New Zealand Terms and Conditions

Last updated: 15 October 2024

 

ClearScore – our relationship with you

Here at ClearScore, we don't really like long terms and conditions, but these are important. Because these terms and conditions, together with our Privacy Policy and Cookies Policy (available at https://help.clearscore.nz/hc/en-gb/articles/11614545891090-Privacy-policy-) (our Terms), set out the rules which cover our relationship with you. They explain our responsibilities and yours, and how you can use our services. These apply to you if you use our services and are legally binding so please read them – in fact, you might want to print them out or save them on your device in case you ever want to come back to them in the future.

You should also remember that these aren't a complete list of all your or our rights or responsibilities, as there might be others under general law. If you want more information about your general rights as a consumer, contact the New Zealand Commerce Commission at https://comcom.govt.nz/.

Want to contact us?

If you have any questions about or feedback on our Terms or wish to make a complaint about our services, get in touch with us by emailing complaints@clearscore.nz If the question or complaint relates to information we have obtained from a credit reporting agency or other third party service provider, we may refer your question or complaint to them if we consider it appropriate.

If you have a complaint about the personal information we hold, you may contact the New Zealand Office of the Privacy Commissioner on 0800 803 909. If your complaint relates to our conduct, you may also contact the New Zealand Commerce Commission (NZCC) on 0800 943 600.

Key terms

Save as otherwise set out in these Terms:

• the services we provide are on an 'as is' basis
• we (and our other service providers) have no control over the content or accuracy of information provided by credit reporting agencies or other third parties
• we don't guarantee all of the information on our website, in our app, etc is up to date or accurate at all times and we accept no liability for inaccuracies or omissions. We recommend you confirm the accuracy and completeness of any information before relying on it.

Who are we? And who can be our customer?

Who are we?

We're ClearScore NZ Limited (ClearScore). Where we say "we" "our" or "us" in this document, that's usually who we mean. We might also mean anyone that might take over our business or we transfer our business to in the future. In a few places, we might mean one of our third party service providers or a subcontractor – this should be clear from the context. If you're not sure who we mean, get in touch and we'll explain.

These Terms set out your agreement with us in relation to the use of our website, apps and services, they do not create any relationship or agreement between you and any other person (including our affiliates and third party service providers).

We'll provide you with your credit score and report for free because we earn a commission from credit providers if you purchase a product or service from them. Rest assured, we never display or market products according to how much commission we're paid.

We are not an agent of any provider in relation to the provision of any credit or any offer. Our role is limited to advertising or displaying offers to you at the request of providers. In the interest of transparency, we may receive income from providers for presenting offers to you, or if you choose to apply to the advertised provider.

Our company details and registrations

ClearScore NZ Limited is a limited company registered in Auckland, New Zealand with New Zealand Company Number 8713780. Our registered office is at Level 4, 152 Fanshawe Street, Auckland, 1010.

Who can be our customer?

You're our customer (or thinking about becoming our customer), if we say "you" or "your" in these terms, we mean you. You are welcome to be our customer provided you agree to comply with our Acceptable Use Policy and you are:

• over 18 years' old;
• living in New Zealand;
• a real, live person accessing our services for your personal use (you can't use our services for commercial or business use); and
• accessing our services on your own behalf. You also can't (or try to) access our services for someone else. You'd have to ask them to sign up on their own behalf. You must keep your login and security details confidential. You are responsible for any use of our services using your login details, whether authorised by you or not.

Customer obligations

Refusal of services

We can refuse to provide a new customer with services or cease to provide services to existing customers, at any time and at our sole discretion. Examples of when we might do this include if:

• we find out or have reason to believe you're breaching these Terms (for example, you're using our services for business use or on someone else's behalf);
• you're rude or threatening to our staff;
• we decide to stop offering a service you are using;
• we think your use of our services is unlawful or you are breaching our Acceptable Use Policy; or
• your initial identity verification check has been unsuccessful and we have not been able to verify your identity.

Our Acceptable Use Policy

When you're using our services you must not do any of the following things. If you do or if we have reason to believe you either have done or will do, we may refuse to provide services to you temporarily or permanently or we may take other action against you (including legal action).

