Privacy

1. Who this privacy page covers

This page covers PropertyBud's website, dashboard, private Seller Signal workflow, buyer saved searches, seller-approved introductions, platform messaging, credits and payments, notifications, support tickets, admin review tools, marketing forms, analytics, and related operations.

PropertyBud is an Australian property-introduction platform. Privacy and direct-marketing obligations may differ depending on where users are located, where providers process data, and how the service changes over time.

2. Information we collect directly from you

We may collect information you provide when you create an account, sign in, complete onboarding, verify your contact details, choose a buyer or seller role, create or edit a Seller Signal, save a buyer search, request or respond to an introduction, buy credits, send messages, create support tickets, contact us, join a marketing list, or otherwise use the service.

This may include your name, email address, phone number, role intent, suburb or state, profile details, buyer preferences, seller property information, intro-request messages, platform messages, support-ticket content, notification preferences, marketing consent metadata, and other information you choose to submit.

3. Account, authentication, and verification data

PropertyBud uses authentication and verification providers, including Clerk, to manage accounts, sessions, sign-in, sign-up, email verification, phone verification, and related account security. We may store authentication identifiers, Clerk user IDs, verification timestamps, email and phone verification status, overall verification status, account activity, admin flags, and reactivation identifiers in PropertyBud systems where needed to operate the service.

Verification helps decide whether an account can access buyer, seller, credit, intro, messaging, support, or admin-reviewed features. Verification does not mean PropertyBud guarantees a person's identity, authority, finances, intentions, property ownership, or transaction readiness.

4. Buyer preference data, saved searches, and demand information

Buyers may provide saved-search information such as target suburbs, property types, required budget maximum, optional budget minimum, buyer type, finance status, buying timeframe, intent level, notes, active/paused/archived/deleted status, creation role, audience metadata, and related timestamps.

We use buyer preference data and buyer-search information to operate saved searches, show possible matches, assess verified-buyer eligibility, provide notifications and support, build privacy-safe aggregate demand signals, improve matching, debug service flows, prevent misuse, and support account reactivation. Public demand signals should be aggregated or otherwise privacy-safe and should not expose an individual buyer's private search details.

5. Seller Signal data and property information

Sellers may provide high-level property information, suburb and location metadata, property type, guide range, bedrooms, bathrooms, car spaces, land-size band, selling timeframe, seller intent level, public summary, exact address information, photos or photo notes where available, contact preferences, review status, admin notes, expiry and approval timestamps, and related moderation context.

Approved public or buyer opportunity surfaces should show only buyer-safe Seller Signal fields. Exact address details, private photo notes, admin notes, preferred contact methods, stored seller contact details, and other private fields are not automatically revealed to buyers when a Seller Signal is displayed, when an intro is requested, or when an intro is accepted.

6. Intro requests, conversations, and Messages

When buyers request introductions and sellers respond, we may collect intro-request status, seller and buyer Clerk user IDs, Seller Signal references, buyer messages, response timestamps, expiry and cancellation status, refund or credit metadata, conversation IDs, message bodies, sender IDs, conversation status, close reasons, support-review status, reopen metadata, and related audit records.

We use this information to request, accept, decline, expire, refund, cancel, and support seller-approved introductions; create and display platform conversations; prevent duplicate requests; enforce messaging permissions; investigate safety or trust issues; support refunds or credit reviews; and maintain a readable history for the participants and authorised support/admin workflows.

For accepted intro conversations, closing an accepted intro chat does not delete the shared message history. Closed history remains readable to both participants while retained, and any future pruning or anonymisation should run through a separate admin or scheduled workflow subject to legal review and longer retention needs.

7. Payments, credits, and financial records

PropertyBud may use Stripe to process credit purchases and refunds. Stripe processes payment details. PropertyBud stores payment, checkout, refund, credit-pack, credit-ledger, credit balance, reconciliation, chargeback, event, and audit metadata needed to fulfil purchases, prevent duplicate credits, reconcile refunds, provide support, investigate fraud or misuse, and maintain financial, tax, accounting, and operational records.

