Privacy Policy

Account information: your email address, your name, and the type of account you create (car buyer or advertiser). If you apply to advertise, we also collect your business contact details, including a phone number.

Partner accounts: if you use Cardazo on behalf of a dealer, lender or credit union, we collect your name, work email, title and role on your organization's team, and any phone number you provide for alerts.

Deal information you enter: the details you type about a vehicle and a potential deal — year, make, model, trim, the VIN, prices, dealer and government fees, trade-in figures, down payment, the payment, term, and interest rate a dealer offered, add-ons like warranty and GAP, and the rate you'd shop. You choose what to enter; none of it is required to open an account.

Your VIN: you can type your vehicle's VIN or scan its barcode with your device camera. We ask for camera permission to read that barcode and fill in the vehicle's details, and — if you use the window sticker scan or the dealer-paperwork (contract) scan described below — to photograph the sticker or the paperwork; we don't use the camera for anything else. A VIN you type or scan is saved with your deal.

Window sticker photos: if you scan a new vehicle's window sticker (the Monroney label), we store the photo to your account and send it to Anthropic, our AI service provider, to read the VIN, trim, MSRP, and factory options from it. We keep the photo for 24 months, and you can delete it at any time from the deal screen. De-identified extraction results — the fields read from stickers, not tied to you — may be used to improve scanning accuracy.

Dealer paperwork (contract) photos: if you scan a dealer's buyer's order or retail installment sale contract, we send the photos to Anthropic, our AI service provider, to read the deal's numbers (price, fees, taxes, trade figures, APR, term, payment, amount financed and the like) so we can check the math for you. We do not extract personal details from the paperwork, such as your name, street address, phone, or email, with one exception: we read the city and 5-digit ZIP code of the buyer's address to check that the sales tax matches the rate where you live. They are used only for that check and are not saved. The photos are never stored to your account or to our servers; they are used only to read the numbers during the scan and are then discarded. Only the extracted numbers are saved to your deal.

Your credit tier and optional credit score: you can tell the app your general credit band (for example, "good" or "fair") so it can show typical rates for that band. If you choose to send a request to a credit union, you may also enter a credit score — for example, the score shown on a credit score disclosure a dealer gave you — or share your credit band instead. Both are self-reported estimates that you can leave out. The app never pulls your credit and never asks for your Social Security number or financial-account details.

Location: to help fill in your registration ZIP, the app can ask your device for its location. If you allow it, we use your location once to look up the ZIP and region, and we store only the derived ZIP — never the coordinates. You can also just type your ZIP instead. Your ZIP is used to estimate local sales tax and, when those features are on, to show relevant local offers, including matching you to a credit union offer for your county.

Phone number: if you ask a dealer or a credit union to contact you, or if you apply to advertise, we collect the phone number (or email) you provide for that purpose.

What happened with your deal: if the app asks and you answer, we record whether you signed a deal and what happened with your shopping (for example, that you bought elsewhere or are still looking). You're asked once, and you can decline.

Usage and analytics: basic information about how the app is used — screens viewed, sessions, and time in the app — tied to a random per-install identifier and, once you sign in, to your account. This includes which offers you were shown or opened and which kinds of details you chose to share with a credit union, but not the details themselves. When you sign up, we also capture how you arrived: marketing parameters in the link you followed (utm values), the referring website, the landing page, and your device platform.

VIN-scan diagnostics: when you scan a VIN, we record whether the scan worked and a shortened form of the VIN that identifies the vehicle's year/make/model family — not the specific vehicle — so we can improve scanning.

Vehicle demand: the vehicle type and the ZIP region you're shopping, used in aggregate to understand demand.

Advertising interactions: when the ad features are on and an ad is shown to you or you tap it, we record that event — including the ad, the deal it appeared on, the vehicle make and model, and how the ad was matched — to measure performance and bill advertisers.

Advisor conversations. If you use the Advisor, we collect the questions you type and the replies you receive. Each message you send is processed together with the figures from your current deal so the Advisor can answer about your specific numbers. The Advisor is optional; the rest of the app works without it.

Car search: when you use car search to browse dealer inventory, we send your search terms — the make, model, ZIP code, search distance, and any price limit — to MarketCheck, a third-party vehicle inventory data provider, to return matching dealer listings. We do not send your name, email, or phone number. If you then start a deal from a listing, that vehicle and its advertised price are saved to your deal. Vehicle photos and dealer website links are loaded directly from the dealer or its website provider. We keep a record of car searches (the search terms and, if you are signed in, your account) to measure usage and improve the service.

To provide the app's core features — decoding a dealer's offer, estimating tax, comparing rates, and (when enabled) showing relevant offers.

To deliver a request you choose to send to a dealer or credit union, and to alert that business's staff that a request is waiting.

To operate, maintain, secure, and improve the app, including understanding aggregate demand and improving VIN scanning.

To measure the performance of ads and offers when those features are on.

To communicate with you about your account or support requests.