Some of these things are unlawful. Where this is the case (or we believe it may be the case) we may disclose your identity, your activities and other information we hold about you to law enforcement agencies.

Prohibited conduct

You must not, and you must not allow another person to, use our website or apps (including any content or materials on them) or our services:

• in any way that doesn't comply with any applicable local, national or international law or regulation;
• for any fraudulent or unlawful purpose or in a way that will result in complaints, disputes or claims, costs or liability to us or to you;
• to access or interfere with another person's account or information, impersonate another person, or create or use a false identity or email address;
• for your own or another person's business purposes;
• to harm or attempt to harm any other person in any way;
• to make any unsolicited or unauthorised communications, including of advertising or promotional material ("spam");
• to obtain or attempt to obtain unauthorised access to or interfere with, damage or disrupt any part of our website, any computer systems, equipment, software or networks on or through which our website is stored or operated;
• to modify, adapt, decipher, decompile, disassemble or reverse engineer any of the software comprised in or in any way making up a part of our website or services provided by our website;
• to scrape, reproduce, duplicate, copy, modify, distribute, publish, resell or transmit any element comprised in our website, including any software comprised in it, the content or the services provided through it;
• to use any technology or processes of any kind to access, acquire, copy, monitor, navigate or search our website or any portion of it (including the use of data mining, robots or similar data gathering and extraction tools); or
• in any way that is not authorised by us or is detrimental to us or our third party service providers.

You must not, and you must not allow another person to:

• take any action which may disrupt access to, cause damage to, or interfere with the proper operation of the ClearScore website or our services, including any action that may result in the introduction of any material that is corrupt or contains viruses, Trojan horses, worms, logic-bombs, keystroke loggers, spyware, adware or any other harmful programs or similar computer code designed to adversely affect the operation of any computer software or hardware or perform any act that would cause our website to become unavailable for use by others (including via any form of denial-of service attack);
• access without authority, interfere with, damage or disrupt any part of our website, any software, the server or other equipment or network used in the provision of our website (including where owned or used by any third party);
• directly or indirectly use any content on the ClearScore website for the purpose of building, improving or providing any product or service that competes with all or any part of our services or has similar features or functionality;
• use an anonymous proxy or other technique to prevent us from identifying your location or your IP address;
• use a robot, spider, scraper or other unauthorised automated means to access the ClearScore website or information featured on it, or harvest information from the ClearScore website, for any purpose; or
• do anything that compromises the security and/or stability of the services, or interferes with or inhibits any other user of the services.

We may monitor your use of our services and monitor your activity for security purposes.

You must fully cooperate with us where any law enforcement authorities, regulators or court order requests or directs us to disclose the identity or locate anyone posting any material or using our website or our services in breach of our Acceptable Use Policy.

Interactive services

Sometimes, we may provide interactive services on our website, including, for example, for you to review and comment on the services and products that we or product providers or issuers of credit make available.

Where we do, we'll provide clear information to you about the kind of service offered, if it is moderated and what form of moderation is used (including whether it is human or technical). We don't have to oversee, monitor or moderate any interactive service we provide on our website, and we expressly exclude our liability for any loss or damage arising from the use of any interactive service by a user in contravention of our content standards, whether the service is moderated or not.

Where we do moderate an interactive service, we will normally provide you with a means of contacting the moderator, should a concern or difficulty arise.

User generated content

Content standards

These content standards apply to any and all material which you may contribute to our website and to any interactive services associated with it.

Contributions must:

• be accurate (where they state facts)
• be genuinely held (where they state opinions)
• comply with applicable law in New Zealand and in any country from which they are posted.

Contributions must not:

• contain any material which is defamatory of any person
• contain any material which is obscene, offensive, hateful or inflammatory
• promote sexually explicit material, violence or any illegal activity
• promote discrimination based on race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or age
• infringe any copyright, database right or trade mark of any other person
• be likely to deceive any person
• be made in breach of any legal duty owed to a third party (for example be confidential information)
• be threatening, abuse or invade another's privacy, or cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety
• be likely to harass, upset, embarrass, alarm or annoy any other person
• be used to impersonate any person, or to misrepresent your identity or affiliation with any person
• give the impression that they emanate from us, if this is not the case
• advocate, promote or assist any unlawful act including copyright infringement or computer misuse.

