Privacy policy

01Who we are and what this policy covers

AMG Garage Door Expert ("we", "us", "our") is a garage door service company. We repair garage doors, openers, springs, cables and rollers, we replace and install doors and openers, and we inspect doors for safety, in homes and businesses across eight counties in North and Central New Jersey: Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Middlesex, Morris, Passaic, Somerset and Union. We have no storefront. Our truck comes to you.

This Privacy Policy explains what personal information we collect when you use our website at amggaragedoorexpert.com (the "Site"), when you call, text or email us, and when we do work at your home or business. It explains why we collect it, who sees it, how long we keep it, how we protect it, and the choices you have.

"Personal information" means information that identifies you or could reasonably be linked to you, such as your name, phone number, email address, street address, and photos of your garage or driveway.

This policy is written in plain English on purpose. If anything is unclear, call or email us using the details at the end of this page and we will explain.

02The short version

• We collect only what we need to give you an estimate, book the job, do the work and get paid.
• We do not sell your personal information. We do not rent it, trade it or give it to data brokers.
• We do not run advertising pixels or targeted advertising on the Site as of the effective date above.
• Nothing measures your visit until you agree to it. Analytics is switched off when the Site loads, and it stays off unless you turn it on in the consent banner.
• We text you only if you have told us we may, in writing for offers, and you can stop at any time by replying STOP.
• We do not take payments through the Site and the Site has no user accounts.
• You can ask us at any time what we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. We honor those requests whether or not a privacy law forces us to.

03Information you give us

The estimate form

Our estimate form asks for your name, phone number, email address, the street address, town and ZIP code of the property, the service you need, and, if you choose, a short message and photos of the door or opener. We use this to work out what the job involves, to send you a written price, and to reach you about it.

When you submit the form, its contents, including any photos, are delivered to our business email inbox through Resend, the service that sends the notification, and a copy of the submission is stored in our own database on Cloudflare so that no enquiry is lost. Photos are stored in Cloudflare object storage. The details are also entered into Workiz, the field service software we use to schedule and invoice the job. The form is received by the Site's own server functions on Cloudflare, which pass the submission from your browser to us.

Photos you upload are meant to show us the door, the opener, the springs or the hardware. Please do not include people, identification documents, mail, screens or anything else personal in the frame. If a photo shows something you did not mean to send, tell us and we will delete it.

The form contains a hidden field that people cannot see but automated spam programs fill in. If that field is filled, the submission is discarded. The form may also carry a bot check that runs in your browser when the form is sent; it exists to tell people from scripts, it is not advertising, and it collects nothing about you beyond the check itself.

The form also carries two optional consent boxes about calls and texts. What each box means, and what happens if you leave them empty, is explained on our SMS and Call Consent page.

The Book a visit form

The Book a visit button on the Site opens a short form that asks for your name, phone number, preferred day and preferred time window. It is delivered to us the same way as the estimate form, and the Site keeps no copy. A person calls the number you entered to confirm the visit. The form carries the same two optional consent boxes as the estimate form; if you leave them empty we confirm by a person calling or emailing you and we send no automated texts about the booking.

The chat helper

The chat button on the Site opens a simple question and answer helper. It answers from a fixed set of prepared answers about our services, areas, pricing and timing. That part runs entirely in your browser: what you type is matched against a list of keywords to pick an answer, and nothing you type is read by a person or stored by us.

The helper also offers a call back request. If you use it, it asks for your name and phone number, shows the same consent sentence our forms use, and sends exactly those two details to us through the same lead system as the estimate form. Nothing else you typed into the conversation is sent. To reach a person, use the estimate form, the Book a visit form, the call back request in the chat, or the phone number printed in the contact block on this page and on every page of the Site.

If we ever connect the chat to an automated assistant that sends more than a call back request to us or to a third party, we will update this policy first, say so in the chat window, and show the consent sentence from our SMS and Call Consent page before the chat accepts anything further. Any call back from the chat would be made by a person, and we would send no automated texts to a number given in chat unless you later consent by form or by text reply.

Calls, texts and email

When you call us at the number on this page, we see your caller ID and we may write down your name, number, address and what you need so we can quote and schedule. When you email us, we keep the email thread. When you text us, or agree to receive texts from us, we keep the messages. Our texting practices and the consent we ask for are described on our SMS and Call Consent page.

We do not record phone calls.

Information we gather while doing the job

To do the work we keep a job record: your name, contact details, the service address, what we repaired or installed, the price, the date, notes about the condition of the door and its parts (for example the type and age of the springs, a worn roller, or damage that existed before we arrived), and the amount you paid and how. We take photos before and after the work so that we and you have a record of the result. Those photos are part of the job record.

