Does Vanquish retain my credit card data?

[--VQ--]

Question: Does Vanquish retain credit card data? Also: Can I arrange automatic renewal? (asked by Alan of Pencil Expressions)

Answer: We never see your credit card data - even when you purchase the first time.

It is important for our customers to know that we never receive credit card data - even when it is entered by a customer during a purchase. Not even when you made your original purchase.

When you purchase online at a secure site (indicated by a lock symbol in your browser - and outside of the web page content), it may be unclear with whom you are sharing your personal data. With some vendors, it may be their own web server, in which case they have access to your credit card info. But if you click on the padlock and check the certificate, you will find that some companies shuttle you directly to your own bank or the card processor responsible for processing your payment. This is what we do.

When you complete the purchase, we receive a notice from the processor showing a list of items purchased and the fact that you have paid. The report includes only the last 4 digits of your credit card number to help trace problems in future communications.

This explains why you must re-enter your credit card data at the time of renewal. When you use our online shopping cart, we simply don't receve it at any time.

In the future, we may offer customers the ability to specify auto-renewal. In this case, we would continue to do this via the credit card processor, so that confidence and security remain high (that is, we would still avoid collecting customer card numbers). But I am hesitant to offer this option, because in my experience, people often forget that they agreed to such arrangements and then the vendor is accused of aggressive or illegal tactics.