Linking to our website

• You may link to our home page, provided you do so in a way that is fair and legal and does not damage our reputation or take advantage of it.
• You must not establish a link in such a way as to suggest any form of association, approval or endorsement on our part where none exists.
• You must not establish a link to our website in any website that is not owned by you or that does not comply in all respects with the content standards set out in our Acceptable Use Policy.
• Our website must not be framed on any other website, nor may you create a link to any part of our website other than the home page.
• We reserve the right to withdraw linking permission without notice.

What are our services?

We aim to help you take control over your own finances by helping you to access your credit report and credit score from credit reporting agencies. We let you do this free of charge. If you want to read up on what credit scores, credit reports and credit reporting agencies are, how they work and ways to improve your credit score, you can do that at https://sorted.org.nz/guides/tackling-debt/credit-reports.

We get this information from credit reporting agencies once a month on your behalf acting as your authorised agent and representative. That means that we procure this information on your behalf, as you could. By using our services you agree that we and the credit reporting agencies we get information from shall be entitled to rely on this authorisation and agency granted by you.

Presenting a credit report and credit score is subject to you passing appropriate identity authentication for security purposes. We'll try to assist you if you fail the process, but we do not have to notify you of the reasons why it was not successful.

We provide you with access to your personal credit score and other credit information (as defined in the New Zealand Credit Reporting Privacy Code 2020) about you (Credit Information) from credit reporting agencies, access to information and offers from third party lenders and other product suppliers, insights and information about your credit rating, and information and updates about other products and services.

We grant you a non-exclusive, non-transferable, limited licence to use our services solely for your personal and non-commercial use in accordance with these Terms.

Access to credit information

By appointing us as your authorised representative (to act on your behalf) under the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020 (Privacy Act) and the New Zealand Credit Reporting Privacy Code 2020 (CRPC), we can obtain your credit report on your behalf without leaving a footprint. We call this a "soft search". If you proceed to make an application for a credit product or service, the credit provider may perform a search and this will leave a footprint or record on your credit file. Using ClearScore allows you to monitor your credit information, gain insights and then apply for products and services.

This means the soft search will not affect a lender's decision whether or not to lend to you and it won't affect your credit score.

If you request access to and/or correction of your Credit Information using the ClearScore website or app, you appoint and authorise us, to request on your behalf as your agent, that the relevant credit reporting agency:

(i) provides you with your Credit Information (to be accessed through the website or app) and/or updates that Credit Information; and

(ii) provides you with periodic Credit Information alerts (to be accessed through the website or app).

You acknowledge we may exercise (on your behalf) your rights to access and correct your Credit Information under the Privacy Act and the CRPC.

We will hold your details and records on our systems and make this Credit Information available to you through our website. If there has been a relevant change or addition to information in your credit score or credit report, we may notify you by sending you an email.

Whilst you remain an active user of our services, we (or our third party service providers) will carry out searches against your Credit Information and, where applicable, your financial associates' credit information in order to provide you with your credit score, credit report and access to relevant products and services.

We will undertake analysis and profiling of your Credit Information and, where applicable, your financial associates' credit information (and any other information provided by you or on your behalf). We may also make tools available to you so you can do this yourself. This is to assist you in being better informed about, understand and manage your credit position, and in order to identify and inform you of credit or other products or services that are likely to be suited to your circumstances or which we collect about you through our website, apps and your mobile devices. We will use your Credit Information and any other information you provide or make available to us (and, where applicable, that of your financial associates) for the purposes set out in these Terms, including our Privacy Policy.

We may also use your Credit Information and any other information you provide or make available to us (and, where applicable, that of your financial associates) to identify whether you may benefit from additional guidance concerning your credit score and steps you can take to improve your score.