Do not send full card numbers, bank details, passwords, payment secrets, or unnecessary financial information through PropertyBud messages, support forms, or email. If payment providers collect information directly from you, their own terms and privacy policies also apply.

8. Support, moderation, notifications, and audit records

If you contact support or use in-app support tickets, we may collect support-ticket references, requester role, categories, priority, status, subject, description, contextual record IDs, assignment, SLA timestamps, resolution summaries, internal notes, user-visible responses, system events, metadata, and related audit logs.

We may also collect moderation records, safety reports, privacy-risk flags, notification records, notification preferences, email delivery attempts, provider message IDs, dedupe keys, delivery status, reason codes, and privacy-safe diagnostics. We may use email delivery providers to send and diagnose transactional notifications. These records help us operate support, review suspicious or unsafe activity, diagnose delivery issues, enforce platform rules, keep users informed, and protect the service.

9. Marketing and communications data

If you join an updates list, marketing list, or public acquisition form, we may collect your email address, role intent, source page, consent wording and version, timestamps, non-sensitive capture metadata, and related communication preferences.

We may use this information to send product notices, onboarding messages, support messages, transactional notices, trust and safety alerts, payment and credit notices, intro and message notifications, and other communications connected with PropertyBud. Marketing communications should include an unsubscribe or opt-out path where required.

10. Technical, analytics, security, and device information

When you use PropertyBud, we and our providers may collect technical and usage information such as pages visited, events, feature interactions, referrers, approximate location inferred from IP address, IP address, browser and device information, operating system, session or cookie identifiers, performance metrics, error reports, bot-protection signals, rate-limit data, server logs, and diagnostic information.

PropertyBud may use tools such as Vercel Analytics and Speed Insights, PostHog where enabled, Sentry, BotID, Upstash, hosting logs, database logs, email delivery logs, and internal analytics. Analytics and observability events should avoid unnecessary personal information and should be used to understand service funnels, performance, errors, abuse, onboarding, Seller Signal submission, buyer-search creation, intro requests, credit purchases, support needs, and platform safety.

11. Cookies and similar technologies

PropertyBud and its providers may use cookies, local storage, session storage, pixels, SDKs, and similar technologies for authentication, session management, security, bot protection, preferences, analytics, performance, and service diagnostics.

Some technologies are necessary for the service to work. Others support analytics or service improvement where enabled. Cookie and consent requirements should be reviewed for direct marketing, analytics, cross-site tracking, and users outside Australia.

12. How we use information

We use personal information to provide, operate, secure, moderate, support, analyse, and improve PropertyBud. This includes authenticating users, verifying contact details, operating Seller Signals and buyer saved searches, matching buyers and sellers, processing intro requests, managing credits and refunds, sending notifications, providing support, maintaining audit logs, detecting misuse, debugging errors, measuring service performance, complying with obligations, and protecting users, staff, providers, and the platform.

We may also use information to enforce terms, investigate suspected fraud or abuse, preserve records for safety or disputes, manage account deletion and reactivation, run privacy-safe aggregate reporting, improve service features, and communicate service, security, payment, legal, or policy updates.

13. Legal bases and reasons for processing

Depending on the applicable law, our reasons for processing information may include providing the service you requested, performing or preparing a contract, taking steps with your consent, complying with legal obligations, protecting vital or safety interests, resolving disputes, preventing fraud or misuse, maintaining security, and pursuing legitimate business interests in operating and improving the platform.

The precise legal bases and disclosures for Australia, the EU/UK, California, and other jurisdictions should be reviewed if PropertyBud targets or materially serves users in those places.

14. How we share information

We may share information with service providers that help us run PropertyBud, including authentication and verification providers, hosting providers, database providers, payment processors, analytics and monitoring tools, bot-protection and security tools, rate-limit providers, email delivery providers, support tools, and professional advisers.