If you pay by card, the card reader and its payment processor handle your card details. We see the last four digits and the approval, and we do not store full card numbers. If you pay by check we keep a record of the check as part of our accounting.

Photos of your home on the Site

We only publish a photograph of your garage, driveway or the work we did, on the Site, on our social media pages or in our advertising, if you have given us permission. We ask for that permission separately, in writing (a text or email reply counts), and we keep a written note of it. We do not publish your name, address or anything that identifies the house from the outside. You can withdraw permission at any time by contacting us, and we will remove the photo from places we control within ten business days. We cannot pull back copies that other people have already saved or shared.

Reviews

The Site does not carry customer reviews as of the effective date, and we do not quote reviews we have not collected. If we ever publish reviews, they will be written by real customers, quoted with the first name the customer chose and, where the customer gave it, the town, and we will not change the words except to shorten a long review, which we will mark. We do not pay for reviews, offer anything in exchange for a review, or hide negative reviews. If you wrote a review we quoted and would rather we did not quote it, tell us and we will take it down.

04Information collected automatically when you visit the Site

Server and security logs

The Site is a static website hosted on Cloudflare Pages. Like every web host, Cloudflare receives your IP address, browser type, the pages you request and the time of each request in order to deliver the pages and defend against attacks. We use Cloudflare's summary reports, which show us traffic totals and countries, not individual visitors. Those reports come from Cloudflare's own server side counts; we do not load Cloudflare's Web Analytics script on the Site. Cloudflare's own privacy policy governs what Cloudflare does with its logs.

Typefaces served from our own domain

The Site serves its typefaces from its own domain. Your browser does not send a font request to any font company, so no information about your visit is disclosed to a font provider.

Measurement, only if you ask for it

We use one measurement tool on the Site, and it does not run until you say so. On your first visit a consent banner appears and the Site loads nothing beyond the necessary storage below while it waits for your answer. You can Accept all, Reject non essential, or open Manage choices and take one category without the other. The Cookie settings link in the footer of every page reopens the banner, and our Cookie Policy lists every cookie by name.

The one optional category is Analytics (Google Analytics 4). It is off until you turn it on, and turning it off again stops further collection and clears its cookies from your browser.

Google Analytics 4 tells us in aggregate which pages people visit, how they arrived, roughly where they are (town level), what device they use and whether they reached the estimate form. Google Analytics 4 does not store IP addresses; it uses the address only for a moment to estimate location and then discards it. We have set the shortest available data retention period, we have turned off Google Signals (the setting that would link visits to Google accounts for advertising), and we have turned off data sharing with other Google products.

We do not use Google Ads conversion tracking, Meta pixels or any other advertising tags on the Site as of the effective date. If we add Google Ads conversion measurement later, it will be a fourth category in the consent banner, off until you turn it on, and we will update this policy and the Cookie Policy before it goes live.

Preferences stored in your browser

The Site stores two small things in your own browser so the Site works the way you asked: your consent choice, and your accessibility menu choices (bigger text, high contrast, highlighted links, paused motion, readable font and big cursor). The consent choice is kept for 12 months, in local storage and in a first party cookie, both named cc-consent; it records which categories you accepted and when, and nothing else. The accessibility choices stay in local storage until you clear them. Neither is sent to us, and you can clear both in your browser settings. Our Cookie Policy names each item.

05Why we use your information

We use personal information for these purposes and no others:

We do not use your information to make automated decisions about you, and we do not profile you.

• To answer your question and send you a written estimate.
• To schedule the visit, find the address, and tell you when we are on the way.
• To diagnose and repair the door, keep a record of the work, and handle any follow up.
• To send invoices, take payment and keep the accounting and tax records New Jersey and federal law require.
• To send appointment related texts and calls with your consent, and marketing texts only with your separate written consent.
• To run, secure and improve the Site.
• To respond to a request you make about your information.
• To comply with law, respond to lawful requests from authorities, and protect our legal rights, for example if there is a dispute about a job.

06Who we share information with

We share personal information only with the companies that help us run the business, and only what each one needs:

Each of these companies is allowed to use the information only to provide its service to us. We do not allow them to sell it or use it for their own marketing.

We will disclose information if the law requires it, for example in response to a subpoena, or if we need to in order to protect someone's safety or our legal rights.

If the business is ever sold or merged, customer records would pass to the new owner under this same policy, and we would tell you.

We do not sell personal information. We do not share it for targeted advertising. We are not a data broker.