You will only receive monthly updates to your credit score and credit report while you remain an active user of our services. If you do not log in to your account for more than 364 days, we will no longer consider you an active user and shall be entitled to stop providing you with monthly updates and close and delete your account. Before we delete your account we will send you an email to alert you of our intention to do so. If we delete your account, we may keep records or data relating to you in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

We may share your information with third party service providers, such as credit reporting agencies, financial services providers and other advertisers, in accordance with our Privacy Policy and your account's privacy settings. Certain third party product and service providers provide us with their own services to assess your suitability for particular products and services.

If you want us to, we'll use this information to match you with offers for credit and other products and services. The offers won't be from us, they'll be from third party financial services providers and you don't have to accept these. We aim to present only economically advantageous products and services that you have a strong likelihood of being accepted for based on the merits of the product or service, and your profile. Some might save you money, others might not. The key thing to remember is that you need to make your own decision about whether any offers are right for you. We don't have all the information about you or your individual financial situation and we are not providing you with any recommendations or personal financial advice.

Making an application for lending from a third party

Third party lenders will use their own criteria in making decisions about you. Any decisions you make on the basis of your credit score or credit report or any other information we provide or make available to you, are purely your own choice.

Please ensure that you have fully read and understand any relevant information, such as the credit provider's terms and conditions, which should provide full details of the risks involved with any decision you make. You may wish to consider obtaining professional or specialist advice from an appropriately qualified and licensed independent financial adviser before taking, or refraining from taking, any action on the basis of the content on our website or app, which is provided for general information only, or any other factual information we (or any third party lender) provide or makes available to you.

In assessing a credit application, a provider may use information from various sources, including credit reporting agencies. We do not provide your personal credit score or credit history to the provider when you apply for a product, service or offer advertised on our website

Product comparison services

We offer you a price comparison service that can be used to find out whether you could save money on a range of services or products]. If you purchase a product or service from a third party lender as a result of using this service, that third party lender may pay us a commission. However, we never display or market products according to how much commission we're paid.

You may only use our service if you wish to find competitive prices for a product or service on your own behalf.

By using the ClearScore website or app and accessing our services, you acknowledge and agree that:

(a) we can filter offers of products and services that are displayed on the ClearScore website or app based on the personal information which you have agreed to share with us in accordance with our Privacy Policy, including your Credit Information;

(b) the offers displayed do not take into account your personal financial situation or your personal investment objectives, and you should not interpret any offer you receive as being appropriate for you or constituting personalised financial advice;

(c) we are not providing you with any legal, taxation, financial or other advice about the suitability or appropriateness of any offer, product or service;

(d) you should seek advice from an appropriately qualified and licensed independent financial adviser before making any decision in relation to an offer if you need assistance; and

(e) the ClearScore website may not present all offers that may be available to you.

You warrant that you will at all times comply with all relevant laws and regulations in your access and use of our services, and provide true and accurate information, and you will cooperate in any investigation relevant to your use of our website or services.

We are not an agent of any provider in relation to the provision of credit or any offer. Our role is limited to advertising or displaying offers to you at the request of providers. In the interest of transparency, we may receive commission from providers if you choose to apply to the advertised provider.

Your responsibility

In order to get a quote through our price comparison service, you will need to answer some questions on our website needed by all the different product or service providers and any intermediaries they may use. The answers you give will determine the products or services available to you and the amount you will pay. You must get permission from any other people whose details you propose to use in requesting a quote. If you submit another person's details, you are confirming to us that you have their permission to do so, and that they understand how their information will be used.

You are solely responsible for ensuring that all information you provide us with is true, accurate and complete and you agree to the assumptions we make. If you do not provide accurate information this could lead to your selected product or service being invalid and claims may not be paid. You agree that we cannot be held responsible if your selected product or service is invalid as a result of you providing incorrect information, to us or your selected provider.

As we work with a large number of providers it is important that you read the provider's terms and conditions, and that you read all documents issued to you by your selected provider and ensure that you are aware of any levels of cover, financial limits and any other terms that apply. If any information is not correct, it is your responsibility to identify the mistake and correct this with the provider directly.

Price delivery

Credit providers change their prices and amend their rates on a regular basis. Any price or rate quoted to you will be accurate at the time of issue, but may change if your quote or search is resubmitted.

