Your Privacy

When you shop at Chai-Direct.com any personal information that you may share with us (and with the business partners that help this site function or assist us in filling your order) is kept absolutely private. Neither your name nor anything about you is sold or shared with any non-affiliated company or agency. Period.

We do, of course, ask you for certain kinds of personal information in order to provide the services you request. Several of our services and functions use cookies (see below). To learn how we keep your personal information safe and secure, please see our Security Statement (see below).

Types of Personal Information We Gather:

• Purchases - When you place an order, we need your name, address, phone number and e-mail address, plus credit card information if you choose to pay by credit card.
• E-mail updates - We need your e-mail address to send you status information related to your order. It will never be sold to anyone. Our system emails are managed "in house" and sent directly from us to you, without the involvement of any 3rd party. (Email newsletters are managed a little bit differently. See below.)
• Online account - If you create an Account with us, to place future orders more conveniently, we will store your name, address(es), and email. This is for your convenience only. The information is not used for any other purpose. For security reasons, we do not store your credit card information in this account. You will need to enter that manually for future orders.

How we use cookies

Your browser does not need to accept or use cookies to shop at Chai-Direct.com. However, several of our services involve cookies. These are for your convenience only, and are not used for any other purpose.

In addition, we also use cookies to help us better understand your use of Chai-Direct.com so we can continue to refine and improve the website for our customers. However, no user-specific information is stored or retrieved from these cookies. The information is simply aggregated into a total picture of how customers "en masse" use our website. (Our system is not capable of relating cookie information to individual customers or website users.) This allows us, for example, to determine which platforms, browsers, and screen settings our customers are using, which marketing efforts are more effective, and if human error may be occurring on certain parts of the website as a result of lack of clarity in direction or navigation. This helps us build a better shopping experience and keeps our marketing costs down, which ultimately enables us to pass the savings back to you in the form of lower prices.

Still, if you prefer, you can set your browser to accept no cookies, or tell it to erase all cookies at the end of a session.

Our business partners

In order to ship and track merchandise, we make your name and address available to such companies as United Parcel Service, Federal Express and the US Postal Service. In no instance are these business affiliates allowed to use your personal information for any other purpose.

We also outsource our email newsletter delivery and subscription management to PlanB Marketing. This company is strictly required to maintain total confidence, as ownership of the mailing list resides with Chai-Direct.com. We do not allow our customer’s information or email newsletter subscriber information to be given, sold, shared, or traded with anyone.

The newsletter is strictly "opt in". On checkout, you will have the option of joining our newsletter mailing list, or not. If you join and later decide to opt out, you can do so simply by clicking the unsubscribe link in any newsletter.

The email newsletter is different that our system emails (order status, shipping status, order followup, etc.). System emails are managed fully "in house" and are never given to any 3rd party whatsoever.

Your Security at Chai-Direct.com

We go to great lengths to keep your financial information private and safe. All credit and debit transactions occur in a fully secure area of our site, to protect you from any loss, misuse or alteration of information collected. Furthermore, our site is scanned frequently by the security professionals at ControlScan, to isolate and eliminate any possible security threats if they arise at any time in the future. So you can buy online with confidence.

Your financial information is safe
We use Secure Socket Layers (SSL), the industry standard in transferring information to process your orders. The SSL encrypts, or translates, your order information into a highly indecipherable code, which is processed immediately. In addition, we employ an outside company to "audit" our security and insure it remains trustworthy.

Your transactions are secure
When you've finished shopping and begin the checkout process, you will move into the secure area of our site. Once you've entered, the page address (URL) will change from http to https, to let you know you are in a secure area and the yellow "lock" icon will appear on the webpage graphics. Also, a key or a closed lock will appear in the lower left hand corner of your browser window to notify you of this change. You will remain in this secure zone for the entire checkout process.

You assume no risk
In the unlikely event that anything happened with your credit card transaction, we'd work with your bank card company to cover any cost and to minimize hassle for you. Our commitment in this regard is total and unconditional. It won’t cost you a cent.

On the Front Lines of Fraud Prevention

Additionally, we at Chai-Direct.com go a step further to combat fraud. Beyond simply insuring that we keep our customer’s information safe, we also work to uncover and prosecute criminals that steal credit card information elsewhere and try to use it fraudulently at Chai-Direct.com.

Our fraud prevention department identifies nearly 99% of all fraud attempts and forwards the fraudster’s IP address, shipping address, email and phone to the issuing bank and local law enforcement whenever possible.

We believe that e-commerce offers a tremendous promise to all of us as we move forward and help shape the future. At Chai-Direct.com we strive to do our part to build a safe environment for everyone to enjoy.

Thank you for shopping with us!

The Chai-Direct.com Customer Privacy Team