Cardazo has advertising and offer features: sponsored ads matched to your vehicle and area, sponsored lender offers on the Rates screen, and certified-dealer referrals. These are controlled by settings that are currently turned off, so none of them run today. This section describes what happens when they are on.

By default, an advertiser sees only aggregate, anonymous statistics — for example, how many times their ad was shown or tapped. Those numbers do not identify you, and we do not sell your personal information.

There is one exception, and it happens only if you choose it. If you tap "Contact dealer" to ask a dealer to reach out, that dealer receives the contact detail you provide — your name and the phone number or email you enter — and, if you select the option to share your deal, the figures from that deal (such as the price, fees, and the payment, term, and rate you're working with). This is your choice at the moment you contact them. It does not happen unless you take that action, and sharing the deal figures is a separate choice you can decline. Once a dealer has your inquiry, their own privacy practices govern what they do with it, and deleting your Cardazo account cannot recall it.

If you tap a sponsored offer, you may leave the app for the advertiser's own website or service, which has its own privacy policy. We are not responsible for third-party sites we link to.

When Cardazo finds a problem with the rate on your deal, the app may show you an auto loan offer from a credit union that serves your area, based on the ZIP code in your profile. Seeing an offer shares nothing with the credit union.

Nothing is sent unless you tap "Send" after checking a box that says you agree to be contacted by that credit union by call, text or email about an auto loan. We record when you agreed and the exact wording you saw.

When you send a request, that credit union receives your name, email and mobile number, plus only the deal details you choose to include: your vehicle (or the details from your window sticker scan), the amount financed, the term, the rate Cardazo calculated from your payment and the rate printed on your contract, the dealership's name, and your credit score or credit band. Each of these is a separate choice you can turn off. The credit union also sees the estimated rate, payment and savings the app showed you.

A credit union never receives your contract photos, your window sticker photo, a credit report, or your other saved deals.

You can also skip sharing and go straight to the credit union's website, in which case Cardazo sends nothing.

Once a credit union has your request, its own privacy practices govern what it does with it. You can ask the credit union to stop contacting you at any time. Deleting your Cardazo account cannot recall a request already sent.

We use Supabase, a third-party cloud platform, to host our database, user authentication, and file storage. Supabase processes and stores this information on our behalf as our service provider. We may also disclose information if required by law or to protect the rights, safety, or security of our users or Cardazo.

The Advisor is powered by Anthropic, a third-party AI service. When you send a message, we transmit that message, the earlier messages in the same conversation, and the figures from your current deal — the vehicle, VIN if you entered one, prices, tax, down payment, add-ons, amount financed, APR, term, and payment — to Anthropic so it can generate a reply. We do not send your name, email, phone number, or credit tier. Anthropic processes this information on our behalf as our service provider under terms that prohibit it from using your data to train its models.

We use Resend to send email, Twilio to send text messages, and Expo to send app notifications, including alerts to a credit union's staff that a request is waiting. These providers receive the recipient's email address, phone number or device token and the message. Alerts to a business's staff don't include your name, contact details, VIN or loan figures; staff must sign in to see a request.

Apart from the dealer or credit union you choose to contact, and our service providers named above, we do not share your personal information with third parties for their own marketing, and we do not sell it.

Authorized Cardazo staff may view account, deal and partner dashboard information, including requests sent to a credit union, to provide support, investigate problems and keep the service secure. This access is read-only, and each view of a partner's dashboard is logged.

You can delete your account at any time. In the app, open More, go to your Account screen, and use "Delete account" under "Danger zone." Our Account deletion page (linked in the app footer, at /account-deletion) explains this in full, including how to request deletion if you no longer have the app installed.

When you delete your account, we permanently remove: your login and profile; the deals you saved, their negotiation rounds, the deal facts you recorded, and the contract-scan records (the numbers read from your dealer paperwork; the paperwork photos themselves were never stored); any dealer or credit union request records we hold; your VIN-scan diagnostics; and, if you're an advertiser, your advertiser account, ads, and creative images. This cannot be undone.

If you sent a request to a credit union, we may keep a record of your consent — when you agreed, the wording you saw, and which business you agreed to hear from — for up to 5 years, only to show that the contact was authorized.

Some records are kept but unlinked from you — the identifier tying them to your account is removed, so they no longer identify you: usage analytics, ad-interaction events, and vehicle-demand records. We keep these only to keep our aggregate statistics accurate. A request you already sent to a dealer or credit union cannot be recalled by deleting your account, because that business already has it on its own systems.

If you no longer have the app, or cannot sign in, email us from the email address on your account and we will delete it within 30 days.

Advisor conversations are not stored by Cardazo after the session ends.

You can review and update your account information in the app.

You choose whether to send a request to a dealer or credit union, and which deal details and credit information to include.

You can delete your account and its personal data in the app at any time; see our Account deletion page (at /account-deletion) for how, including by email.

You can contact us at SaveMoney@Cardazo.com with any privacy questions or requests.

Cardazo is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.

We may update this policy from time to time. We will update the "Last updated" date above when we do, and significant changes will be reflected in the app.

Cardazo — SaveMoney@Cardazo.com