to confirm your identity before purchase as a protection from unauthorised use of your credit or debit card when shopping online. For more details, please visit Visa, MasterCard or Paypal online or contact your card issuer.

We strongly recommend to keep your password safe and not to dilvulge your password anyone else under any circumstances. Please remember to log out of your session at the end and to close down the session. This is especially important if you are using a shared computer in a internet café or library.

We hold a SSL certificate from Sectigo which is a well-established and respected certification authority: https://sectigostore.com/

Our payment page is hosted by a leading payment provider Opayo and we do not hold your card details on our servers. For more detail, please visit their website at https://www.opayo.co.uk/. We also provide the option to pay via Paypal and their various payment options. For more details and their full terms of conditions, please visit: https://www.paypal.com/uk/home

If you wish to opt out from receiving email, telephone and postal communications from us or if you do not want us to share your Personal Data with any of our trusted partners then please use one of the methods listed below. You may choose to opt out at any time at your choosing and you can equally choose to change your mind and opt back in on any one of the preferences we present to you.

However, please understand that if you do object, then this may affect our ability to offer you the best possible experience when you shop with us. You can update your preferences via one of the following:

• Send an email titled 'opt out' to enquiries@chums.co.uk and let us know which service you'd like to unsubscribe from - choose from catalogue, email and/or trusted partner sharing.
• Clicking on the unsubscribe link in every email we send – only applies for our Chums emails
• Ticking the relevant box located at the bottom of the order form you've received from us and then send the order form back to us
• Clicking on the 'opt out' button within your account preferences section within 'your account' section on our website once you have logged in. To access this area of the website please click in this link
• Call our enquiries team on 0333 355 4455 – from 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday (except bank holidays)
• Write a letter detailing your request and which activity you wish to opt out from to: Data Protection Officer, Chums, Unity Grove, Knowsley Business Park L34 9AR
• Email us at DataProtectionOfficer@Chums.co.uk along with your name and address

Should you wish to correct any information or preference we currently have for you then you can use any of the relevant procedures as listed above to update us with your information or preferences at any time.

We will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes we collected it for, including any legal, accounting or reporting requirements.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

In order to be able to offer you Klarna’s payment options, we will pass to Klarna certain aspects of your personal information, such as contact and order details, in order for Klarna to assess whether you qualify for their payment options and to tailor the payment options for you. This will only occur if you choose to use their payment services.

General information on Klarna you can find ​here​. Your personal data is handled in accordance with applicable data protection law and in accordance with the information in Klarna’s privacy policy.

For your easy accessibility our websites may include links to sites on the Internet that are owned or operated by our trusted partners. Upon following a link to such trusted partner site, you shall review and agree to that site's rules of use before using such site as we have no control over the content of that site and cannot assume any responsibility for the privacy practices or content of such trusted partner sites.

Cookies are text files containing small amounts of information which are downloaded to your personal computer, mobile or other device when you visit a website. They are not harmful and do not contain any confidential information such as your home address, date of birth or credit card details. The information stored in cookies is safe and anonymous. You can find more information about cookies at https://allaboutcookies.org/

Chums website uses cookies. Some of these cookies are required by our site to enable you to transact whilst other cookies enable us to give you an enhanced, personalised web experience. By using our site, you also consent to the use of these cookies.

Cookies are used on our site for the following reasons:

-To store the content of your online shopping basket whilst you browse the site and to complete an order.
-To compile anonymous aggregated statistics that allow us to understand how users use our website and help us improve the structure of our website.
-We also allow selected third parties to place cookies when you visit our site. Third party cookies may be left by selected companies who participate with us in marketing programmes. These cookies enable us to monitor which adverts you see and click on to get to our site and to also personalise advertisements for goods and services. To learn more, or to opt-out of receiving online display advertisements tailored to your interests by our third party partners, visit the European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance at http://youronlinechoices.eu/.

Below are links to the companies that we currently allow trusted partner cookies on our website:

Google Analytics (for monitoring the overall site performance based on analysing visitor and transactional behaviour to ensure an efficient shopping experience): https://www.google.com/policies/technologies/ads/#toc-analytics.

Epsilon (visitor behaviour and advertising network) https://www.epsilon.com/.
We may share your personally-identifiable information, including your name, address, email address, as well as a record of any transactions you conduct on our website or offline with us with a third-party advertising partner and its service providers in order to deliver to you banner advertisements and other advertising tailored to your interests when you visit certain websites. Our advertising partner will make the data we provide anonymous.

Emarsys (email and personalisation) https://www.emarsys.com/en-uk/.
Emarsys use cookies to enhance the user experience via Chums emails by delivering both personalised content and offers whilst ensuring you see the products most relevant to you. Any information collected is not shared with any other third parties.

Facebook (social media, visitor behaviour and advertising) https://www.facebook.com/privacy/explanation/.

Live support (live web chat services): https://www.proprofs.com/.

Konvert (online site browser abandonment service) https://www.iocea.com/ecommerce/exit-intent-technology.

