Privacy Policy
Last Updated: September 1, 2026
We respect your privacy. PawnValue.net never sells your email address or personal account details to third-party gold buyers, advertisers, or lead generators. We collect only essential information required to verify account registration, calculate payout metrics, and operate monthly cash giveaway entries.
1. Information We Collect
We collect information you provide directly to us when using our Platform:
- Account Registration Data: Email address, display name/username, and encrypted password hash (`bcrypt`).
- Verification Data: 6-digit confirmation codes sent to your email during signup or login to verify account ownership.
- User-Submitted Payout Reports: Karat purity (10K, 14K, 18K, 24K), item weight in grams, cash amount offered or received ($), pawn shop location selected, transaction date, and optional customer review notes.
- Automatic Technical Data: Internet Protocol (IP) address, browser type, operating system, referring URLs, device identifiers, and page interaction statistics collected via standard web server logs and cookies.
2. How We Use Your Information
We use collected data exclusively for the following operational purposes:
- To calculate, aggregate, and display transparent gold payout percentages across U.S. pawn shop locations.
- To authenticate your user session and manage your dashboard report history.
- To send 6-digit verification codes and essential transactional email notifications via our email service provider (Resend).
- To automatically enter verified payout reports into our monthly $100 cash giveaway drawing and notify winning accounts.
- To detect and prevent fraudulent price submissions, automated bot queries, and security threats.
3. Information Sharing & Public Display
PawnValue.net is a public community information exchange. Here is how your data is displayed or shared:
- Public Community Feed: When you submit a payout report, your display name (or initial), submission date, karat, weight, payout amount ($), and review notes are publicly displayed on that pawn shop's detail page and local city feed.
- Private Account Information: Your full email address, password hash, and IP logs are never shown publicly.
- Service Providers: We share data only with essential cloud infrastructure partners (such as database host SQLite/Prisma and transactional email provider Resend) who operate under strict confidentiality agreements.
- Legal Requirements: We may disclose information if required to do so by applicable U.S. federal or state law, subpoena, or legal request.
4. Data Security & Storage
We implement industry-standard administrative, technical, and physical security measures to protect your personal information:
- All web traffic and API communications are encrypted in transit via SSL/TLS (HTTPS).
- User passwords are hashed using salted `bcrypt` algorithms before database storage; raw passwords are never saved in plain text.
- Email verification codes expire automatically after 15 minutes.
- Cookies used for user authentication (`pawnvalue_user`) are HTTP-only and secure.
5. Cookies & Tracking Technologies
We use cookies and similar browser storage technologies to maintain active user login sessions, remember user preferences (such as search filters), and analyze aggregate platform traffic. You can instruct your browser to decline non-essential cookies, but doing so may affect your ability to log in or submit payout reports.
6. Your Rights & Data Choices (CCPA / CPRA / US Privacy)
Depending on your state of residence (including California, Virginia, Colorado, and others), you possess specific privacy rights regarding your personal information:
- Right to Know & Access: You may request a copy of the personal information we hold about your account.
- Right to Delete: You may request the deletion of your account and submitted payout reports at any time.
- Right to Correct: You may request corrections to inaccurate account registration data.
- Opt-Out of Sale / Sharing: PawnValue does not sell personal information. However, you have the right to request confirmation of non-sale.
To exercise any of these rights, please email us at privacy@pawnvalue.net.
7. Children's Privacy
Our Platform is intended for adult consumers and is not directed to individuals under 18 years of age. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 18.
8. Contact Privacy Officer
If you have any questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy, please contact our privacy compliance team:
Email: privacy@pawnvalue.net
Attn: Privacy Compliance Officer • PawnValue.net