Intellectual property rights

All intellectual property rights in our website and apps, in the material published on them and in their component systems are owned by, licensed or sub-licensed to us. All content on our website and apps is subject to copyright with all rights reserved.

Images, trade marks and brands are protected by intellectual property laws and may not be reproduced or appropriated in any manner without permission of their respective owners.

You must not remove any acknowledgement that we or any of our contributors is the author of any website content or any content we provide to you as part of the services.

You may download or print or screen grab content or individual sections or pages of our website or apps for your personal use and information only, provided that any such copy has attached to it the relevant proprietary notices and/or disclaimers. Any material downloaded or otherwise obtained through our website or apps is done at your own discretion and risk and you are solely responsible for any damage to your computer system or device or loss of data that results from the download of any such material.

You must not modify, adapt, copy, download or post material from our website or apps nor store any part of our website or apps in any other website or app or include it in any public or private electronic retrieval system.

You must not use any illustrations, photographs, video or audio sequences or any graphics separately from any accompanying text or explanation.

If you print off, copy, download or post to social media any part of our website or apps in breach of these Terms you must, at our option, return, destroy or procure the deletion of any copies of the materials you have made.

Privacy

We will collect, use and disclose personal information in accordance with our Privacy Policy, and in accordance with the Privacy Act, CRPC, and any other applicable privacy laws, including any determination, code or guideline issued under those laws (in each case as amended or replaced at any time).

Authorisation

You authorise us to use any information, data, materials or other content you provide to us through our website or that we obtain on your behalf as part of the services we provide, such as your credit information (Content) and you agree that we can use, modify, display, distribute and create new material using the Content so that we may provide our services to you and for any other purposes set out in these Terms, including our Privacy Policy.

By submitting Content you confirm and agree (or, as applicable, the owner of the Content has expressly agreed) that, without any particular time limit, and without the payment of any fees, we may use the Content for the purposes set out in these Terms, including our Privacy Policy.

Accuracy and non-reliance on information

Any information provided to you as part of our services is only as accurate, complete and up to date as the information supplied to us by you, the credit reporting agency or other third party we use to obtain this information. We don't check the information we receive from you or third parties for accuracy or completeness.

We do not control your credit score or credit report and we cannot change that information for you. If you think the information provided about you on your credit report may be incorrect, you can dispute it with the relevant credit reporting agency directly. If you think any other information we have provided to you has been incorrectly displayed, please let us know as soon as possible by contacting complaints@clearscore.nz. If you request a change or update to your information, we may ask you for documentation, including certified copies of such documents or statutory declarations where necessary, in support of your request (“Supporting Documentation”). If you seek any correction to your information through ClearScore, you confirm that we are authorised to provide any Supporting Documentation to the relevant Credit Reporting Body, and we will relay the Credit Reporting Body’s response to your request truthfully and accurately.

We don't assume responsibility for the timeliness, accuracy, deletion, non-delivery or failure to receive or store any user information, communications or personalisation settings.

We may (acting reasonably) change the content or functionality of our apps, website or any other method which allows access to our services at any time. Their content may be out of date at any given time, and we are under no obligation to update it.

We cannot guarantee that our website or apps or any content on them or provided as part of our services, will always be available, uninterrupted or error free.

Liability and indemnity

Please read the provisions of this section carefully, as they exclude or limit our liability for any losses suffered by you in connection with your use of our services.

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits our liability for death or personal injury arising from our negligence, or our fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, any duties or liabilities that we owe to you under the Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013 nor any other liability that cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law. Our services are limited to providing general factual information and our services do not constitute a recommendation or opinion about any financial product, service or offer.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, any representation, warranty, condition, guarantee or undertaking that would be implied into these Terms by legislation or otherwise is excluded. In particular, we do not warrant that the accuracy, adequacy, timeliness or completeness of information available on our website or app, or that it is suitable for your intended use.

