Legal
Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy describes how Tree of Life Funding collects, uses, discloses, and safeguards personal information when you visit our website, submit a funding application, or interact with our team and partners.
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1. Introduction and Scope
This Privacy Policy ("Policy") explains how Tree of Life Funding, Inc. ("Tree of Life Funding," "we," "us," or "our") collects, uses, discloses, and protects personal information when you visit https://treeoflifefunding.com, submit a funding inquiry or application, use our applicant dashboard, partner and ISO portals, community forum, calculators and tools, communicate with us, or otherwise interact with our products and services (collectively, the "Services").
This Policy applies to personal information we collect through the Services and in related offline interactions (such as phone calls with our team). It does not apply to the practices of independent third parties, including the lenders, funders, banks, and other capital providers we may connect you with ("Funding Partners"), or other third parties whose websites or services may be linked from the Services. When you enter into a relationship with a Funding Partner, that party's own privacy notice governs its handling of your information, and we encourage you to review it.
By using the Services, you acknowledge this Policy. If you do not agree, please do not use the Services.
2. Key Terms
"Personal information" means information that identifies, relates to, describes, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular individual or household. It does not include de-identified, aggregated, or publicly available information as defined by applicable law. "Sensitive personal information" includes categories such as government identifiers, financial account information, and certain biometric or identity-verification data, as described below.
3. Who Is Responsible for Your Information
Tree of Life Funding, Inc. is the business responsible for personal information collected through the Services described here (the "business" or "controller," depending on applicable law). Our contact details are in Section 25.
When we share information with Funding Partners, Partners, or service providers, those parties may act as independent controllers, processors, or service providers with respect to the information they receive, depending on the relationship and applicable law.
4. Personal Information We Collect
The categories and specific pieces of personal information we collect depend on how you interact with the Services. We collect the following:
Identifiers and contact information
- Name, email address, telephone number, mailing or business address, job title and role, and online identifiers such as IP address and device identifiers.
- Account credentials (passwords are stored in hashed form).
Business and application information
- Legal business name, business type and industry, time in business, number of employees, ownership and ownership percentage, and business contact details.
- Funding amount requested, intended use of funds, monthly or annual revenue ranges, and other application inputs.
- Employer Identification Number (EIN) and, where you provide it, other tax identification information.
Financial information
- Bank account information and statements, balances, deposits, and transaction history (including data you authorize us to access through a third-party bank-connection provider).
- Credit and underwriting information obtained from consumer reporting agencies and commercial credit sources when you authorize a funding process.
- Payment information, if you make payments through the Services (processed by our payment processor; we do not store full card numbers on our servers).
Identity-verification and sensitive information
- Government-issued identification documents (such as a driver's license or passport) and the information they contain.
- A photograph or 'selfie' you submit for identity verification, which may be processed by identity-verification or facial-comparison technology to confirm your identity. Where this processing involves biometric identifiers or information, we use it only for identity verification and fraud prevention, retain it only as long as needed for those purposes or as required by law, and do not sell it. See Section 21.
- Financial account numbers, government identifiers, and similar data that may be considered 'sensitive' under applicable law.
Communications and user content
- Messages and correspondence with our team, chat-widget interactions, call recordings and notes, survey responses, support inquiries, and forum posts and other user content.
Partner and referral information
- For Partners and ISOs: firm details, contact information, referral metadata, and commission-related records.
Automatically collected usage and device information
- Device and connection data such as IP address, browser type, operating system, device type, and language.
- Usage data such as pages viewed, links clicked, referring and exit pages, search terms, session duration, and interactions with the Services.
- Cookie and tracking-technology data (see Section 7), and, where enabled, analytics and session-replay data that may capture on-screen interactions (with sensitive fields masked where configured).
- Marketing and advertising identifiers, including campaign and click identifiers and conversion data.
5. Sources of Personal Information
- Directly from you, when you submit forms, create an account, upload documents, communicate with us, or use the Services.
- Automatically, through cookies and similar technologies as you use the Services.
- From service providers, such as hosting, analytics, advertising, identity-verification, fraud-prevention, and bank-connection providers.
- From consumer reporting agencies and commercial credit sources, when you authorize a funding process.
- From Funding Partners and Partners, in connection with applications and referrals.
- From advertising and marketing platforms and lead sources, and from publicly available sources.
6. How We Use Personal Information
We use personal information for the following business and commercial purposes:
- Receive, process, and evaluate funding inquiries and applications and connect you with Funding Partners.
- Verify your identity and the accuracy of information, and prevent, detect, and investigate fraud, security incidents, and other unlawful or malicious activity.
- Communicate with you about your inquiry, application, account, or requests, including by phone, email, and text message (see Section 10).
- Facilitate underwriting, credit and background checks, and funding, including sharing information with Funding Partners and service providers.
- Operate, maintain, secure, debug, personalize, and improve the Services and develop new features.
