Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how Second Gears Trading Ltd collects, uses, shares, and protects personal information when you use our website and services at secondgears.co.uk (the "Platform"). We have written it in plain English; where we use a technical or legal term, we explain it. This Policy should be read alongside our Terms and Conditions.

1. Who we are

Second Gears Trading Ltd is the "data controller" for personal information processed through the Platform, which means we decide what personal information is collected and how it is used. Our company number is 16327142 and our registered office is 11 Main Street, Barkby, Leicester, England, LE7 3QG. You can contact us at [email protected]. We are registered with the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

2. A plain-English summary

If you are a seller, we collect your name, contact details, postcode, and vehicle information so we can publish your advertisement, relay enquiries from buyers, and connect you with a buyer when you accept an offer.

If you are a buyer, we collect your name, business details, contact details, postcode, and payment information so we can manage your subscription, let you make offers, and charge our fees.

Contact details are kept private until a deal is agreed. Before an offer is accepted we relay messages between sellers and buyers with direct contact details removed, and we share a seller's and buyer's contact details with each other only once an offer has been accepted and the relevant fees have been paid.

We send you emails about your account, your advertisement, and information relevant to selling a vehicle or using our service, and you can unsubscribe from non-essential emails at any time. We use analytics and advertising tools from Google, Meta, and TikTok to understand and promote the Platform, which you control through our cookie banner. We never sell your personal information.

3. The information we collect

Information you give us. When you register as a seller and place an advertisement, we collect your name, email, phone number, postcode, and account password, along with the vehicle registration, make, model, year, mileage, VIN, condition, damage details, MOT status, write-off category (if known), and any photographs or video you upload. When you register as a trade buyer, we collect your name and business name, business address and postcode, VAT registration (if applicable), contact details, and a payment card. When you make or respond to offers, or use "Ask a question", we collect the messages you send through the Platform, the offers made and received, accepted prices, fees charged, and any refund requests. When you contact us, we collect the content of your communication and any attachments.

Payment information. Card details are collected and stored by our payment processor, Stripe. We hold a secure reference (a token) to your saved card and a record of payments and fees, but we do not store your full card number.

Information we collect automatically. When you use the Platform, we and our analytics and advertising partners collect your IP address, device type, browser, operating system, the pages you view, your navigation paths, your referral source, and cookie identifiers. This is covered in the section on cookies below.

Conduct and reliability data. We keep records of whether offers are honoured, deals are completed, and disputes are raised, which we use to keep the marketplace trustworthy.

Information from other sources. Stripe confirms that payment has been received and provides limited transaction information. Public registers, such as the DVLA Vehicle Enquiry Service, may be used to cross-check vehicle information. If you contact us through a social media platform, that platform may share basic profile information with us.

4. How and why we use your information

To provide the service you have asked for. We use your information to create and manage your account, publish your advertisement, relay enquiries and offers between sellers and buyers, take subscription payment and manage billing, charge our Success Fee and Introduction Fee (including charging a buyer's saved card when an offer is accepted, where necessary without the buyer being present), release contact details to the parties once an offer is accepted and paid, and send you transactional messages such as confirmation that your advertisement is live, a new offer, a payment receipt, an expiry reminder, or a password reset. Our legal basis for this is performance of a contract.

To keep you informed about your advertisement and our service. When you register, you are using the Platform to sell a vehicle or, as a trade buyer, to access vehicles for sale, which means you are engaging with us in negotiations for a sale. On that basis we also send you emails about activity on your advertisement and similar vehicles, guides and tips relevant to selling, success stories, platform updates and new features, and, for buyers, new advertisements that match your interests. Our legal basis is the "soft opt-in" under PECR regulation 22(3) and our legitimate interest. Every such email has a one-click unsubscribe; if you opt out we will stop these but continue essential transactional emails. Any marketing beyond these categories will be on the basis of your specific consent or another lawful basis.

To keep the Platform safe and improve it. We use your information to protect against fraud, abuse, fee avoidance, and unauthorised access, to operate reliability scoring and account restrictions (with human review, as described below), to monitor performance and fix problems, to analyse usage, and to keep internal records. Our legal basis is our legitimate interest in running a trustworthy marketplace.