We may also share information where required by law, regulation, subpoena, court order, payment-network rule, tax or accounting requirement, or government request; where needed to protect rights, safety, property, users, staff, providers, or the platform; in connection with suspected fraud, misuse, disputes, or security incidents; or as part of a business transfer, merger, financing, restructure, or sale of assets subject to appropriate safeguards.

Stored buyer and seller email and phone details are not sold as contact leads and are not automatically unlocked after an accepted introduction. PropertyBud does not sell stored buyer or seller contact details as contact leads. Stored email, phone, exact address, payment details, and admin-only records are not automatically unlocked through intro requests.

15. Key third-party providers

Providers may include Clerk for authentication and verification, Supabase for database and storage infrastructure, Vercel for hosting, analytics, and speed insights, Stripe for payments and refunds, Resend or another email provider for transactional email, PostHog where enabled for product analytics, Sentry for error monitoring, BotID for bot protection, Upstash for rate limiting, Google Maps for suburb/place autocomplete where enabled, and support or security tooling used to operate the service.

These providers may process information in Australia, the United States, the European Union, or other countries depending on their infrastructure and settings. Their own privacy notices, subprocessors, security terms, and data-transfer mechanisms should be reviewed whenever providers or regions change.

16. Data security

PropertyBud uses technical and organisational measures intended to protect information, including authenticated server-side flows, role checks, database row-level security, service-role boundaries, private-field separation, provider security controls, audit logs, rate limits, bot protection, monitoring, and privacy-safe display rules. No online service can guarantee perfect security.

You are responsible for keeping your account, devices, and contact details secure and for avoiding unnecessary disclosure of sensitive information in messages, support tickets, or public-facing fields. Tell us promptly if you believe your account or information has been compromised.

17. Data retention, deletion, and reactivation

PropertyBud keeps different records for different periods depending on operational, support, safety, payment, fraud-prevention, audit, tax, accounting, dispute, legal, service, and reactivation needs. Soft-deleted marketplace intent records may be retained before they become eligible for a separate purge or anonymisation workflow, subject to longer retention where needed.

When an account is deleted, PropertyBud may mark the profile inactive, archive linked seller activity, hide or soft-delete buyer saved searches, cancel pending intro requests, close conversations, and retain relevant history. If a person later returns with the same verified email or verified phone, retained records may be relinked where the service supports safe reactivation. Records that remain deleted, archived, closed, inactive, expired, or rejected are not silently republished.

18. Your choices and rights

You can choose what information to submit, update supported account/profile details, update buyer searches and Seller Signals through your dashboard, pause or archive supported records, close accepted intro chats where available, unsubscribe from marketing where an unsubscribe option is provided, change supported notification preferences, and contact PropertyBud support about access, correction, deletion, restriction, objection, portability, or other privacy requests.

Some information may be required to provide the service, maintain security, verify eligibility, process payments, keep audit records, meet legal obligations, or resolve disputes. If you choose not to provide verification or profile details, you may not be able to use buyer, seller, credit, intro, messaging, support-review, or other protected features.

Privacy rights vary by jurisdiction. PropertyBud should review Australian Privacy Act requirements and any EU/UK GDPR, California/US state, or other international rights where relevant.

19. Children's privacy

PropertyBud is not intended for children. Users should not create accounts or submit information if they are under the age required to enter into these terms or use the service lawfully in their jurisdiction. We do not knowingly seek information from children. If you believe a child has provided information to PropertyBud, contact support so the issue can be reviewed.

20. International transfers

PropertyBud and its providers may process and store information in countries other than where you live. Those countries may have different data-protection laws. Provider regions, subprocessors, transfer safeguards, and data-processing terms should be reviewed whenever service providers change.

21. Changes to this privacy page

We may update this privacy page as the service, laws, provider stack, analytics, direct-marketing practices, payment flows, retention rules, support processes, or trust and safety features change. Material updates should be reflected in the date on this page and, where appropriate, communicated through the service or by email.

22. Contact

Questions about privacy or data handling can be sent through the PropertyBud contact and support channels. Privacy, legal, consumer-law, direct-marketing, real-estate, payments, and data-protection questions should be reviewed by appropriately qualified advisers.