Use of Information and the Privacy ACT 1988

HowToPay is committed to keeping all personal details supplied to HowToPay strictly confidential as per the provisions of the Privacy Act, 1988, the Telecommunications Act, 1997 and any other applicable act or mandatory code of practice.

HowToPay may hold the following information about you as a result of an application for service and or use of our services:

• Name, Business Name, Address and Postal Address.
• Date Of Birth.
• A.B.N./A.C.N.
• Account numbers and previous provider account numbers.
• Credit Card or Direct Debit details from financial payment which have occurred or are scheduled to occur in the future.

·         HowToPay Invoices

• Information obtained from credit checks performed using Veda Advantage.
• Financial Transactions including payments, refunds and credits.

·         Customer Notes of conversations held with HowToPay staff members

• Event notes of particular key occurrences in your account or services.
• Records of service usage including calls, data usage and dis/connection.
• Application forms, emails and faxes received from you as a customer.

Use of your Information

The information provided by a customer as result of an application or sales enquiry for the following:

• Establish your identity and assess applications to set up an account with HowToPay
• Provisioning or connection of services with third party suppliers
• Credit check with Veda Advantage
• Customer service
• Billing for services rendered
• Collection of accounts payable
• Fault finding/rectification of your services
• Dispute Resolution
• Forwarded to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman for the purposes of dispute resolution
• Generating reports for product analysis and trends within HowToPay  for internal use only
• Internal Marketing purposes
• Managing our risk exposure and help identify and investigate illegal activity
• Comply with our legal obligations and assist government and law enforcement agencies or regulators

Access to your Information

• Your account information can only be accessed by the authorised representative who was listed on the original HowToPay account application form or any other party listed as an alternate contact on the account.
• All account enquiries will require a four point ID check before any information will be provided.
• Access to your information can not be gained by any other party including direct relatives such as husband/wife and son/daughter without the account holder's express permission.
• The account holder must give written/verbal permission for additional contacts to gain access to a customer account.
• Access to your account may also be given where a signed “Appoint An Authorised Representative”form has been assigned by an authorised account contact.

Types of Information Held About You:

Under other certain circumstances your information may also be disclosed in the following ways:

• Integrated Public Number Database (IPND). Information on all fixed wire services are disclosed to the IPND directory including the name, address and service number. This also applies to all service numbers including silent numbers.
  This information is passed to law enforcement agencies and emergency service organisations. Silent numbers are not passed to directory listings but are passed to law enforcement agencies and emergency service organisations.
• disclosures to law enforcement agencies for purposes relating to the enforcement of criminal and other laws;
• uses or disclosures in accordance with orders made by a court or if required or authorised by law; or
• uses or disclosures to lessen or prevent serious threats to an individual's life, health or safety, or to public health or safety.
• Deliveries: contact details including name, address and phone number on a package/delivery label of an article sent to your premises.

Direct Marketing

• HowToPay will always keep your information secure from external parties
• Your information will not be provided to any other external organization for marketing purposes. You will be our customer and we would like to keep it that way.
• HowToPay does not sell it’s data.
• Your information will not be sold to for the purposes of marketing to companies which are not related to HowToPay.
• HowToPay may use your details to inform you of other products, services, specials and packages as they become available.
• HowToPay  also complies with all aspects of the SPAM Act.

Sharing Outside of Australia

• We run our business in Australia and overseas including Thailand, Philippines and Hong Kong. We may need to share some of your information with organisations outside of Australia.
• Information shared will be used solely for the purpose of providing customer service, collections and inform you of products, services, specials and packages as they become available.
• We take steps to ensure that all our service providers agree to protect the privacy and security of your personal information, and use it only for the purpose for which it is disclosed.

Credit Reporting

• HowToPay may choose to access information about you from a credit reporting agency such as Veda Advantage.
• This information is gathered from the details provided on your account application form.
• Information gathered is used solely for the purpose of:

·         assessing your credit worthiness for an application.

·         notifying of a default in account payment.

Website Security

HowToPay provides a very complex website with a large range of self help tools and online forms. This website may require you to do the following:

• browse existing HowToPay account
• online credit card payments
• account set-up
• adds, moves and changes information for existing services
• additional service sign up forms