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Privacy Policy

Effective date: September 7, 2026

Sale Scout is operated by HolmesLabsLLC. This policy explains exactly what the app collects, why, who processes it on our behalf, and the choices you have. It covers the Sale Scout website (salescout.live) and the Sale Scout apps for iPhone and Android. A summary of the same disclosures, formatted the way Apple and Google require, is on our Data Safety page, and the full list of what we keep on your device is in the Cookie Policy. This page is public — no account or sign-in is needed to read it.

Browsing without an account

You can browse the map, search sales, view listings, seller pages and reviews without signing in. An account is only required to post a sale, message a seller, post in the community, leave a review, save favorites, plan a route, or receive notifications.

Information we collect

  • Account information. Your email address, a display name, and an optional avatar. If you sign in with Apple, we receive the email address (or Apple's private relay address) and name you choose to share; we never receive your Apple password.
  • Content you post. Sale listings and their photos, featured item details, community posts and comments, direct messages, reviews, ratings and review photos, and reports you file about other users or listings.
  • Location. Explained in detail in the next section — we treat a seller's sale address, your rough search area and your device's precise position as three different things.
  • Routes and saved sales. The sales you favorite, mark as going/maybe, set reminders for, and the ordered stops on your route are stored against your account so they persist across devices.
  • Notification data. Your notification preferences, quiet hours, time zone, keyword "treasure" alerts and followed sellers/categories, plus the delivery identifiers described below.
  • Purchases. Records of boosts and route passes you buy — amount, currency, date and a payment-processor reference. Card numbers are entered on Stripe's checkout page and never reach our servers.
  • Diagnostics and light usage data. Error reports, and counts such as how many people viewed or shared a listing, whether a notification was opened, and which sales you have visited. These power seller stats and help us fix problems. We do not use advertising identifiers and we do not track you across other apps or websites.
  • Support and feedback. When you use the feedback form or contact us, we store the category you chose, your message, the page you were on, the platform you were using, an optional reply email and an optional screenshot you attach. Screenshots go into a private storage area that only we can read, and are used solely to reproduce the problem you reported.
  • Photos and camera. Photo library and camera access is requested only at the moment you add a picture to a sale, review, community post or feedback report. We receive only the images you pick — never your whole library.
  • Local storage and cookies. Your sign-in session and a few preferences (last map center, recent searches, recent scout areas, preferred maps app, and a counter that decides when the app may show the store rating sheet) are stored in your browser or device. There are no advertising or analytics cookies. Every item is listed in the Cookie Policy.

Location, in detail

Sale Scout is a map app, so it is worth being precise about the three different kinds of location involved. They are not the same thing and are not treated the same way.

  • Sale addresses entered by sale posters. When you publish a sale you type its address. That address, and the map pin derived from it, is public content — visible to anyone, signed in or not, and included when someone shares your listing. Only post an address you are willing to make public, and never post a home address you do not control.
  • Your approximate area. The city, ZIP or map area you choose (a point plus a radius such as 10 miles) is saved as your "scout area" so alerts and the home feed know where to look. If you type a city or ZIP, that text is all we get.
  • Your precise device location. Used only while you are using the app, and only with your permission, to centre the map on you, sort sales by distance, order your route and hand off to a maps app. It is used to compute what you see; we do not keep a history of where you have been, and we do not collect location in the background.

We ask your device for location only when you tap something that needs it — the "use my location" control, address auto-fill when posting a sale, or route planning. Opening the app never triggers a location prompt on its own.

If you say no, the app still works. You can type a city or ZIP, pick a saved or recent area, drag the map, browse the list, save sales, plan a route by hand and get directions — all without granting location. Declining is a normal, fully supported way to use Sale Scout, and you can change your mind later in your device settings.

Push tokens and notifications

When you turn on notifications we ask your operating system or browser for a delivery token: an Apple Push Notification service (APNs) device token in the iPhone app, a Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) registration token in the Android app, or a Web Push subscription (endpoint plus encryption keys) on the web. We store that token with your user ID, the platform and a device description so we can send you the alerts you asked for, and delete it when you turn notifications off, sign out of that device, or delete your account.

  • Tokens are used only to deliver Sale Scout notifications — never for advertising, profiling, or sale to anyone.
  • Notification content (for example "3 new sales near you Saturday") is generated from your scout area, saved sales, treasure keywords and followed sellers.
  • We log that a notification was sent and whether it was opened, so we can stop sending alerts nobody finds useful. This log holds an internal ID, not the message text.
  • You control every category, quiet hours and the channel (in-app, email, push) in notification preferences, and you can revoke permission at any time in your device settings.

