Privacy Policy

Who We Are

FirstLienHELOC.com ("we," "us," or "our") is an educational website about first lien HELOCs and velocity banking strategy. We are not a lender, mortgage broker, bank, or financial advisor. We do not originate loans, make credit decisions, or pull your credit. Our managing company is compensated by lenders for marketing services it provides to them.

This Privacy Policy explains what personal information we collect, why we collect it, who we share it with, and the choices you have. By using this site or submitting a form, you agree to the practices described here.

Information You Give Us

Most of the site can be read without giving us anything. You only provide personal information when you choose to — for example, when you request a lender match or book a consultation. Depending on the form, that may include:

• Contact details — first name, last name, email address, phone number.
• Property and location details — state, property address, property type, and whether the property is a primary residence, second home, or investment.
• Financial context you volunteer — approximate mortgage balance, estimated home value, income or expense figures you type into our calculator, and what you're hoping to accomplish with a first lien HELOC.
• Scheduling details — the appointment time you select and your time zone.
• Anything else you write to us — questions, notes, or messages you send by email or through a form.

We do not ask for your Social Security number, date of birth, bank account numbers, or credit card numbers on this website. If a lender needs that information later, you'll provide it directly to them through their own secure application — not through us. If any page ever appears to request that information, do not enter it and please contact us.

Calculator inputs used purely for on-page math are processed in your browser and are not stored by us unless you submit them as part of a form.

Information Collected Automatically

Like most websites, we collect some technical information automatically when you visit:

• Device and browser data — browser type and version, operating system, screen and window size, color depth, time zone, language, and general hardware characteristics such as processor count and memory.
• Usage data — which pages you view, how long you stay, what you click, and which page or search referred you.
• Approximate location — a general region derived from your IP address (not precise GPS location). We do not store your full IP address; we keep a shortened version and a scrambled, non-reversible form of it.
• Cookies and similar technologies — small files used to remember your session and measure site performance.

We use Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics for this. We also use Google reCAPTCHA on our forms to block spam and automated submissions; reCAPTCHA collects hardware and software information and sends it to Google for analysis, subject to the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.

Identifiers We Use to Measure Our Marketing

We need to know which of our articles, ads, and referring sites actually help homeowners — otherwise we're guessing about where to spend. To do that we create and read the following identifiers. None of them contain your name, email address, or phone number. (The visitor identification service described two sections below can sometimes connect one of them to a name and address; that section explains how and how to opt out.)

• A visitor identifier. A random ID stored in your browser the first time you arrive, so return visits can be recognized as the same browser rather than counted as new people. It is shared across our own websites and tools, including our calculator.
• A device identifier. A code calculated from the device and browser characteristics listed above — a "device fingerprint." It lets us recognize a browser even if cookies and site data have been cleared. Under some state privacy laws this counts as a unique identifier and therefore as personal information, so we treat it that way.
• Campaign and click identifiers. When you arrive from an ad, a search, an email, or another website, the link carries tags such as utm_source, utm_campaign, and advertising click IDs issued by platforms like Google and Microsoft. We record these so a later inquiry can be attributed to the campaign that produced it.

We keep the first campaign that brought you to us and the most recent one, along with the page you landed on and the site that referred you. This information is stored in our own systems. Unless you have opted out, the visitor identifier is also passed to the visitor identification service described below, so that a match it returns can be tied to the right visit.

We use these identifiers to report results back to advertising platforms — for example, telling Google Ads that a click eventually produced a genuine inquiry, so the platform stops showing our ads to audiences that don't. What we send back is the platform's own click identifier and the fact that an inquiry occurred. We do not send your contact details to advertising platforms for that purpose.

Identifying Visitors Who Have Not Contacted Us

Most people who read this site never fill out a form. To reach some of them, we use a third-party visitor identification service (currently LeadPost). When you visit, a small tag from that service loads in your browser. The service tries to recognize your browser through advertising cookies and similar identifiers that it and its data partners already hold, and — when it can — sends us your name, email address, and postal address, together with the page you viewed, the time of your visit, your IP address, and the visitor identifier described above, so we can tell which visit it was.

Here is what we do and do not do with that information:

• We may use it to email or mail you about first lien HELOCs and the educational content on this site. Every email includes an unsubscribe link.
• We do not call or text you on that basis. Phone and SMS contact only ever follows a form you submitted with your number.
• We may connect it to figures you entered in our calculator, so that if you later speak with us we do not ask you to type them again. We do not send your calculator entries to the identification service.
• We do not sell it, and we do not pass it to lenders unless you later submit a matching or consultation request.
• Identification is imperfect. If we contact the wrong person, tell us and we will correct or delete the record.

You can opt out. Visit Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information and the tag will no longer load in that browser. We also honor the Global Privacy Control and Do Not Track browser signals: if your browser sends either, the tag never loads. To have a record we already hold removed, email [email protected] with the subject line "Privacy Request."

How We Use Your Information

• To match you with lenders in our network who offer first lien HELOCs in your state and for your property type.
• To schedule, confirm, and follow up on consultations you request.
• To respond to your questions and provide the educational information you asked for.
• To send you follow-up communications about your inquiry, and — if you opt in — occasional educational emails. You can unsubscribe at any time.
• To operate, secure, and improve the website, including preventing spam, fraud, and abuse.
• To comply with legal obligations and enforce our Terms of Service.