- Analyze usage, measure and attribute marketing performance, and conduct research and analytics.
- Send marketing and promotional communications where permitted by law and consistent with your choices.
- Manage Partner and referral relationships, commissions, and reporting.
- Comply with legal, regulatory, and contractual obligations, respond to lawful requests and legal process, and establish, exercise, or defend legal claims.
- Maintain business records and for other purposes disclosed to you or to which you consent.
We may de-identify or aggregate personal information and use it for any lawful purpose. We do not use sensitive personal information for purposes other than those permitted under applicable law.
8. How We Disclose Personal Information
We disclose personal information to the following categories of recipients:
- Funding Partners and lenders: to review, underwrite, contact you about, and offer or provide financing you request or may qualify for.
- Service providers and processors: companies that perform services on our behalf, such as hosting and data storage, email and message delivery, analytics and session replay, payment processing, identity verification, bank-data connection, fraud prevention, customer service, advertising support, and customer relationship management. These providers are authorized to use personal information only as needed to perform services for us.
- Partners and ISOs: in connection with referrals and the partner program.
- Professional advisors: lawyers, accountants, auditors, and consultants under confidentiality obligations.
- Corporate transactions: in connection with a merger, acquisition, financing, reorganization, bankruptcy, or sale of all or part of our business or assets, subject to appropriate protections.
- Legal, compliance, and safety: to comply with law, regulation, legal process, or governmental request, to enforce our agreements, and to protect the rights, property, safety, and security of ${name}, our users, and others.
- At your direction or with your consent: when you ask us to share information or otherwise consent.
9. 'Sale,' 'Sharing,' and Targeted Advertising
We do not sell personal information for monetary consideration. However, certain U.S. state privacy laws define "sale" and "sharing" broadly to include the use of cookies and advertising technologies that disclose identifiers and internet activity to advertising partners for cross-context behavioral advertising or targeted advertising. Under those definitions, our use of advertising and analytics cookies may be considered a "sale" or "sharing" of personal information.
You have the right to opt out of this activity. You may do so by adjusting cookie settings, using a recognized opt-out preference signal such as GPC (see Section 7), or by contacting us at info@treeoflifefunding.com with the subject line "Opt-Out Request." We do not knowingly "sell" or "share" the personal information of individuals we know to be under 16.
10. Marketing Communications and Your Choices
- Email: You may opt out of marketing emails using the unsubscribe link in those messages. Transactional and servicing emails about an active application or account may continue.
- Text messages: You may opt out of text messages by replying STOP to a message from the relevant program. Reply HELP for help. Message and data rates may apply. See our Terms of Service for details about our calling and texting program (TCPA consent).
- Telephone: You may ask to be placed on our internal do-not-call list during any call or by contacting us.
- Other requests: Contact us at info@treeoflifefunding.com or info@treeoflifefunding.com to update your preferences.
Our marketing communications are governed by laws including the federal CAN-SPAM Act and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). Opting out of marketing does not stop communications necessary to provide the Services you have requested.
11. Credit, FCRA, and Financial Privacy (GLBA)
When you apply for financing, you may authorize us or a Funding Partner to obtain credit reports and other information about you and your business from consumer reporting agencies and commercial credit sources. Depending on the stage and product, these inquiries may be "soft" (generally not affecting credit scores) or "hard" (which may affect credit scores), as disclosed during the application process. The federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and similar laws govern the access and use of consumer reports.
To the extent we handle nonpublic personal financial information in a capacity covered by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) or similar financial-privacy laws, we maintain the protections required by those laws, and certain GLBA-regulated information may be exempt from some state privacy rights described below.
12. Legal Bases for Processing (EEA/UK Visitors)
If you are located in the European Economic Area or United Kingdom, we process personal information on one or more of these legal bases: performance of a contract or steps prior to entering a contract; our legitimate interests (such as operating, securing, and improving the Services and marketing to existing inquiries), balanced against your rights; compliance with legal obligations; and consent where required (for example, certain cookies or marketing). Where processing is based on consent, you may withdraw it at any time without affecting prior processing.
13. Data Retention
We retain personal information for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfill the purposes described in this Policy, including to process applications, provide and improve the Services, maintain business and financial records, prevent fraud, resolve disputes, enforce our agreements, and comply with legal, tax, and regulatory requirements.
Retention periods vary by data type and context. For example, lead and deal records may be kept for several years after your last interaction, financial and transaction records may be retained for periods required by law, and server and security logs are typically retained for shorter periods. When information is no longer needed, we delete, de-identify, or securely dispose of it, subject to backups and legal holds.
14. Data Security
We maintain administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect personal information appropriate to its sensitivity, including encryption in transit, access controls, authentication, and secure cloud infrastructure. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. You are responsible for keeping your account credentials confidential.
If you believe your account or information has been compromised, contact us immediately at info@treeoflifefunding.com.
