I. Stack’s Bowers’ Privacy Statement
Your privacy is important to us. This Privacy Policy describes how the affiliated companies Stacks-Bowers Numismatics, LLC, Spectrum Group International, Inc., Spectrum Auction Services, LLC, Spectrum Numismatics International, Inc., Bowers and Merena Auctions, LLC, SGI France SAS, SBG Finance, LLC, and Stacks-Bowers and Ponterio, LTD (collectively, “we,” “us,” or “our,”) collect, use, and share personally identifiable information or personal data (“Personal Information”), including when you visit the websites that we maintain (the “Sites”).
This Privacy Policy is part of the Terms of Use governing your use of the Sites. By accessing the Sites or providing your Personal Information through them, you agree to our use of Personal Information as described in this Privacy Policy. If you disagree with any part of this Privacy Policy, you should not access the Sites.
Notice to US residents: if you are a resident of certain states, you may have additional privacy rights. For a complete description of those rights and how we use your Personal Information, please visit our US Privacy Rights page.
Notice to EU, UK, and Canadian residents: if you are a resident of the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or Canada, you may have additional privacy rights. For a complete description of those rights and how we use your Personal Information, please visit our EU, UK, and Canada Privacy Rights page.
Notice to our employees: we process Personal Information for standard employment-related purposes. Please see our Employee Privacy Policy for additional information.
II. Collection of Your Information
The Personal Information that we collect depends on the nature of our relationship with you. Below are some of the ways we may collect and use Personal Information and our legal or business purposes for doing so.
Accounts: Before accessing certain features of the Sites, you may need to create an online account. When you do, you will be prompted to provide us with Personal Information that may include your name, address, birthdate, telephone number, and email address.
Products and Services: If you choose to purchase or sell a product through the Sites, or use our services through the Sites, we may ask you for Personal Information, including your name, email address, telephone number, billing address, credit card number, Social Security Number, and certain financial information. If you are using auction services on one of the Sites, we may collect information about your auction activity and bidding history.
You may download or otherwise obtain forms or applications for services that you then transmit to us in connection with our products and services. These forms may ask for Personal Information, including your name, address, telephone number, driver’s license number, email address, Social Security Number, birthdate, and certain financial information.
If you are applying for a loan through one of the Sites, we may collect Personal Information, including your name, phone number, address, email address, and, where applicable, your credit card or other payment information, demographic information, Social Security Number, banking information, and credit and payments history.
Our Business Contacts and Service Providers: We collect information necessary to administer our business from our business contacts and service providers, including names, contact information, invoices, order information, and other financial information.
Communications: In order to provide you with customer service, or provide you with news, offers, catalogs, or other promotional information that you request, we may ask for Personal Information including your name, shipping address, telephone number, email, and online account information. If we encounter a problem when processing your orders, forms, or applications, or when attempting to provide you with requested services, we may use your Personal Information to contact you.
If you are communicating with us via telephone or online chat, we may monitor or record any calls or chats for quality control and for our records. Our third-party telephone and online chat service providers may also record these communications. We will inform you that your call or chat may be monitored or recorded before it begins. We do not consent to the recording of telephone conversations or by you or by any other party on your behalf. Any calls or chats you have with us are not confidential and are not private.
Third Parties: We may update and supplement Personal Information that we have collected directly from our customers with other information that we obtain from third parties. This may include information regarding demographics, income estimations, households, and marital status. In order to conduct due diligence in connection with your orders or service requests, we may acquire additional Personal Information about you from third parties. When we associate information that we obtain from third parties with Personal Information that we have collected from you, we will treat the acquired information like the information that we collected ourselves and, except as described in this Privacy Policy, the information will not be shared with third parties.
Cookies and Other Technologies: Like most websites, our Sites use cookies, web beacons (also known as “pixel tags” or “action tags”), and other technologies to collect Personal Information. Cookies are small pieces of information that are stored as text files by your Internet browser on your computer’s hard drive. We use cookies to facilitate your navigation of the Sites, enable you to select products, place products in an online shopping cart, and to purchase products, recognize you and your access privileges, track your usage of the Sites, and provide you with information or advertising relating to our products or services. We use web beacons to assist us in delivering cookies and help us determine whether you have viewed web pages on the Sites and, if so, how many times. We keep a record of your browsing activity and purchase history. Most internet browsers are initially set to accept cookies. You can set your browser to refuse cookies from websites or to remove cookies from your hard drive. If you do so, you may not be able to access or use portions of the Sites, and you may be required to re-enter login details.
We use anonymous identifiers to speed up your navigation of the Sites, recognize you and your access privileges, and track your usage of the Sites. An anonymous identifier is a random string of characters that we use for the same purposes as a cookie on platforms, including certain mobile devices, where cookie technology is not available.
We use third-party companies to help tailor our Sites’ content to users, to serve ads on our behalf, and to conduct data analysis. These companies may employ cookies and web beacons to measure advertising effectiveness (such as which web pages are visited or what products are purchased). Any information that these third parties collect via cookies and web beacons is not linked to any Personal Information collected by us.
The Sites use Google Analytics to collect information about use of the Sites. Google Analytics collects information such as how often users visit the Sites, what pages they visit when they do so, and what other websites they used prior to visiting the Sites. We use the information we receive from Google Analytics to improve the Sites. We do not combine the information collected through the use of Google Analytics with Personal Information. Google’s ability to use and share information collected by Google Analytics about your visits to this site is restricted by the Google Analytics Terms of Use and the Google Privacy Policy. To learn more, please review the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.