How We Share Your Information

This is the most important section of this policy, so we'll be direct about it.

We also share information with:

• Service providers who run the site for us — our web host, our CRM and scheduling platform (which stores your contact record and appointment), our email delivery provider, and our analytics and anti-spam providers (Google). They may only use your information to provide services to us.
• Legal and safety recipients — if required by law, subpoena, or regulator, or to protect our rights, our users, or the public.
• A successor business — if the site or business is sold, merged, or transferred, your information may transfer as part of that transaction.
• A visitor identification service — see Identifying Visitors Who Have Not Contacted Us above. It receives the visitor identifier, the page you viewed, and your IP address, and returns a name and contact details when it can. Under some state privacy laws that exchange counts as "selling" or "sharing" personal information, which is why we offer a browser-level opt-out and honor the Global Privacy Control signal.

• Advertising platforms — we report back to platforms such as Google that a click we paid for eventually produced a genuine inquiry, using the platform's own click identifier. This is how we measure whether our advertising works. We do not provide your contact details to advertising platforms for this purpose.

How this site is funded. Our managing company provides marketing services to lenders and is compensated for those services. We mention it here so you understand our relationship to the lenders described on this site. What matters most for your privacy is simpler: you decide whether to submit a matching form. If you do, your details go to a lending partner so they can contact you about a first lien HELOC. If you don't, you're welcome to read every page on this site and we will not pass anything to a lender.

We do not provide your contact information to unrelated companies to market their own unrelated products, and we do not publish or trade lists of homeowners. If you would prefer that we not pass your information to a lending partner, or that we stop using the measurement identifiers described above, you can tell us — see Your Privacy Rights below.

Consent to Be Contacted

When you submit your phone number and email through a form on this site, you're agreeing that we and the lenders we match you with may contact you at that number and address — including by phone call, text message, and email — about your inquiry. Message and data rates may apply. Consent is not a condition of purchasing any product or service, and you can withdraw it at any time by replying STOP to a text, clicking unsubscribe in an email, or emailing us at [email protected]. Withdrawing consent with us does not automatically withdraw it with a lender you've already been introduced to — contact them directly as well.

Cookies and Your Choices

You can control cookies through your browser settings — most browsers let you block or delete them. Blocking cookies may break some site features. You can also opt out of Google Analytics measurement across all websites by installing the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.

One thing worth being straight about: clearing cookies will not remove the device identifier described above, because that identifier is calculated from your device and browser characteristics rather than stored in a cookie. Clearing site data resets the visitor identifier but not the device one. If you want us to stop associating your visits altogether, email us at [email protected] with the subject line "Privacy Request" and we will honor it — see Your Privacy Rights below.

We honor the Global Privacy Control signal and the older "Do Not Track" setting for the visitor identification service described above: if your browser sends either, that service's tag is never loaded for you. Those signals do not switch off the first-party measurement identifiers, which are not sold or shared with advertising platforms.

Your Privacy Rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to:

• Know what personal information we've collected about you and who we've shared it with.
• Access a copy of that information.
• Correct information that's inaccurate.
• Delete your information, subject to legal record-keeping exceptions.
• Opt out of the sale or sharing of your personal information — use our Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information page. It needs no account and takes effect immediately in the browser you use it in.
• Not be discriminated against for exercising any of these rights.

Residents of California (CCPA/CPRA), Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, Texas, and other states with comprehensive privacy laws have these rights by statute. To exercise any of them, email [email protected] with the subject line "Privacy Request." We'll verify your identity — usually by confirming details you already gave us — and respond within the timeframe your state's law requires (typically 45 days). You may use an authorized agent to submit a request on your behalf.

This site is intended for homeowners in the United States. If you're in the EEA or UK, we do not target our services to you, but you may still contact us to exercise rights available under applicable law.

Data Retention

We keep contact and inquiry records for as long as needed to serve your request and to meet legal, tax, and recordkeeping obligations — generally up to five years after your last interaction with us — after which we delete or anonymize them. Analytics data is retained on the schedule set in our Google Analytics configuration. The visit-level measurement records described under Identifiers We Use to Measure Our Marketing are kept for 13 months and then deleted automatically; the summary attribution attached to a visitor is kept for as long as the related inquiry record, since a loan that closes months later still needs to be traceable to the campaign that produced it. You can ask us to delete your information sooner at any time.

Data Security

We use HTTPS encryption across the site, reputable hosting and CRM providers, spam and bot filtering on all forms, and access controls limiting who on our side can view submissions. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, so we can't guarantee absolute security. Please don't send sensitive financial details — account numbers, Social Security numbers — by unencrypted email.

Children's Privacy

This site is meant for adults considering home financing. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If you believe a minor has submitted information to us, contact us and we'll delete it.

Third-Party Links

We link to lender websites, government resources, and other third-party pages. We're not responsible for their content or privacy practices. Read the privacy policy of any site you visit from here — especially before submitting a loan application.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy as our practices, tools, or the law change. When we do, we'll revise the "Last Updated" date at the top of this page. Material changes will be highlighted on the site. Continued use of the site after an update means you accept the revised policy.

Contact Us

Questions about this policy, or want to exercise a privacy right?

This Privacy Policy is provided for informational purposes and is not legal advice. FirstLienHELOC.com is not a lender, broker, or financial advisor.