How we use your information

  • Run the core features: map, search, listings, messages, reviews and routes.
  • Show you nearby sales and calculate distance, driving order and directions.
  • Send only the notifications and emails you opted into, at the times you allow.
  • Process boost and route-pass purchases, and send receipts.
  • Moderate content, and detect, investigate and prevent fraud, abuse and policy violations.
  • Fix bugs, measure feature usage in aggregate, and improve the app.
  • Comply with legal obligations.

What other people can see

  • Sales you publish — title, description, photos, categories, date/time and the address you entered — are public, including to people who are not signed in.
  • Your display name and avatar appear on your listings, reviews, community posts and messages.
  • Your favorites, saved routes, reminders, treasure keywords, scout area and purchase history are private to you.
  • Direct messages are visible only to you and the person you're messaging.

Third-party processors

We do not sell your personal information and we do not share it with advertisers. We use a small set of vendors, each bound by contract and used only to deliver the service:

  • Lovable Cloud (Supabase) — database, authentication, and photo storage. Holds account data and everything you post.
  • Mapbox — map tiles, geocoding of addresses and city/ZIP searches, and route lines. Receives the coordinates or place text needed to draw the map; it does not receive your account identity.
  • Stripe — payment processing for boosts and route passes. Stripe collects and stores your card details directly under its own privacy policy; we receive only the amount, status and a reference.
  • Mailgun — delivery of transactional email (email confirmations, password resets, receipts, alert digests, and support replies). Receives your email address and message content.
  • Apple Push Notification service and, on the web, your browser's push service (for example Google, Mozilla or Apple) — deliver push messages to your device using the token described above.
  • Google — Firebase Cloud Messaging delivers push notifications to the Android app, and Google Play distributes it. Google receives the delivery token and the notification payload for that purpose.
  • Apple — Sign in with Apple and App Store distribution, when you use them. If you rate the app, Apple's or Google's own rating sheet handles it; we never see what you type there and we never see your rating.
  • AppBuild — the mobile app shell we build the store apps with loads a small helper script (appbuild.diy) that connects the app to device features like the photo picker, sharing and notifications. It is not an analytics or advertising tool.
  • Soro (trysoro.com) — hosts the blog articles shown at the bottom of the home page. It is the only third party that can set its own storage in Sale Scout, so visitors in the EU, UK and Switzerland are asked before it loads. See the Cookie Policy.
  • When you open directions, we hand off to Apple Maps, Google Maps or Waze — whichever you pick. That app then handles the trip under its own privacy policy.

We also disclose information to authorities when required by valid legal process, or to protect the rights and safety of our users.

Diagnostics we do not have

For clarity: Sale Scout has no third-party analytics SDK, no advertising SDK, no session recording, no heat-mapping and no ad identifier. The "usage" data we hold is limited to counts tied to content — listing views, shares, RSVP counts, whether a notification was opened — plus server error logs.

Data retention

Account and content data is kept while your account is active. Push tokens are deleted as soon as you disable notifications or delete the account. When you delete your account — from Account, or without signing in at /delete-account — we remove or anonymize your personal information within 30 days, except records we must retain for legal, tax, accounting or fraud-prevention reasons. Deleting your account removes your listings, routes, favorites, reminders and push tokens; messages you sent may remain visible to the other participant in an anonymized form. Feedback messages and support emails are kept for up to 24 months so we can follow up and spot repeat problems; feedback screenshots are deleted within 90 days. Notification delivery logs are kept for 90 days. Payment records are kept as long as tax and accounting rules require.

Security

Data is encrypted in transit with TLS and at rest by our hosting provider. Access to production data is restricted, and per-row database rules keep private data — messages, routes, favorites, purchases — readable only by the account that owns it.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, export, or delete the personal information we hold about you, and to object to or restrict certain processing. You can manage most of this yourself from your account page, or contact us using the details below.

Children and age restrictions

Sale Scout is intended for people aged 13 and over, and you confirm your age when you create an account. It is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child has provided us information, contact us and we will delete it.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. When we make material changes we will notify users by email or in-app message and update the "Last updated" date above.

Contact

Questions about this policy or your data? Reach us at holmeslabsllc@gmail.com, or use the contact form.