Privacy at SMO Energy®
SMO Energy respects consumer privacy and does not rent or sell our customer information to third parties. We also give consumers the option to opt-out from our marketing contacts such as direct mail. If you have any questions or concerns about the collection, use or disclosure of your personal information held by us, call 888.222.3720.
Unregistered Web Visitor Privacy
We do not collect automatically personal information from individuals who do not register on our Site and are just visiting the Site. We don’t knowingly probe visitor’s computers for personal information. We do collect visitors’ Internet technical statistics, including IP addresses, referrers, the type of browser and type of workstation used. With this information, we may gain insight into how visitors find us on the Internet, and how many Windows vs. Mac users visit our Site and use the information to improve our services to visitors and users. This information may help us to decide how much to invest in compatibility with different browsers.
Registered Web User and Customer Privacy Policy
A “registered” user to our Site is one who has elected to complete the registration page on our Site and establish an ongoing, personalized experience with us through our Website and related resources. Most registered users are SMO Energy home heating fuel or service customers. We collect personally identifiable information from you when you register as a user of the Site. The personal information we collect may include your name, billing and shipping address, email address, credit card or bank debit card information, including expiration date and security code, and mobile and home phone numbers. Your credit card information will be used only to process your transactions with us. Your credit card number and security code will not be stored on www.SMOEnergy.com. You are not required to provide this personal information to view the Site, however, you will not be able to register as a user unless it is provided.
We use the personal information you elect to submit to this Site as a registered user for our own research, advertising and marketing purposes, including sending you by postal and electronic mail information about products and services offered by us and by other companies that we think you will be interested in.
A SMO Energy home heating fuel or service customer, of course, might not be a registered web user of this Site, but we are committed to similar privacy safeguards for information gathered about you through non-web methods as well. We record our calls with prospective and actual customers and confirm before doing so that we have your permission to record our call.
SMO Energy collects various information about its customers as part of its routine business operations, including, but not limited to:
- ordinary business transactions, such as fuel deliveries, service history and payments
- credit information from third party bureaus
- billing, service and delivery addresses and contact information
- characteristics of heating and system used
- other information incident to the provision of fuel and services.
This information may be collected via the Website, in print application or other forms or in person.
Each registered user may have access to personally identifiable information we collect about that registered user, whether or not this information is delivered or collected through the SMO Energy Website.
Details of your visits and use of our site
We may collect details of your visits to the Site and the resources that you access, including, but not limited to, traffic data, location data, weblogs, and other communication data, including your IP address, timing, and content of what you viewed. Some parts of the Site use cookies and other tracking technologies to collect this information about your general internet usage and provide you with targeted advertising. See section below “How We Use Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies.”
How we use your data
The information that we collect and store relating to you is primarily used to enable us to provide our products and/or services to you in the best possible manner. In addition, we may use the information for the following purposes:
- To provide you with information relating to our services and/or products.
- To fulfill or meet the reason you supplied the information to us.
- To fulfill a legal requirement or respond to law enforcement requests, or as otherwise required by applicable law, court order or governmental regulations.
- To identify potential fraud or illegal activities.
- To third party service providers to facilitate our services to you (e.g., payment processing, order fulfilment, customer service, auditing, and/or other administrative services).
- To evaluate or conduct a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all our assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation, or similar proceeding, in which personal information held by us about our Site users is among the assets transferred.
- To any affiliated business entities.
- To advertise our products and services
- To promote products and services of affiliate companies that we feel will benefit our customers
- To conduct surveys to improve our products, services and customer experience
- Under no circumstances do we sell your data to a third party
Opt-out Policy
You can instruct SMO Energy at any time not to use your personally identifiable information for marketing and educational purposes by contacting us at Customer Service at 888.222.3720. When calling, please provide your registration information or SMO Energy account number. However, SMO Energy is committed to communicating with you in meaningful ways that we feel will be to your advantage. For instance, our marketing materials may include tips for heating and cooling, or suggestions on how best to manage a SMO Energy account.