Nothing in these Terms excludes, restricts or modifies any consumer guarantee, right or remedy conferred on you by New Zealand consumer legislation or any other applicable law that cannot be excluded, restricted or modified (Non-Excludable Obligations). However to the fullest extent permitted by law, our liability for a breach of any Non-Excludable Obligations is limited, at our option, to the cost of supplying the services again or payment of the cost of having the services supplied again.

Our services come with guarantees that cannot be excluded under New Zealand consumer legislation. For substantial failures in the service, you are entitled to cancel your service contract with us or claim compensation for the drop in value of the service (if applicable). You are also entitled to be compensated for any other reasonably foreseeable loss or damage.

If the failure does not amount to a substantial failure, you are entitled to have problems with the service rectified in a reasonable time and, if this is not done, to have the problems remedied elsewhere or cancel your contract. You are also entitled to be compensated for any other reasonably foreseeable loss or damage.

We will not be liable to you or any third party for any loss or damage, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty, or otherwise, even if foreseeable, arising under or in connection with:

• use of, inability to use or unavailability of, our website (or any part of it), websites linked to it, or our services;
• use of any products, data, information or services accessed or obtained or messages received or transactions entered into, through or from the services obtained or accessed through our website or apps including use of or reliance on any content displayed on or made available through our website or apps;
• unauthorised access to or alteration of your transmissions or data; or
• any inaccuracy or incompleteness of any information received by you or by us through our website or apps or as part of our services, including in connection with our ClearScore Protect service,

unless such loss or damage is a foreseeable result of our breach of these Terms or our negligence. Loss or damage is foreseeable if it is an obvious consequence of our breach or if they were contemplated by you and us at the time you accepted these Terms.

We are not responsible for any products or services provided by credit providers  or any other third parties or for any information that they provide to you. Those products, services and information are governed by the relevant third party’s separate terms and conditions of supply. You agree that we are not responsible or liable for any loss or damage you may suffer or incur in connection with any such product, service or information, or the terms and conditions applying to any contract you enter into with any third party in relation to their products or services, or for any acts, omissions, errors or defaults of any third party in connection with their products or services or the applicable terms and conditions.

It is your responsibility to seek independent advice or otherwise satisfy yourself that you wish to apply for, take out, cancel, exchange or request a change to a credit or other product or service before doing so.

Where we have indicated the relevance of products or services to your profile, or where we have provided indications of how much money you may save, these indications are simply based on factual information made available to us and are provided for information purposes only. They are no recommendations and should not be relied upon when making decisions. We do not accept any liability or provide any guarantee with respects to your eligibility for or success in obtaining products or services advertised on our website.

Although we take all reasonable steps to protect our systems using virus checking software, please note that any content downloaded from our website or apps is at your own risk. We do not accept liability for any loss or damage that you suffer as a result of any distributed denial-of-service attacks, computer viruses, Trojan horses, worms, software bombs or other damaging items resulting from your use of our website or apps. You are responsible for protecting your computer systems and other devices from exposure to viruses by the use of anti-virus software, firewalls and any other technical measures necessary. If you download our app or other digital content provided by us and you suffer damage to your device or other digital content you own because we have not exercised reasonable care and skill in creating such digital content, you may be entitled to compensation or repair at our expense pursuant to your statutory rights.

You indemnify us from any third party claims against us which arise due to your breach of these Terms or your negligence.

We indemnify you from any third party claims against you which arise due to our services infringing a third party's intellectual property rights (except to the extent caused by you and/or your breach of these Terms). If our services are alleged to infringe a third party's intellectual property rights, we may, at our sole option and expense, elect to modify or replace the services so they are non-infringing, or cancel supply of the services and terminate these Terms. To the extent permitted by law, this clause states our sole liability, and your sole remedy, with respect to our services infringing a third party's intellectual property rights.

Each party's liability under an indemnity is reduced to the extent that liability was caused or contributed by the other, and an indemnified party must: (a) promptly give written notice to the indemnifying party of the third party claim; and (b) allow the indemnifying party to conduct the defence and settlement of that claim (provided the indemnified party is not detrimentally impacted).

You acknowledge and agree that this section is fair and reasonable in the context of the services being provided to you at no charge.

