Privacy Policy

GoldenGuide helps older adults learn about money and helps the people who care about them follow along. This page explains, in plain words, what we keep, who can see it, how long we keep it, and the choices you have.

Who we are

GoldenGuide is operated by its founder, Abhiram Bongarala, who is based in Texas, United States. When this policy says "GoldenGuide", "we" or "us", it means Abhiram Bongarala as the operator of GoldenGuide. To reach us about privacy, use our Contact form.

Where GoldenGuide is available

GoldenGuide accounts and memberships are currently offered only to people in the United States. You may be able to visit our public pages from elsewhere, but we don't offer accounts or paid memberships to people living in the European Union, the United Kingdom, or other places outside the United States at this time.

What we keep

• Your account: your email address, your name, and whether you joined as a learner or a caregiver. If you sign in with Google, Google shares your email address and name with us.
• Your learning: your learning plan answers, which lessons you finish and your quiz scores, and the practice situations and pretend scams you try.
• Budgets you make: the amounts and labels you type into the Budget Calculator.
• Messages: messages between a learner and their caregiver, including "Is this a scam?" help requests.
• Your time zone: taken from your device so "today's lessons" follow your own calendar day.
• Membership details (caregivers only): whether you have a GoldenGuide Family membership and when it renews. Payment card details are handled by Stripe, our payment provider. We never see or store your full card number.
• Contact messages: if you use our Contact or Organizations form, your name, email and message.
• Basic technical information: like other websites, our hosting provider records technical details such as IP addresses and pages requested, to keep the service running and secure.

How we use it

• To run your account and show your lessons, progress and budgets.
• To let a learner and their connected caregiver support each other.
• To handle memberships and payments for caregivers.
• To answer your questions and messages.
• To keep GoldenGuide safe and fix problems.
• To understand, in general, which lessons and features are used, so we can improve them.

We do not sell your information, and we do not show ads.

Who can see your information

• You can see everything in your own account.
• A caregiver you connect with can see your name, your learning plan, the lessons you finish and your scores, and your practice activity. They can only see a budget if you choose to share it, and you can stop sharing at any time. If you remove the connection, they can no longer see any of this.
• The GoldenGuide team can see account details (like names and email addresses) to run the service, answer questions and keep it safe.
• Service providers handle information only to provide their service to us (see below).
• When the law requires it, we may share information to comply with a valid legal request, or to protect someone's safety.

Services we use

We use a small number of trusted companies to run GoldenGuide: Supabase (our database and sign-in), Vercel (website hosting), Stripe (payments for caregivers), and Google (only if you choose "Continue with Google"). They handle information only to provide their service to us.

Cookies and your device

We use cookies only to keep you signed in. Your browser also remembers small settings, like light or dark mode and where you stopped in a lesson. We don't use advertising or tracking cookies.

How long we keep information

• We keep your account information while your account is open.
• You can delete your account yourself in Settings. It's removed right away, along with your saved budgets, learning progress and messages. Caregivers with a paid GoldenGuide Family month left can instead choose to have it deleted at the end of that month. If you ask us to delete it, we aim to do so within 30 days.
• Copies in our database provider's backups are removed as those backups expire on the provider's regular schedule.
• We may keep some information longer when we must for legal, security or recordkeeping reasons. Payment records may be kept by GoldenGuide or Stripe as tax and accounting laws require.
• Contact messages are kept while we help you, and deleted when no longer needed.

Keeping your information safe

Your information is stored securely, and our database checks every request so people can only see what they're allowed to see. No system is perfect, so please use a strong password and never share it.

Your choices and rights

• You can see and change your learning plan at any time.
• You can stop sharing a budget, or remove a caregiver connection.
• You can change your name and email in My Profile, and delete your account and everything in it from Settings. You can also ask us for a copy of your information.
• Depending on the state you live in, you may have other privacy rights. We'll honor them as the law requires.

To make a request, use our Contact form. We may need to confirm that the request comes from you before we act on it.

Age

GoldenGuide is meant for adults. You must be 18 or older to sign up, and we don't knowingly collect information from children.

Changes to this policy

If we make important changes, we'll update the date at the top of this page and, where appropriate, let you know in GoldenGuide.

Questions

For any privacy question, use our Contact form. You can also read our Terms of Service.