Information We Disclose to Others
We use suppliers for services like marketing, Website, advertising, and to support our products. When we share your information with suppliers, we require them to use it only for the intended purpose and to protect it, consistent with our Security policies. Other than to our own service suppliers (marketing, Website, advertising and other vendors, and our financial and legal advisors), we disclose personally identifiable information to third parties only with your permission, or when SMO Energy is compelled by law to cooperate with governmental authorities, such as to respond to subpoenas or other legitimate inquiries, in connection with a stolen credit or bank card, identity theft, fraud or other criminal investigation, or otherwise, in accordance with the procedures prescribed by relevant laws, or in connection with a sale or merger of our company or all or substantially all of its assets (including a sale while in bankruptcy). We may disclose aggregated information collected from visitors and users to the Website and our customers to third parties.
Cookies and Standard Web Practices
Our Website makes use of cookies for some features. Cookies are not required to visit or view all pages on our Site, but you will need to enable cookies to perform some functions on the Site. A “cookie” is a small text file that is stored on your computer when you access a Website. Cookies can perform useful functions, such as allowing you to return to the Website and be recognized without having to restart an authentication process or type in your registration information. Browsers such as Microsoft Internet Explorer allow you to block the storage of cookies. While you may block the storage of cookies, know that some functions on our Site will not work properly without cookies. In general, cookies are used to identify a session as unique. SMO Energy does not use cookies on its Site for systematic tracking of its customers other than the methods mentioned below:
- Web Usage Tracking: SMO Energy employs various software tracking techniques to produce website traffic reports to understand and improve the Website experience for visitors and customers. These reports compile individual user visits anonymously.
- Secure Transmissions to Our Servers: We use a widely used encryption technology called SSL to encode sensitive information when you transmit it to us through our Website. This is generally the same technology used by your banks. Once your personally identifiable information is saved on our servers, we utilize a combination of operational, procedural and physical safeguards to secure your personally identifiable information from unauthorized use or compromise. To further reduce risk of compromise, not all data on our customer accounts is available through www.SMOEnergy.com.
- Email Security: Sensitive information about customer accounts is not transmitted by us to you via electronic mail. Our visitors, registered users and customers are reminded that email is not a secure transmission method and should not be used to exchange private information with SMO Energy, especially account numbers and permanent passwords.
Information Accuracy
Part of the responsibility for storing your personally identifiable information securely is to provide you with a means of correcting information you find to be inaccurate. SMO Energy provides a means for online updating and verification of all information you provide to us through our Website. In addition, other customer information displayed on the Site but collected by us through other business transactions we conduct with you can be updated by you by calling our customer service center at 888.222.3720.
Security Standards
SMO Energy safeguards the integrity, security and privacy of the personal information you provide to us. We store your credit card and bank account information with industry standard encryption algorithms.
For purposes of security, when you complete your registration with SMO Energy, you will have a unique log in. This log in information is for you to authenticate yourself when using your registered account. Additionally, you will be responsible for creating a secret password that will be used to access your online SMO Energy account. You are responsible for ensuring the security and confidentiality of the password. Keep your password in a safe and secure place and do not share it with anyone. You are responsible for purchases made using the password and login and that any activity engaged in using the password you specified during registration will be deemed to have been engaged in by you. If you think someone has obtained your login or password, please immediately our customer service center at 888.222.3720.
If we suspect there is security breach or other unauthorized activity involving your account, we may post a notice on our Website or try to contact you using your email or postal address or telephone.
The personal information we collect from you is only what is reasonably needed to provide you with our products and services. It is accessible only to our employees who need to access it in connection with your purchase of our products and services.
Privacy At Other Sites
When we provide links to other sites that we believe you may find useful, be advised that when you visit those sites, you will be operating under their individual privacy policies. We encourage you to carefully review their respective privacy policies.
Accessibility Statement
We are committed to making sure that this website is accessible to everyone. To make the use of the website a positive experience for all users, we endeavor to conform to the Website Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1 to level AA) in the design, testing and development of our website. We continuously seek to enhance the website, and increase the accessibility of our digital content, for all consumers. In addition, if you require an alternate format of our Privacy Policy or any other terms, conditions or forms on our website, such as a pdf copy of our Privacy Policy, please contact us at our main customer service phone number so we may provide a copy in an alternative format. Lastly, if you have an accessibility-related question or comment, or if you are having difficulty accessing information on our website, please call our main customer service phone number so that we can provide you with the information or access you need.