Disclaimers

Without in any way limiting the “Liability and indemnity” section above, the following disclaimers also apply (to the extent permitted by law):

(a)   Offers and Discounts – While we take all reasonable steps to ensure that offers that we receive from providers, and discounts via the ClearScore website and services are presented accurately and are up-to-date, you acknowledge that:

• we rely on information provided by providers;
• offers and discounts can also change from time to time after they appear on the ClearScore website; and
• we do not accept responsibility for any information given by the provider to you, including information about any offer or discount.

(b)   Credit Reports – If you use ClearScore to access your credit report, or other Credit Information, we do not represent that any debt identified on a credit report represents all amounts owing by you to all or to any particular lender. For example (without limitation):

• your personal credit report only covers debt that satisfies the criteria for "Credit Defaults" under the CRPC;
• additional interest and default fees may have accrued on your debt; and
• you may have made payments to a lender which the lender has not yet notified to the credit reporting agency.

(c) Not financial advice – We do not provide any personal financial, legal or tax advice and we express no opinion on your debt repayment and debt management. Any content featured on our website is of a general, factual and informative nature only. You must consider your own individual circumstances before acting upon any of the information featured on our website. You should seek advice from an appropriately qualified and licensed independent financial adviser before making any decision in relation to repayment of a debt if you need assistance.

The limitations on our liability and disclaimers set out in these Terms also apply to our related companies and service providers, including credit reporting agencies.

Duration of our services and ending this agreement

We reserve the right at any time to terminate your agreement with us and your use of our website or any products or services contained in or obtained through our website, with or without cause, immediately upon our giving you notice in writing to the email address provided by you when you registered for your account (or any email address you subsequently provide). If we terminate your ClearScore account, your access to all services will automatically terminate.

If you no longer wish to receive our services you can close and delete your account at any time by visiting the 'My Account' section and clicking on 'Delete Account'. Please note that once deleted, your account cannot be recovered and you will not be able to access the credit or other information we hold about you through our website.

Please note that if you withdraw consent to the processing of your personal information, access to our website, apps and the associated services will be suspended or terminated. We may keep records or data derived from your personal information in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

General

The headings used in these Terms are for convenience only and shall not affect their interpretation.

In these Terms, unless specified otherwise, use of the singular includes the plural, use of any gender is deemed to include every gender and any reference to a person includes a corporation, a partnership and any other body or entity, and vice versa.

Use of the words, includes or including or similar words or phrases means without limitation and the use of these or similar words or phrases shall not limit the meaning of the general words.

Neither party will be liable for any delay or failure to perform any obligation under these Terms if the delay or failure is caused by circumstances beyond that party’s reasonable control.

Each of the provisions of these Terms (or part of any provision) is severable. If any such provision is or becomes illegal, invalid or unenforceable in any respect under the law of any jurisdiction that shall not affect the legality, validity or enforceability of the other provisions of these Terms. The provision itself shall apply with the minimum modification necessary to make it legal, valid and enforceable.

Failure or delay by us in enforcing these Terms shall not be a waiver of that or any other provision of these Terms.

You may not assign any of your rights or obligations under these Terms.

These Terms (including our Privacy Policy and Cookies Policy) constitute the whole agreement and understanding between you and us in relation to the use of our services. By using our website or our services you consent and agree to the processing of your personal information and our use of cookies in accordance with them. Except in case of fraud, all previous agreements, understandings, undertakings, representations, warranties, promises and arrangements between you and us relating to the subject matter of these Terms or your use of our website or our services are superseded, except as otherwise expressly stated in these Terms.

You agree that any notices and other communication may be given by us by email or posted on our website and this will comply with any legal requirement for such communications to be in writing. You also agree that any notice or other communication made in such manner will be deemed received by you 24 hours after email or posting.

Disputes and applicable law

These Terms and any dispute or claim arising out of or in connection with them or their subject matter or formation (including non-contractual disputes or claims) shall be governed by and construed in accordance with New Zealand law and shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of New Zealand.

