Privacy

1. What we collect

When you join: your name, email address, and postal address. Payment details go directly to Stripe — they never touch our systems and we never see your card number.

When you buy a pair membership: your penpal’s name, email and postal address, which you provide. See section 3, which is about them rather than you.

As your membership runs: a record of which deliveries have been sent to you, and any correspondence between us.

When you write to us: your name, email address and the message itself, kept so it can’t be lost between the form and our inbox. We also keep a one-way hash of your IP address — not the address itself — purely to stop the form being used to send floods of spam.

When you visit the site: we use Cloudflare Web Analytics to count how many people visit and which pages they read. It sets no cookies, stores nothing on your device, and does not fingerprint your browser or follow you to other websites. What it records is the page you looked at, roughly where in the world you are, and what kind of browser and device you used — all of it pooled together, none of it tied to you. We use it to know whether anyone is finding us, and for nothing else.

If you sign in we set one cookie, which does nothing but keep you signed in, and your own browser remembers your basket. Neither is shared with anyone.

If you came from an advert: we advertise on Facebook and Instagram, and we use the Meta pixel so we can tell whether those adverts actually bring anyone to us. It tells Meta which of our pages you looked at, whether you started checking out, and the value of anything you bought. Unlike our visit counting, this one does follow you between websites — that is how Meta matches a visit here to an advert you saw there, and it is the trade we are making by advertising at all. We never send Meta your name, your email address, or your postal address.

You can limit it. Most browsers let you block third-party tracking; Meta’s own ad preferences let you control what they do with it; and “Do Not Track” or a content blocker will stop the pixel loading here entirely. None of that affects your membership or anything you have ordered.

2. Why we hold it

• Your address — to post your deliveries. There is no other way.
• Your email — to sign you in, tell you when a delivery ships, warn you before a renewal, and answer you when you write.
• Your order history — so we know what we owe you and you can see what you’ve had.

We do not use your information for advertising.

3. If someone bought you a pair membership

The pair membership lets one person pay for two. That means we may hold your name, email and postal address because a friend purchased a membership for you.

4. Who else sees it

Only these, and only for the reason given:

• Stripe — processes payments and holds your card details. We see the last four digits and nothing more.
• Cloudflare — hosts the site and the database where your membership record lives, and counts visits for us as described in section 1.
• The postal carrier — receives your name and address, printed on the envelope, because that is how post works.
• Meta (Facebook and Instagram) — receives the pixel data described in section 1, so we can tell whether our adverts work. Never your name, email or postal address.
• Google Fonts — the site loads two typefaces from Google, which means Google receives your IP address when a page loads. We’d rather it didn’t, and we may move to hosting the fonts ourselves.

We never sell your information, and we never share it for anyone else’s marketing.

5. Cookies

One, and only if you sign in: a cookie that keeps you signed in. It carries no advertising or tracking identifier and is not shared with anyone. Your browser also remembers your Shoppe basket locally, which never leaves your device until you check out.

There are no advertising or tracking cookies, and our visit counting sets no cookie at all — so no consent banner is needed. A cookie strictly necessary to deliver a service you asked for does not require one.

Stripe’s payment pages, which are on Stripe’s own domain, use cookies necessary to process a payment securely. That is governed by Stripe’s privacy policy.

6. How long we keep it

Your membership record is kept while you are a member and for a reasonable period afterwards, so we can answer questions about past orders and meet our tax and accounting obligations.

7. Your choices

• Correct it — addresses and names are editable from the member portal.
• Stop emails — every email has an unsubscribe link, except the ones we must send about an order you’ve placed.

8. Children

The Society isn’t aimed at children, and we don’t knowingly collect information from anyone under 13. If you have concerns please contact us.

9. Keeping it safe

Your details are held in an encrypted database. Payment details never reach us at all. No system is perfect, but we hold as little as possible, which is the most reliable protection there is.

10. Changes

If we change this policy in a way that materially affects you, we’ll email you before it takes effect.

11. Who holds your data, and how to reach us

The Vintage Letter Writing Society is operated by Glean8 LLC, a limited liability company organized in North Carolina. Glean8 LLC is responsible for the personal information described on this page.

If you want to know what we hold about you, have it corrected, or have it deleted, write to us from the contact page and we will answer.