Privacy Policy
Welcome to US Equity Advantage®’s Privacy Page. We know that you care how information about you is used and shared, and we appreciate your trust that we will do so carefully and sensibly. This Privacy Notice describes the privacy practices of US Equity Advantage® and applies to your use of our AutoPayPlus™ service. We are dedicated to meeting the highest standards to ensure the privacy and security of your personal information.
Definitions
The words “we”, “us”, “our”, “US Equity Advantage”, “USEA”, and “APP” refer to AutoPayPlus™ and “you” and “your” refer to you, our customer. “Site” refers to the AutoPayPlus™ web site.
Tax / Legal Advice: This Site is not intended to provide legal or tax advice. Consult a professional legal or tax advisor for advice regarding your specific situation.
Personal Information
Federal law requires US Equity Advantage to obtain, and in certain other circumstances, verify and record your name, address, date of birth and other information that will allow us to identify you when you open an account to use US Equity Advantage’s AutoPayPlus service and in certain other circumstances. We protect you by properly identifying all of our customers and maintain a strong Customer Identification Program. Additionally, our customer service professionals are trained to ensure that we verify your identity prior to releasing any information to you to safeguard your privacy and the security of the information you have entrusted to us.
When you contact us to help you with a problem, any personal information you provide is voluntary. We collect and use only the minimum information necessary to properly identify you to respond to your concerns and conduct investigations on your behalf.
When does US Equity Advantage collect personal information?
We know that you care how information about you is used and shared, and we appreciate your trust that we will do so carefully and sensibly. Please refer to our Privacy Notice page for detailed information. The Privacy Notice describes the privacy practices of US Equity Advantage and applies to your use of our payment services.
How Secure Is Information About Me?
We work to protect the security of personal information you provide to our websites during transmission by using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) software, which encrypts information you input. We restrict access to your personally identifiable information to employees who need to know that information in order to provide services to you. We maintain physical, electronic and procedural safeguards to guard your Nonpublic Personal Information.
Password Security
Your account is also protected by a unique password created by you. Hacking or guessing your password is one of the most basic tactics a cyber criminal will use to gain access to your accounts. We recommend against using common words or phrases as your password. Create strong passwords that are at least eight characters long comprising letters in upper and lower case, numbers and at least one special character. A secure password is your first line of defense against unwanted access to your account.
It is important for you to take steps to protect against unauthorized access to your account. You should keep confidential your password, security questions, and any other credentials used to access your account. The security of your US Equity Advantage experience relies on your protection of this information. DO NOT SHARE ANY OF YOUR LOGIN OR IDENTIFYING INFORMATION. If you do share your login information with a third party for any reason, the third party may have access to your AutoPayPlus account and your personal information, and you may be responsible for actions taken using your log on information. If you believe someone else has obtained access to your information, please change them immediately by logging in to your account and changing your Profile settings, and also contact us right away.
Are Children Allowed to Use US Equity Advantage services?
Our Services are not intended for use by children. Only persons 18 and older are permitted to establish accounts. If you are under 18, you may use our Services only with the involvement of a parent or guardian.
Other information
When you visit and navigate our Site and when you communicate with us via our Site, we will not collect personal information about you unless you provide us that information voluntarily. You should be aware that when you visit and interact with our Site, US Equity Advantage and third parties with whom US Equity Advantage has contracted to provide services to US Equity Advantage may collect technical, navigational and other non-personally identifiable information (such as a catalog of the site pages you visit) from cookies, referrers, IP addresses, environmental variables, pixel tags and similar technologies and information you voluntarily provide, as further described below.
a. Cookies: US Equity Advantage and our service providers may use encrypted or non-encrypted cookies in connection with this Site. Cookies are pieces of information that a web site places in a file on your computer associated with your browser that may be used to deliver content specific to your interests and for other purposes, such as security and other account administrative functions. This information is processed passively by your browser as you surf through this Site. Cookies do not cause damage to your computer systems or files. If you do not want information collected through the use of cookies, there is a simple procedure in most browsers that allows you to automatically decline cookies, or to be given the choice of declining or accepting the transfer of a particular cookie, or cookies from a particular web site, to your computer. For example, cookies allow you to easily log into the Site by remembering your e-mail address.
b. Referrers: IP Addresses; Environmental Variables. US Equity Advantage and our service providers may also collect “referrers” information, IP addresses and various environmental variables.
- A “referrer” is information the Web browser passes along to our web servers that references the URL from which you came.
- “IP address” is a number used by computers on the network to identify your computer so that data can be transmitted to you.
- Environmental variables” include, among other things, the domain from which you access the Internet, the time you accessed this site, type of Web browser and operating system or platform used, the Internet address of the web site you left to visit this Site, the names of the pages you visit while at this Site, and the Internet address of the web site you then visit.
c. Pixel Tags: US Equity Advantage and our service providers may also use so-called “pixel tags,” “web beacons,” “clear GIFs” or similar means (collectively, “Pixel Tags”) in connection with some Site pages and HTML-formatted e-mail messages to, among other things, compile aggregate statistics about Site usage, response rates and the effectiveness of advertising campaigns. A Pixel Tag is an electronic image, often a single pixel (1×1), that is ordinarily not visible to Site visitors and may be associated with cookies on the visitors’ hard drives. Pixel Tags allow us to count users who have visited certain pages of the Site, to deliver branded services, and to help determine the effectiveness of promotional or advertising campaigns. When used in HTML-formatted e-mail messages, Pixel Tags can tell the sender whether and when the e-mail has been opened.
d. Information You Voluntarily Provide: We may also collect demographic data, such as your date of birth, gender and zip code. When such data is not combined with any personally identifiable information (“PII”), such information is considered to be non-personally identifiable, as it does not personally identify you or any other user. Additionally, we may aggregate PII in a manner such that the end-product does not personally identify you or any other user of the Site, for example, by using PII to display content according to your zip code. Such aggregate information is considered non-personally identifiable.