To advertise the Platform. With your consent, given through our cookie banner, we use advertising cookies and pixels from Google, Meta, and TikTok to measure our campaigns and reach new users. You can change these choices at any time from the cookie preferences link in the footer.

To comply with the law. We keep financial and tax records, respond to lawful requests from regulators, courts, the police, DVLA, HMRC, or other authorities, and investigate and report suspected fraud or stolen vehicles. Our legal basis is compliance with a legal obligation.

5. Who we share your information with

Between buyers and sellers. Before an offer is accepted, we relay messages between the parties with direct contact details removed. When an offer is accepted and the relevant fees are paid, we share the seller's and buyer's contact details with each other so they can complete the sale directly. Buyers and sellers must use those details only to discuss the specific vehicle and must not add them to marketing lists or share them with third parties.

Our service providers. We use carefully selected third parties who process personal information on our behalf under written contracts that require them to keep it secure and use it only as we instruct.

We may change or add to this list over time. A current list is available on request from [email protected].

Authorities and other third parties. We may share your information with law enforcement, regulators, and authorities where required by law or to investigate fraud, stolen vehicles, or other serious wrongdoing; with our professional advisers, such as lawyers, accountants, and insurers, where reasonably necessary; and with a successor in business if we sell or restructure Second Gears, in which case we will tell you. We never sell your personal information to data brokers, list builders, or marketers.

6. International transfers

Some of our providers are based outside the UK, primarily in the United States (Stripe, Google, Meta, Mailchimp, Cloudflare) and other jurisdictions (TikTok). Where we transfer personal information outside the UK, we rely on a UK adequacy decision, the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or the EU Standard Contractual Clauses with the UK Addendum, or another lawful transfer mechanism. You can ask us for the safeguards in place for a specific transfer at [email protected].

7. How we keep your information safe

We use encryption in transit (HTTPS) across the Platform, Stripe for payments so that we never see or store your full card details, access controls and staff confidentiality obligations, security protections provided by our hosting provider, and ongoing monitoring for suspicious activity. No online service is completely secure. If we become aware of a personal data breach that is likely to result in a risk to your rights, we will notify the ICO within 72 hours, and we will tell you without undue delay where the risk to you is high.

8. Cookies and similar technologies

Strictly necessary cookies make the Platform work, for example by keeping you logged in and processing payments, and are always on. Analytics and advertising cookies, including those set by Google Analytics 4, Google Ads, Meta Pixel, and TikTok Pixel, are used with your consent. You control these through our cookie banner and the cookie preferences link in the footer. Our separate Cookie Policy gives full detail.

9. How long we keep your information

We keep personal information only for as long as we reasonably need it. Where the law sets a different period, we follow the law.

When we no longer need your information, we delete or anonymise it.

10. Your rights

Under UK GDPR you have the right to access a copy of the personal information we hold about you, to have inaccurate information corrected, to ask us to delete your information (which is not an absolute right, as we may need to keep some for tax or fraud-prevention reasons), to ask us to restrict our use of it while we look into a concern, to object to processing based on our legitimate interests and at any time to marketing, to ask for a copy of the information you gave us in a portable format, and to withdraw consent where we rely on it.

We use reliability scoring to help rank advertisements and to identify accounts that may need restricting, but we do not make decisions producing legal or similarly significant effects based solely on automated processing. Where a decision could significantly affect you, such as restricting your account, a member of our team reviews it, and you can ask us to explain and reconsider it.

To exercise any right, email [email protected]. We will respond within one month and may need to verify your identity first. If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, you can complain to the ICO (Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF; 0303 123 1113; ico.org.uk), although we would prefer the chance to put things right first. If you are in the Republic of Ireland, you may contact the Irish Data Protection Commission (dataprotection.ie).

11. Children

The Platform is not intended for anyone under 18, and you must confirm you are 18 or over when you register. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children, and if we become aware that a user is under 18, we will delete their account and associated information.

12. Links to other websites

The Platform may link to other websites, and buyers and sellers may, after an introduction, contact each other directly by phone or email. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of other websites or channels, and we recommend you read their privacy policies.

13. Changes to this Policy

We may update this Policy from time to time. When we do, we will change the date at the top, and if the changes are significant we will tell you by email or through the Platform.

14. Contact us