Making changes to our terms or services

We may change these Terms, our website, apps and our services at any time (acting reasonably). We will notify you of any material changes to our Terms by sending you an email notification, by posting a notice on our website or app or through the services, or in any other manner we deem appropriate. Your continued use of our website, apps or our services will confirm your acceptance of the revised terms.

For changes that do not affect your rights or obligations under this agreement and that constitute a mere update of information, we may choose to not notify you directly. Please check this page from time to time to take notice of any updates made to the information here.

ClearScore Protect.

These terms (“ClearScore Protect Terms”) supplement our Terms and govern your use of ClearScore Protect service.

What is ClearScore Protect? All ClearScore customers who have a verified email address associated to their account will as part of the ClearScore service benefit from our ClearScore Protect service, including dark web monitoring. With ClearScore Protect, we provide you with monitoring services including:

• information on your credit report of any fraud indicators; and
• dark web monitoring that helps you to identify whether your details associated with your nominated email address, and passport number, if you choose to provide this, may have been compromised.

We provide this service to you in partnership with providers who monitor and collect information regarding data breaches from the dark web (“our Cybercheck Partners”).

 

If you do not wish to receive the ClearScore Protect dark web monitoring service, you may opt out of it at any time in the “Protect Settings” section of your ClearScore account.

How it works. To provide you with the ClearScore Protect service, we share the verified email address associated with your account with our Cybercheck Partners on a monthly basis, alongside your passport number, if you have chosen to provide this. We provide the ClearScore Protect service solely for your benefit and the email we use to provide you with the ClearScore Protect service must be verified and connected to an email account that is personal to you and is operated and controlled by you.

Our Cybercheck Partners will cross-check your email address, passport number or other personal details against their proprietary database to identify whether there are any recorded instances of your account or personal details having been compromised. Our Cybercheck Partners undertake every effort to maintain the quality and comprehensiveness of their databases, but a complete database of all breaches does not exist. You acknowledge and understand that if no result is returned for you, it does not mean that your details have not been involved in a breach. Our Cybercheck Partners use your personal details solely in accordance with our instructions and they do not use them for any other purpose, including marketing.

We will notify you of the results of the dark web monitoring on a monthly basis (“Notification”), typically by email and/or push notification, but we may also notify you of the results using any other means we deem appropriate. We may notify you of the results of the monthly dark web monitoring even if there is no recorded instance of your account details having been compromised in the preceding month.

Service details. The ClearScore Protect service is not a live monitoring service and we will notify you of cyberbreaches affecting your email account and passport (if relevant) in the next scheduled dark web monitoring check after it has been added to our Cybercheck Partners’ database.

ClearScore Protect is not a substitute for implementing appropriate security measures to protect your email account and your personal information (including secure, confidential passwords). You remain solely responsible for the security of your email account and the devices you use to access and use it.

Any decisions you make on the basis of the notifications you receive or the dark web monitoring checks, or any other information we provide or make available to you, are purely your own choice.

Notifications are provided for information purposes only and we are not responsible for any action taken in response to them. In particular, if a Notification indicates that your account details or other personal information is held by an unauthorised third party, on the “dark web” or elsewhere, we are not responsible for securing or procuring the deletion of that information.

The ClearScore Protect service is based on information supplied to us by third parties which is not independently verified by us. Accordingly we provide it on an “as is” basis and give no guarantees, and make no warranty or representation of any kind, in relation to it.

We reserve the right to terminate the ClearScore Protect service at any time for any reason, but will endeavour to give you at least one months' notice.

Your privacy. Please see our Privacy Policy for details of how we use your personal information to provide you with the ClearScore Protect service. If you ask us to delete any of your information in response to a Notification, we will comply with your request, in accordance with our Privacy Policy, solely to the extent that it relates to information processed by us in connection with the ClearScore services. If we do delete or restrict access to any of your information at your request, we may not, as a result, be able to continue to provide some or all of our services to you. We also have the right to continue using your information if our holding and use of itis necessary for compliance with our legal obligations.

We will hold a record of the dark web monitoring checks conducted on your behalf and will make this information available to you through our app and website.

As noted above, you are solely responsible for procuring the security or deletion of any information about you that is held by an unauthorised third party, on the dark web or elsewhere.