What we collect, and what we don't

The Lemon Report publishes journalism, plain-English explainers and free vehicle tools at thelemonreport.org. thelemonreport.org is operated by Ocwen Inc. For anything on this page, contact markc@serviceactivationcenter.com.

The Vehicle Recall and Problem Finder, Vehicle Value Calculator, Vehicle Depreciation Calculator and Cost of Repairs Calculator all run entirely inside your browser. The recall database, the pricing model and the depreciation curves are part of the page you downloaded. The year, make, model, mileage, price, condition and loan figures you enter are processed on your own device and are never transmitted to us.

Close the tab and that information is gone. We have no copy of it because we were never sent one.

Two exceptions, both optional

• VIN decoding. On the Vehicle Value Calculator and the Cost of Repairs Calculator you may type a VIN instead of picking the vehicle by hand. If you do, that VIN is sent to the federal government's public vehicle database (NHTSA vPIC, vpic.nhtsa.dot.gov) to look up the specification. We do not receive or store it. Picking the vehicle from the dropdowns instead sends nothing anywhere.
• Live market comparisons. The Vehicle Value Calculator has an optional setting for a third-party pricing API. It is switched off unless a key is entered, and any key entered is stored only in your own browser (localStorage keys beginning av_) — it is never sent to us. When enabled, the year, make, model and ZIP are sent to that provider to fetch comparable listings.

This is the only part of the site that collects personal information, and only when you complete it and tick the consent box. It appears beneath the Extended Warranty Evaluator on all four tool pages.

What is submitted

• Your first name and cell number, as you typed them
• The vehicle showing in the evaluator — year, make, model and mileage band
• The evaluator's verdict, and a plan price if you entered one
• The page you submitted from, and the exact consent wording shown to you at the time

Our server also records the date and time and the IP address the request came from. We keep those to prove when consent was given and to stop the form being abused.

What we do with it

We use it to contact you about extended vehicle coverage, which is what you asked us to do by ticking the box. To answer that request we may pass your vehicle details and your first name to the coverage administrators we work with, so they can quote the right product. They act on our instruction for that purpose only. We do not sell your information, and we do not pass your details to anyone unrelated to your request. Your mobile number specifically is covered by the rules in section 4 below.

Stopping contact

Reply STOP to any text message and we will stop, permanently. Reply HELP for help. You can also email markc@serviceactivationcenter.com at any time and ask us to stop contacting you, to tell you what we hold about you, or to delete it. We will action deletion requests within 30 days. Message frequency varies and message and data rates may apply.

Where it is kept, and for how long

Submissions are emailed to us and written to a file on our hosting account that is not reachable from the web. We keep them for as long as we are working on your request and afterwards only as long as we need to evidence that you consented — then we delete them.

If you gave us your cell number and ticked the consent box, we may contact you by call or text about extended vehicle coverage for the vehicle you were looking at. This section governs that number specifically.

Message frequency

Message frequency varies. Messages are sent in response to your request, so how many you get depends on the conversation — in practice that is usually a handful of messages while we help you find coverage, not an ongoing campaign. We do not send recurring marketing blasts to numbers collected through this form.

Message and data rates

Message and data rates may apply. Your mobile carrier's standard messaging and data charges apply to any message you send or receive from us. We do not charge you anything — this assistance is free — but your carrier may.

If you are already a customer, or contacted us another way

Not every number we hold came through the form on this site. You may also have given it to us by phone, by email, in person, or on a written or electronic form while asking about coverage or while we were already helping you. However we got it, the same rules in this section apply to it.

Where numbers come from. We only message numbers that the person themselves gave us, for the purpose of us contacting them. We do not buy, rent, licence, append or otherwise obtain phone numbers from lead vendors, list brokers, data appends or third-party marketing lists, and we do not message numbers acquired that way.

Two kinds of message, two different bases.

• Service and transactional messages — following up on a request you made, sending a document you asked for, arranging a call, or answering a question. We send these because you gave us your number for that purpose.
• Marketing or promotional messages — we send these only where you gave prior express written consent to receive them, and we keep a record of when and how you gave it, together with the exact wording you were shown at the time.

Having been a customer, or having contacted us before, does not by itself put you on a marketing list. If you have not given written consent for marketing messages, you will not get them.

Stopping and getting help

Reply STOP to any text and messaging ends immediately and permanently. Reply HELP for help, or contact us at markc@serviceactivationcenter.com. Carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages.

Consent is not a condition

You are never required to agree to messaging in order to use anything on this site, and agreeing is not a condition of purchasing anything.

• YouTube. The home page and the Videos page embed videos through youtube-nocookie.com, YouTube's privacy-enhanced domain. It sets no tracking cookies unless you press play, and the players only load as you scroll near them — but loading them does tell YouTube your IP address and which page you are on. That is Google's processing, under Google's privacy policy, not ours.
• Links out. We link to NHTSA, the FTC, state attorneys general and other sites. Those are ordinary links — nothing is requested until you click, and once you do you are on their site under their policy, not this one.
• Fonts and images. Embedded in the pages themselves. No font CDN, no image host, no third-party request to load them.

Like any website, our host records standard access logs — IP address, time, the page requested and your browser's user-agent string. They are used for security and diagnosing faults, they are not linked to anything you submit, and they age out on our host's normal schedule.

This site sets none. There is no consent banner because there is nothing to consent to. The only browser storage we use at all is the optional API setting described in section 2, which stays on your device.

This site is meant for vehicle owners and is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect information from them. If you believe a child has submitted the form, email us and we will delete it.

Depending on where you live — California, Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia and a growing number of other states, or the UK and EU — you may have the right to see what we hold about you, correct it, delete it, or opt out of its sale or sharing. Because the only personal information we hold is what you submitted through the form, those requests are straightforward for us to honour. Email markc@serviceactivationcenter.com and we will not discriminate against you for asking.

Sale or sharing of personal information: we do not sell personal information, and we do not share mobile numbers or opt-in data with anyone for marketing. We do pass your first name and vehicle details to coverage administrators so they can answer the request you made — that is a service provider relationship, not a sale.

The site is served over HTTPS. Form submissions are validated on the server, rate-limited, and stored outside the public web directory. No system is perfectly secure, and we will not pretend otherwise — but we collect very little, which is the most effective protection there is.

If we change how any of this works we will update this page and move the date below. Material changes to how we use information you already gave us will be notified to you directly.

This policy describes our actual practices in plain English. It is not legal advice, and it does not create rights beyond those the law already gives you. The site's reporting and tools are general consumer information, not advice about your specific vehicle or situation — see the notice in the footer of every page.

Effective August 25, 2026 · questions to markc@serviceactivationcenter.com