Norton Shopping Guarantee (online marketing program that increases consumer confidence through a trusted third-party endorsement) https://www.nortonshoppingguarantee.com/uk/.

MentionMe (Online refer a friend program). Functional cookies are used if you interact with our refer-a-friend programme. https://mention-me.com/help/privacy_policy_s#cookies. 

Sitegainer (online conversion and A/B testing service) https://www.symplify.com/conversion/home.

Google Optimize (online conversion and A/B testing service) https://support.google.com/optimize/answer/6197440?hl=en#zippy=%2Cin-this-article.

Webloyalty/ Complete Saving, Shopper discounts and rewards program. 
Following a purchase on our website, an advertisement may be displayed by our partner, Webloyalty. For technical purposes, particularly the display of the advertisement on your device, Webloyalty may collect some technical information such as the URL of the last page of our side that you have seen (referrer URL), the name of your browser (name and version) and the date and time of the display of their advertising banner on your terminal. The collected information will be kept in servers located in the Republic of Ireland and will be deleted after a period of no more than thirty (30) days. 

We may also use technologies, such as our own cookies, to provide you with relevant online display advertising tailored to your interests. Our marketing partner, Epsilon, assists us in managing these technologies. To opt out of our cookies used for this online advertising or to submit a data subject request specific to these technologies, click here.

We want to make sure that we only contact you when you are not active on our website with content that you will find relevant and interesting. We do this by using online behavioural advertising (or interest based advertising). In order for it to work we collect information about your browsing activity using cookies. These cookies pass back to us your browsing information which then allows us to determine what content is most useful and relevant to be shown to you.

We anonymise your email addresses to keep your data more secure. The email addresses are scrambled before being utilised to ensure nobody else can gain access to your email address. This enables us to offer our customers the best possible online user experience and equally allows us to improve the relevancy of our advertising. This also allows us to provide you with more of the content you want to see based on your browsing behaviour and you should not be worried about this as it is a very safe and transparent process.

We do share information with a number of trusted partners such as (Google, Facebook, Conversant) to enable us to deliver targeted advertising to you.

If you would prefer not to receive this type of advertising, then we've made it easy for you to opt out, but it is important to understand that this does not mean that you will no longer receive advertising when you are using the internet. It just means that the advertising you see displayed on websites will not be tailored to you and your interests and therefore may be less relevant to you.

There are some great websites that are impartial and can offer you more information and help you to make informed choices. To opt-out of all behavioural advertising, please follow these 5 tips: http://www.youronlinechoices.com/uk/five-top-tips

To opt-out of a particular provider of behavioural [and contextual] advertising - Click on this link: http://www.youronlinechoices.com/uk/your-ad-choices

You can also manage your privacy within the web browser that you are using. Many web browsers also have a 'private browsing' mode as well.

We use cookies to ensure that we provide the best possible standard of service to our online customers. However, as part of our privacy and security policy, we require your consent to use them.

If you wish to change your mind regarding your consent for us to use cookies to enhance your shopping experience you can click on this link to update us with your preferences.

To withdraw your consent across all websites that you visit, or if you want to be notified each time a cookie is about to be used, you should amend the settings provided in your web browser to prevent websites from storing cookies on your computer's hard drive.

For information on how to disable cookies, please consult the "Help" tab of your browser via the menu bar.

Important - If you choose not to consent to the use of cookies, your experience of our site will be impaired.

You have the right to access any data we hold about you, and we will deal with any subject access request within 30 days.

Please contact our Data Protection Officer at DataProtectionOfficer@chums.co.uk  or write to the Data Protection Officer, Chums Ltd, Unity Grove, Knowsley Business Park, Liverpool, L34 9AR marking your request “subject access request”. Please let us know your name and postal or email address to enable us to locate your data.

You have the right to ask us to stop processing your data. Please contact us at DataProtectionOfficer@chums.co.uk or write to the Data Protection Officer, Chums Ltd, Unity Grove, Knowsley Business Park, Liverpool, L34 9AR if you want us to erase, stop or amend any part of our processing and, as far as possible considering our legal obligations, we will do so.

You have the right of portability over your data (which means that you can ask us to pass the information we hold on you to a third party in machine readable format). Let us know if you want us to do this by contacting us by your preferred method of communication.

Should you have any complaints, you can contact us and we’ll do our very best to resolve the issue. If you feel your complaint has not been dealt with satisfactorily, the supervisory authority for data protection in the UK is the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) which you can contact on 0303 123 1113 or via their website at ico.org.uk.

If you should have any further questions or queries relating to the use or storage of your Personal data, then please write to:

Data Protection Officer
CHUMS Ltd.,
Unity Grove,
Knowsley Business Park,
PRESCOT,
L34 9AR.

You can also email your question or request to us at the following email address:
DataProtectionOfficer@Chums.co.uk

Or call our enquiries team on 0333 355 4455 – from 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday (except bank holidays).

Registered in England Number 1561474.

If you wish for a reply, please remember to include your full name, address and customer account number if known.

Privacy policy was last updated August 2023.