Community Credit Counseling Services Internet Privacy and Usage Statement

We pledge that our clients have the right:

• To prompt counseling services for managing money from knowledgeable, certified counselors;
• To treatment with dignity and respect;
• To have their financial situation analyzed by a counselor and ask for help with an action plan;
• To receive prompt and accurate information about our services and their account status;
• To ask questions and have concerns addressed;
• To accountability and handling of their finances, including corrections of errors made by the agency;
• To express dissatisfaction through a Complaint Resolution Process;
• To discontinue their relationship with our agency at any time

Community Credit Counseling Services serves all members of the community, regardless of race, color, creed, religious affiliation, national or ethnic origin, disability, gender, age, sexual orientation, gender variance, veteran status, marital or familial status, income level or union activity or any other basis prohibited by law.

CCC is committed to assuring the privacy of individuals and/or families who have contacted us for assistance. We realize that the concerns you bring to CCC are highly personal in nature. We assure you that all information shared both orally and in writing will be managed within legal and ethical considerations.

We may compile aggregate information that you give to us, but this information may not be disclosed in a manner that would personally identify you in any way.

We do not disclose any nonpublic personal information about our clients or former clients to anyone, except as permitted by the client in writing or as required by law.

We may disclose some or all of the information that we collect, but only to creditors, or third parties that you currently have relationships with and may benefit you while in our program. We may need to disclose information during an audit. All auditors sign confidentiality agreements and do not share any of this information.

We maintain physical, electronic and procedural safeguards that comply with federal regulations to guard your nonpublic personal information.

CCC is committed to providing you with quality professional services. However, if you are not satisfied with the services provided or if you want to make a complaint, we ask that you follow these guidelines.

• Step One: Try to promptly resolve the issue with the staff member involved, providing specific information about your complaint.
• Step Two: If Step One is not possible or the issue is not resolved to your satisfaction, write or call the Program Director at 303-233-2773 and describe your complaint.
• Step Three: CCC may request a meeting with you by phone or face-to-face or may seek more information from the staff. The agency should respond within 15 days, subject to scheduling conflicts.
• Step Four: If your issue is still unresolved, you may appeal in writing to the Executive Director. After additional fact finding, this individual should provide you with a concluding decision within 15 days of receipt of the appeal in writing, subject to scheduling conflicts.

Our website may provide links to third-party websites and may link you automatically to sponsors' websites. We provide such links solely for the convenience of our users. We do not review or endorse, and are not responsible for, any content, advertising, products, services or other materials on or available from such websites. You assume full responsibility for your use of third-party websites.

Our clients are given the opportunity to "opt-out" of having their information used for purposes not directly related to our site at the point where we ask for information. For example, our Email newsletter has an 'opt-out' mechanism so clients who do not want to be contacted via email will be taken off of our lists. To opt-out send an email to info@community-credit.org. Please allow 10 business days for this to take effect.

Cookies are small text files that may be placed on your computer's hard drive by our servers to identify your computer. We may use cookies to recognize you when you visit our sites, to personalize your experience and generally to serve you better. For example, if you enter your name, address, telephone number, email address, zip code or other personally identifiable information on one of our forms, such information may be, but is not necessarily always, stored in a cookie so you do not have to enter this information again. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable information and are used only for calculations in the interactive tools. CCC can also use third party cookies for the purpose of site traffic monitoring. These cookies help us understand which parts of our site are most visited and helps up keep our site as up to date and helpful as possible. These third party cookies do not store any personal identifiable information.

Like most standard Web site servers we use log files. This includes internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, platform type, date/time stamp, number of clicks to analyze trends, administer the site, track user's movement in the aggregate, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use. IP addresses, etc. are not linked to personally identifiable information.

We post customer testimonials on our web site which may contain personally identifiable information such as the customer's name. We do obtain the customer's consent prior to posting the testimonial or to posting their name along with their testimonial.

If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes to this privacy statement on our home page and other places we deem appropriate so our users are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it. We will use information in accordance with the privacy policy under which the information was collected.

Our DMPs serve the dual role of helping you repay your debts and helping creditors to receive the money that you owe them. We receive funding from Grants, fund raising, fee based services and fairshare. Fairshare comes from voluntary contributions from creditors who participate in Debt Management Plans ("DMP"). Since creditors have a financial interest in getting paid, most are willing to make contributions to help fund our agency. These contributions are usually calculated as a percentage of the payments that you make through your DMP - up to fifteen percent (15%) of each payment received. However, your accounts with your creditors are to be credited with one hundred percent (100%) of the amount that you pay through us and we will work with all of your creditors regardless of whether they contribute to our agency.

Your participation in a debt repayment program can impact your credit. Your accounts that are revolving and open will be closed. If your credit report reflects that you have paid as agreed in the past, a debt management plan can have a negative impact on a credit worthiness decision by a potential creditor, landlord, or employer in the future. CCC is not responsible for your prior or future ability to pay and any late payments made prior to your account being accepted into a DMP plan may affect your credit and credit score negatively. In addition, creditors may report that you are on a debt management plan and are not paying as originally agreed although they have accepted the reduced payment.

Counselors cannot provide legal advice about bankruptcy. However we can provide services as approved by the Federal Bankruptcy Trustee’s office for credit counseling as provided in the Bankruptcy Abuse, Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005.