Privacy policy

THE CAR-BAR is a remotely operated, pan-India car-sourcing and coordination service.

• Website: thecarbar.in
• Privacy contact: Admin, THE CAR-BAR (support@thecarbar.in)

Our website enquiry form collects your name, mobile number, city, car model, fuel preference and likely purchase date. Depending on the form, you can also give the variant, colour and gearbox you prefer, an email address and a message. When you log in, we receive your mobile number, verified with a one-time code, and any name, email and city you add to your profile.

During booking, we receive masked Aadhaar through email or WhatsApp to pass to the authorised dealer for the booking process. Other vehicle-purchase and finance documents are collected directly by the dealership's salesperson.

Please do not send us an unmasked Aadhaar or documents that we have not requested.

We also receive booking communications, commitments, payment-related correspondence and information needed to coordinate a refund or delivery. Our premium is paid by bank transfer. Vehicle booking amounts, down payments and loan disbursements are paid directly to the authorised dealer.

When you use the website, some technical information is handled automatically:

• Your IP address and the mobile number on a request are counted for up to an hour, to limit repeated requests.
• Our hosting provider records technical details of each request, such as the IP address and the page asked for, to run and secure the website.
• Cars you save and an unfinished Find my car form are kept in your browser, as described under Cookies and information security.

We use relevant information to respond to enquiries, identify car availability, coordinate bookings with authorised dealers, communicate service terms, administer premiums and refunds, arrange chosen transport, and respond to questions or disputes.

We send promotional offers and stock updates through WhatsApp and SMS only after separately asking for and receiving your permission. You can stop promotional updates by replying STOP or emailing support@thecarbar.in. Necessary communications about an active booking are separate from promotional updates.

Our staff access customer names and phone numbers for their work. Sales-team members handling bookings may also access masked Aadhaar to share with the authorised dealer.

After booking, relevant customer details are shared with the authorised dealer. Your name and mobile number are shared with THE CAR-BAR's transport executive for coordination when transport is arranged. Finance is your choice; we do not share your documents with finance agents for arranging finance.

Dealers separately collect and handle information for their own vehicle-sale processes. Their records are subject to their own policies and applicable obligations.

These service providers process information for us to run the website:

• Vercel, which hosts the website.
• MongoDB Atlas, the database that holds enquiries and accounts.
• Google Firebase, for logging in with your mobile number. It uses Google reCAPTCHA to stop automated abuse.
• Cloudinary, which stores and delivers the website's photos and videos.

When we talk to you on WhatsApp or by email, those services carry the messages under their own terms. Some of these providers may store or process information outside India.

Our business policy is to delete masked Aadhaar and other personal documents after delivery or cancellation, including copies held by our team in email, WhatsApp, downloaded files and any CRM used. Transaction and commitment correspondence is handled separately from identity documents.

We retain contact details for future updates where you have given permission. You may request deletion of those contact details and withdrawal from promotional messages at any time.

We respond to privacy complaints and deletion requests on the same day they are received. Our stated service commitment is to complete deletion of the requested contact details and stop promotional messages that same day. Transaction or commitment records are not automatically included in this contact-list deletion.

Cookies and storage on your device:

• When you log in, we set one cookie, cb_session, which keeps you logged in for up to 14 days or until you log out.
• On the login page, Google reCAPTCHA may set its own cookies to tell people from automated abuse.
• Your browser keeps the cars you save for up to 30 days before you log in, and an unfinished Find my car form until you send it.
• We don't use advertising cookies or tracking pixels. On the live website, Vercel Speed Insights measures how quickly pages load, without cookies.

How we protect information:

• The website is served over HTTPS, so information travels encrypted between your browser and our servers.
• Login sessions are kept in secure cookies that scripts on the page cannot read.
• Our admin panel is open only to our team, behind its own login.

For privacy questions, complaints, corrections, marketing withdrawal or deletion requests, email support@thecarbar.in. These requests are handled by our admin. Please identify the mobile number or booking concerned without sending unnecessary identity documents.

We will show the effective date of this policy and update it when our information-handling practices change. Any new use requiring your permission will be addressed separately rather than treated as authorised merely because this page changes.