Because non-personally identifiable information does not personally identify you, we may use such information for any purpose. For example, we may use this information for US Equity Advantage’s internal use such as to enhance web site security, to detect broad demographic trends, to assist US Equity Advantage in providing content tailored to your interests, and to otherwise enhance your experience on this Site. This information may also be shared with third parties on an aggregate and non-personally identifiable basis.
Monitoring Use
US Equity Advantage reserves the right to monitor any and all use of this Site in its discretion. However, unless required by law, we do not have any obligation to you to conduct such monitoring or to take any action based on any monitoring we may conduct.
Data Security
You should be aware that in general information sent through the Internet is not secure. E-mail services that may be provided through this Site generally are not encrypted and do not provide a secure and private means of communication with us. Certain services offered on this Site do provide a secure means to communicate with us, (this is indicated by an icon that appears on your screen when you are using such a service). For certain types of communications through this Site, we may require the use of encryption technologies provided for your protection and/or require you to use user identification information (“UserID”) and passwords. Remember, you are responsible for the confidentiality and use of your UserID, password, social security number and account number. If you become aware of any loss, theft or unauthorized use of your UserID, password, social security number or account number, immediately notify US Equity Advantage.
While US Equity Advantage may provide technologies and use other reasonable precautions to protect confidential information and provide suitable security, we cannot guarantee that information transmitted through the Internet is secure, or that such transmissions will be free from delay, interruption, interception or error. Please be aware that although passwords or other security protections may be in use, US Equity Advantage reserves the right to monitor any and all transmissions, stored messages and routine backup copies of communications to ensure appropriate system usage.
Be Wary of Internet Scams
There are several publicized instances where e-mails have been sent to consumers that appear to be from companies they do business and often provide a false link to link to fake company web pages that appear identical to the genuine company pages. Please read the following information to help protect you from the potential of identity theft.
Identifying Phishing or Spoofed E-mails
From time to time you may receive e-mails that look like they come from US Equity Advantage, but they are falsified. These e-mails may direct you to a website that may similar to the US Equity Advantage website; you might even be asked to provide account information such as your E-mail address and password combination. These false websites can steal your sensitive login or payment information which is then used to commit fraud. Some phishing messages contain potential viruses or malware that can detect passwords or sensitive data. (We recommend that you install an anti-virus program and keep it updated at all times.) Here are some key points to protect yourself from fraudulent e-mails:
1. Know what US Equity Advantage won’t ask for by e-mail- Your full social security number or tax identification number
- Your debit card number, PIN, credit card number, or credit card security code (including “updates” to any of the above)
2. Be wary of attachments in suspicious e-mails We recommend that you do not open any e-mail attachments from suspicious or unknown sources. E-mail attachments can contain viruses that can infect your computer when the attachment is opened or accessed. If you receive a suspicious e-mail purportedly sent from US Equity Advantage which contains an attachment, we recommend that you delete the e-mail — do not open the attachment.
3. Look for grammatical or typographical errors Be on the lookout for poor grammar or typographical errors. Some phishing e-mails are translated from other languages or are sent without being proofread, and as a result, contain bad grammar or typographical errors.
4. Check the return address Is the e-mail from US Equity Advantage? While phishers can send forged e-mail to make it look like it came from US Equity Advantage®, you can sometimes determine whether or not it’s authentic by checking the return address. If the “from” line of the e-mail looks like “usEquityAdvantage@hotmail.com”, “usEquityAdvantage@msn.com”, “autopayplus@gmail.com or contains the name of another Internet service provider, you can be sure it is a fraudulent e-mail.
5. Check the website address The genuine usEquityAdvantage.com website is always hosted on the following domain: https://usEquityAdvantage.com/ and the genuine autopayplus.com website is always hosted at the following domain: https://staging24.autopayplus.com/. The link or links included in phishing or fraudulent e-mails are usually designed to look like a genuine address. You can check where it actually points to by hovering your mouse over the link. The actual website where the link points to will be shown in the status bar at the bottom of your browser window or may show up as a pop-up.
US Equity Advantage® does not use a web address hosted on a domain other than the one listed above. For instance, variant domains such as “http://usEquityAdvantage/. . .” or an IP address (string of numbers) followed by directories like http://123.4.56.78/usEquityAdvantage.com/… are not valid US Equity Advantage websites.
Alternately, sometimes the fraudulent e-mail is set up such that if you click anywhere on the text you are taken to the fraudulent website. US Equity Advantage will never send an e-mail that does this. If you accidentally click on such an e-mail and go to a spoofed website, do not enter any information; instead, just close that browser window.
6. If an e-mail looks suspicious, go directly to the autopayplus.com website When in doubt, do not click the link included in an e-mail. Go directly to https://staging24.autopayplus.com/ and click on the link “Customer Login” and login with your userID and password. If you cannot access your account, or if you see anything suspicious, please let us know right away at (800) 894-5000.
7. Protect your account information If you did click through from a fraudulent or suspicious e-mail and you entered your US Equity Advantage account information, you should immediately update your password. You can do this by going directly to https://staging24.autopayplus.com/ and logging into your account. The “Update Password” function button is located on the “My Accounts” page which will show up as soon as you log in.
Reporting Phishing E-mail
If you have received an e-mail you know is a forgery, or if you think you have been a victim of a phishing attack and you are concerned about your AutoPayPlus account, please let us know right away be reporting a phishing or spoofed e-mail via the “Contact Us” page. There is a built in e-mail form on this page.
