Privacy Policy

Carolina Components Group Privacy Policy

Effective Date: March 5, 2024

About this Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy describes our privacy practices related to certain personal information that we collect in our business and through our websites.  In particular, this Privacy Policy describes our practices related to personal information of individuals who visit our websites, of personnel associated with our customers, potential customers and other companies with which we have a business relationship, regardless of whether they visit any of our websites, and of individuals who contact us through social media to inquire about potentially doing business with us. This Privacy Policy, however, does not describe our practices regarding the personal information of our employees, applicants, former employees or family members of any current or former employee.

In this Privacy Policy, the words “we,” “us” and “our” refer to Carolina Components Group, Inc., a North Carolina (USA) corporation.  Our “websites” refer to the carolinaflow.com and flowlinxcomponents.com websites and/or to any website where we post this Privacy Policy.

The expression “personal information” refers to information that may be used, either directly or indirectly, to identify an individual or to distinguish an individual from other individuals.  This policy also refers to “business contact information,” which is information that may be used to contact individuals in their place of business, including their office telephone number, their business address or their work email address.  Because we serve the business community, most personal information we collect is business contact information.

This Privacy Policy describes our practices as of the “Effective Date” listed above.  We may revise this Privacy Policy from time to time.  When we do so, we will update the effective date above.

Personal Information We Collect and How We Collect It

We collect personal information:

• Through forms on our websites that allows visitors to send us a message.  These forms request a visitor’s name, company name, telephone number and email address.
• Though a “Request Quote” form on our websites that allows visitors to ask for a price quotation.  This form asks for the visitor’s name, company name, address, city state and zip code, email address and telephone number.
• Through a website form that allows people to add their email address to our newsletter mailing list.
• When we receive orders, either through one of our websites, or by direct contact with us, will collect the name of the person placing the order and their business contact information. 
• In the course of our business relationships with customers, prospective customers, resellers, distributors, suppliers, service providers, and others, we will collect names and business contact information for our contacts at those organizations.
• Through our social media accounts, such as LinkedIn, if an individual sends us a message or requests to be contacted.

How We Use Personal Information

We use personal information:

• For the reason it was originally provided.  If an individual requests that they be added to our email list, we will add their email address to that list. If personal information is provided in connection with an order, we will use the information to fulfill the order and communicate with our customer about the order.  If somebody contacts us to inquire about our products or our business, we will use their personal information to contact them about their inquiry.
• To keep a record of our sales and to respond to post-sale inquiries.
• To communicate with our customers, suppliers, and services providers about their business relationship with us.

In addition, we may aggregate personal information to discover trends in our sales data, to help set our prices and inventory, to help determine which products to carry, to optimize the user experience on our website and for other internal purposes.  Aggregate information based on personal information does not contain information about individuals.

Finally, we may use personal Information to detect fraud and illegal activities on our site and may report the same to law enforcement.

Sales and Other Disclosures of Personal Information

We do not sell personal information to third parties.

We sometimes make personal information available to our vendors and contractors in order for them to provide services to us. For example, we will provide personal information to our payment vendors to process your payments. When those vendors and contractors have access to personal information, we require the vendors and contractors to protect that personal information and not to use it, except to provide products and services to us.

Occasionally, we may provide personal information to law enforcement agencies in connection with reports and investigations into possible illegal activity.  Further, if our business is ever sold, the acquiring company will receive any personal information that we have in our possession at the time.

How Long We Keep Personal Information

We keep personal information indefinitely.  In particular, we keep personal information for so long as we need it to address any warranty, recalls or recalls associated with our products, to respond to any audits or as needed for legal reasons.

Information about Children

We do not knowingly collect personal information about people under the age of 18. In general, we do not believe our websites or our products will be of interest to children. If you believe that we have personal information about a child, please contact us using the information in the “Contact Us” section below. If we learn that we have personal information about a child under the age of thirteen, we will delete it from our records.

Tracking Information, Including Cookies

Our websites uses a variety of tracking tools, such as “cookies,” “tracking pixels,” and “beacons” to allow us to understand which parts of our websites visitors use at any specific time and to allow us to recognize them when they return to our website. Some of these tools are provided by third party vendors. In addition, our computer servers keep a log of various activities performed on our websites by our users and record information about the browsers and devices used to access the website. These logs and tools also allow us to manage and optimize the website by, for example, seeing which pages are visited frequently and how long they are visited and identifying errors on the website that may only affect a portion of our users.

Our websites use Google Analytics, a service which transmits website traffic data to Google servers.  Google Analytics does not identify individual users or associate their IP address with any other data held by Google.  We use reports provided by Google Analytics to help us understand website traffic and usage.

Payment Card Information

We use a service called eBizCharge to process payments on our website.  Your payment card information is processed directly by eBizCharge and we do not receive a copy of it.  Please see their privacy policy at https://ebizcharge.com/privacy-policy/ for more information about how eBizCharge uses your information.

Links to Other Websites

Our websites may contain links to websites operated by third parties. This privacy policy does not apply to those websites and you will be subject to the privacy practices of the providers of those websites, which will likely be different than our practices.

Additional Notices to California Consumers

The California Consumer Privacy Act (the “CCPA”) requires us to provide California consumers with the following information:

In the twelve months prior to the Effective Date, we have collected the following categories of personal information about California consumers:

The information described in items 1-5 above is obtained from the consumers themselves.  Information in items 6 and 7 is obtained automatically from the consumers’ web browsers.

We do not use or disclose “sensitive personal information” (as this term is defined in CCPA).

In the twelve months prior to the Effective Date, we have not sold any personal information to any third parties and have also not “shared” (within the meaning of the CCPA) any personal information with any third parties.

You have certain rights regarding your personal information:

• You have the right to know what personal information we have collected about you, how and why we collected it, our reasons for sharing it with third parties and the categories of third parties we provide your information to.
• You also have the right to learn the specific pieces of personal information we have collected about you. 
• You have the right, subject to certain exceptions, to have us delete personal information we have collected from you.
• You have the right to correct any inaccurate personal information about you that we maintain.
• You have the right not to receive discriminatory treatment from us if you exercise any of your privacy rights under California law.

If you wish to exercise any of these rights, please email us using the information in the “Contact Us” section below. If possible, please email us using the business email address which we have on file so we can verify the authenticity of your request.  Otherwise, we will contact you using the information we have on file to verify the authenticity of your request.  You may also exercise any of these rights through an agent by having the agent contact us at the information below.  We may request that the agent provide us with written evidence that you have authorized the agent to act on your behalf.

Certain computer browsers and plug-ins allow their users to set an “opt-out” flag to signal to websites that the users do not want their personal information to be sold or shared, and that they do not want their sensitive information to be used. Because we do not sell or “share” personal information or collect sensitive information, our websites ignore these signals.

Contact Us

If you have questions about our Privacy Policy or about the measures that we use to protect Personal Information or wish to exercise any of the rights you may have under California law, please contact us via email at privacy@carolinaflow.com.