Log Files: The Sites’ servers automatically recognize the Internet URL from which you access the Sites. We may also log your IP address, Internet service provider, and date/time stamp for system administration and troubleshooting, order verification, internal marketing, and for Site security or to prevent fraud.
Universal Opt-out Mechanisms: Universal Opt-out Mechanisms (“UOMs”) are browser signals that indicate a visitor’s intent to opt-out of some uses of their Personal Information on websites they visit. If our Sites recognize that your browser is expressing a UOM, we will treat it as a request to opt-out of the sharing of your Personal Information. Our Sites do not respond to “Do Not Track” signals. In most cases, we will not be able to link the UOM of your browser to other Personal Information that we have collected from you by other means. To express your intent to opt-out of our processing Personal Information collected from you outside of our Website, please see the sections describing your opt-out rights below.
III. Use of Your Information
We may use your Personal Information for various business purposes, including:
Orders and Services: We may use your Personal Information for registering your account, processing, tracking, and fulfilling your orders and transactions, performing requested services, sending you invoices, communicating about your orders, keeping records of your account history, and to investigate and prevent fraud. We also use your Personal Information to provide you with customer service and notify you of technical updates when necessary (for example, if we must temporarily suspend any services for maintenance).
Marketing and Advertising: If you have submitted Personal Information in order to receive news, catalogs, or special offers, to participate in promotions, or for any other marketing purposes, we may use your Personal Information to deliver information to you. We always permit you to unsubscribe or opt out of future emails (see below for more details). Because we have to communicate with you about orders that you choose to place, you cannot opt out of receiving communications related to your orders. We also use your Personal Information to deliver advertisements or other information regarding products and services that may be of interest to you.
Internal Use: We may internally use your Personal Information to improve the Sites’ content and layout, improve security of the Sites and prevent fraud, to improve outreach, for our own marketing efforts, and to determine general marketplace information about visitors to the Sites. For example, we may analyze server log data and certain Personal Information in an aggregate form, such as aggregate purchase price and preferences, in order to develop new products or services.
IV. Sharing Your Information
We may share Personal Information with third parties to perform specific functions on our behalf. When we disclose Personal Information to these third-parties, we do so in order to help them perform their services.
We provide Personal Information to third-party service providers to help us operate our Sites, maintain customers’ online accounts, provide our products and services, ship products and generally administer our business. We may use third-party providers to verify your delivery or credit card information, or to otherwise conduct due diligence to ensure proper processing of your order and to minimize the risk of fraudulent transactions. We may also use your Personal Information to report to credit bureaus, if necessary. In order for you to obtain our products and services, we may need to provide your credit card number to third-party financial services corporations such as credit-card processors.
We use third-party companies to help tailor the Sites’ content to users, to serve ads on our behalf, and to conduct data analysis. We also purchase marketing data from third parties and add it to our existing user database in order to better target our advertising, communicate with you about our products and special offers, and enhance your experience on the Sites.
We may share the Personal Information of consumers within our affiliated companies to provide you with offers for products or services from those companies.
We may also disclose Personal Information in response to requests from government authorities or law enforcement officials conducting investigations, subpoenas, or court orders, or if we are otherwise required to disclose such information by law. We may also disclose Personal Information where disclosure is necessary to protect our legal rights, enforce our agreements, or protect the rights, property, or safety of others or ourselves. For example, we may share information to reduce the risk of fraud or if someone uses or attempts to use the Sites for illegal reasons or to commit fraud.
We, and any of our Affiliated Companies, might acquire or merge with, or be acquired by or merged with, another company, or we might dispose of some or all of our assets via sale, reorganization, consolidation, or liquidation. If that happens, your Personal Information may be disclosed or transferred to another company.
V. Protecting Your Information
We take reasonable and appropriate measures designed to protect your Personal Information. We use administrative, technical and physical safeguards intended to help protect customer information from unauthorized access and improper use. While we strive to protect your Personal Information and privacy, no data transmission or storage is 100% safe. We cannot guarantee or warrant the security of any information disclosed or transmitted to us and cannot be responsible for the theft, destruction or inadvertent disclosure of Personal Information.
VI. Retaining Your Information
We do not retain Personal Information for longer than reasonably necessary to fulfill the business purposes for which it was collected, conduct audits, enforce our legal rights, prevent fraud and ensure security, or comply with our legal obligations. Our retention periods for Personal Information vary depending on the nature of our relationship with you, the sensitivity of the Personal Information, and the risks involved with any related processing. We regularly review our data retention periods and update these policies as needed.
VII. Children’s Data
Our Site and products are not intended for use by children. We do not knowingly or intentionally collect Personal Information from persons who are under the age of eighteen (18). If you are under the age of eighteen (18), you should not use the Sites or otherwise submit Personal Information to us.
VIII. Third-Party “Linked-To” Websites
When you are on the Sites, you may have the opportunity to click on links to other websites, including websites operated by unaffiliated third parties. Websites that we do not operate may collect Personal Information about you. We do not control websites that are operated by these unaffiliated third parties and we are not responsible for the information practices of these websites. We encourage you to look for and review the privacy policy of all unaffiliated websites that you visit.
IX. Updates to the Privacy Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy. When we do so, we will revise the “Last Updated” date of this Privacy Policy. We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy from time to time so you will know if the Privacy Policy has been changed or updated. If you have any questions about the Privacy Policy, please contact us.
Last updated: July 1, 2024