15. Your U.S. State Privacy Rights
Depending on your state of residence (for example, California, Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, Texas, Oregon, Montana, and other states with comprehensive privacy laws), you may have some or all of the following rights, subject to exceptions and verification:
- Know/Access: request the categories and specific pieces of personal information we have collected, used, and disclosed about you.
- Correct: request correction of inaccurate personal information.
- Delete: request deletion of personal information, subject to legal exceptions.
- Portability: obtain a copy of certain personal information in a portable format.
- Opt out: opt out of "sale"/"sharing" of personal information and of targeted advertising, and, where applicable, certain profiling.
- Limit sensitive data: where applicable, limit the use or disclosure of sensitive personal information.
- Non-discrimination: not receive discriminatory treatment for exercising your rights.
- Appeal: where required, appeal our decision on your request.
How to exercise your rights
Submit a request by emailing info@treeoflifefunding.com with "Privacy Request" in the subject line, or by contacting us using the details in Section 25. We will verify your identity before responding, which may require you to provide information we can match to our records. You may use an authorized agent to submit a request where permitted by law, with proof of authorization. We will respond within the timeframes required by applicable law. If we deny your request, you may appeal by replying to our response; if your appeal is denied, you may be able to contact your state attorney general.
16. Additional Notice to California Residents
Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (CCPA/CPRA), California residents have the rights described in Section 15. In the preceding 12 months, we have collected the categories of personal information described in Section 4 (including identifiers, commercial information, financial information, internet/network activity, geolocation inferred from IP address, professional/employment information, government identifiers, and sensitive personal information), from the sources in Section 5, for the purposes in Section 6, and have disclosed personal information to the categories of recipients in Section 8.
We do not sell personal information for monetary consideration. As described in Section 9, certain advertising activity may constitute "sharing" or a "sale" under the CCPA, and you may opt out via info@treeoflifefunding.com or a GPC signal. We will not discriminate against you for exercising your rights. We use and disclose sensitive personal information only for purposes permitted by the CCPA. California's "Shine the Light" law: you may request information about disclosures of personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes; we generally do not make such disclosures.
17. Notice to Nevada Residents
Nevada residents have the right to opt out of the "sale" of certain covered information as defined under Nevada law. We do not sell such information for monetary consideration; however, you may submit a request regarding your preferences by contacting us at info@treeoflifefunding.com.
18. International Data Transfers
We are based in the United States, and the Services are intended for users in the United States. If you access the Services from outside the U.S., your information will be transferred to, stored, and processed in the U.S. and in other countries where we or our service providers operate, which may have data-protection laws different from those in your jurisdiction. Where required, we implement appropriate safeguards for cross-border transfers.
19. Children's Privacy
The Services are intended for businesses and individuals who are at least 18 years old and are not directed to children. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 (or under 16 where applicable). If you believe a child has provided us personal information, contact us and we will take appropriate steps to delete it.
20. Automated Decision-Making and Profiling
We and our Funding Partners may use automated tools to help process applications, verify identity, detect fraud, and evaluate eligibility. Tree of Life Funding does not make final credit decisions; those are made by Funding Partners under their own processes. Where automated decision-making produces legal or similarly significant effects and you have rights under applicable law, you may contact us to ask about the decision or request human review where required.
21. Identity-Verification and Biometric Information
As part of identity verification and fraud prevention, you may be asked to submit images of a government-issued ID and a photograph or "selfie." These may be processed by identity-verification technology, which in some cases compares facial features and may involve biometric identifiers or information under certain state laws (such as the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act).
Where we or our verification providers process such information, we do so only to verify identity and prevent fraud, we do not sell it, we limit access to it, and we retain it only as long as reasonably necessary for those purposes or as required by law, after which it is deleted or de-identified in accordance with applicable retention requirements. Where required, we will obtain your consent before such processing.
22. Third-Party Links and Services
The Services may contain links to, or integrations with, third-party websites and services, including Funding Partners, that we do not operate or control. This Policy does not apply to those third parties, and we are not responsible for their privacy practices. Review their privacy notices before providing information.
23. Accessibility
We strive to make this Policy and our privacy choices accessible. If you need this Policy in an alternative format or need assistance exercising your rights, contact us using the details in Section 25.
24. Changes to This Policy
We may update this Policy from time to time. We will post the revised version on this page and update the "Last Updated" date. If we make material changes, we will provide additional notice as required by law (for example, by posting a notice on the Services or contacting you). Your continued use of the Services after changes take effect constitutes acknowledgment of the revised Policy.
25. Contact Us
For privacy questions or to exercise your rights, contact us:
- Tree of Life Funding, Inc.
- Attn: Privacy
- 12000 Biscayne Blvd, Miami, FL 33181
- Privacy: info@treeoflifefunding.com
- General: info@treeoflifefunding.com
- Phone: (561) 247-8341
- Website: https://treeoflifefunding.com