• Cloudflare, which hosts the Site, receives each form submission through its server functions, keeps the lead record in its database and stores uploaded photos in its object storage.
• Resend, which sends the notification email for each form submission to us and the confirmation email to you when you gave an email address.
• Cloudflare Email Routing, which forwards mail addressed to our domain to the mailbox we read, and Google, which hosts that mailbox.
• Workiz, the field service software where the job is scheduled and invoiced.
• Google, for Google Analytics 4 (only if you turned Analytics on).
• The telephone and text messaging provider we use to send and receive appointment texts, which needs your mobile number to deliver a message.
• The card reader and payment processor, when you pay by card.
• Our accountant and bookkeeping software, for invoices and tax records.
• A lawyer, insurer or court, if a claim or dispute requires it.

07How long we keep information

When we no longer need a record we destroy it so that it cannot be read or reconstructed, as the New Jersey Identity Theft Prevention Act requires.

• Estimate requests that do not turn into a job: up to 24 months from the request, then deleted, so that we can honor a price we quoted and answer if you come back.
• Job records, invoices and payment records: seven years after the job, because federal and New Jersey tax and accounting rules require us to keep business records for several years.
• Before and after job photos: with the job record, seven years, unless you ask us to delete them sooner and no dispute is open.
• Permission records for photos we publish: for as long as the photo is published, plus three years.
• Text message consent records and opt out records: at least five years from your last message, so that we can prove consent and honor your opt out.
• Chat: the question and answer part of the chat keeps nothing, because it runs in your browser. A call back request is kept like an estimate request, up to 24 months if it does not become a job.
• Google Analytics user level data: two months, the shortest period Google allows. Aggregate reports last longer.
• Email: kept in our inbox for the same period as the note it belongs to, then deleted.

08How we protect information

We are a small business and we keep our systems simple. Our business email and the accounts that hold customer information are protected by strong, unique passwords and two step verification. Job records live in a password protected system, not on paper left in the truck. Photos on phones used for work are backed up to a protected account and deleted from devices that are retired. Access is limited to the owner and the people working on your job. The Site is served only over an encrypted connection.

No system is perfectly secure. If we discover that personal information in our care has been accessed or taken by someone who should not have it, and misuse of it is reasonably possible, we will notify the affected people as quickly as we can and without unreasonable delay, and we will report the incident to the New Jersey State Police before notifying customers, as New Jersey law requires. Notice will come by email or letter from the contact details in this policy, and it will never ask you for a password or payment.

09Your choices and rights

What you can ask us to do

Whether or not a privacy law requires it, you can ask us to:

To make a request, call the number on this page or email [email protected]. We will confirm that we received it within two business days and answer within 45 days. If we need a little more time for a complicated request we will tell you why and when to expect an answer. Before we release or delete information we will check that you are the person it belongs to, usually by contacting you at the phone number or email address already on the job record. We will not charge you for a request and we will not treat you differently for making one. If we say no to any part of a request, we will tell you why, and you can ask us to reconsider by replying to that answer.

• Confirm whether we hold personal information about you and give you a copy of it.
• Correct information that is wrong or out of date.
• Delete your information, unless we must keep it (for example a paid invoice we are required to keep for tax purposes, or a record needed for an open dispute), in which case we will tell you what we are keeping and why.
• Stop texting or calling you.
• Take down a photograph of your home or garage, or a quote from your review.
• Turn off analytics for your browser, which you can also do yourself through the Cookie settings link.

Where the New Jersey Data Privacy Act stands for us

The New Jersey Data Privacy Act (in effect since January 15, 2025) gives New Jersey residents rights of access, correction, deletion, portability and opt out. It applies to businesses that control or process the personal data of at least 100,000 New Jersey consumers in a year, or of at least 25,000 consumers while earning revenue or a discount from selling personal data. We serve far fewer people than that and we sell no data, so as of the effective date the Act does not apply to us. We honor the rights listed above anyway, because we think you should have them. New Jersey law also restricts the sale of sensitive personal data by any business, covered by the Act or not, and we sell no personal data of any kind, sensitive or otherwise.

If we ever grow past those thresholds, this policy will be updated and we will meet the Act's full requirements.

Universal opt out signals

Some browsers can send a "Global Privacy Control" signal asking websites not to sell or share your data for targeted advertising. We do neither, so there is nothing for that signal to switch off on our Site. If we ever add targeted advertising, we will honor the signal.

Do Not Track

Browsers can send a "Do Not Track" request. There is no agreed standard for how websites should respond, so our Site does not change its behavior based on that signal. Use the consent banner instead, which we do honor, and which starts with everything optional switched off.

10Children

Our Site and services are for adults arranging garage door work for a home or business. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13, and the Site is not directed to children. If you believe a child has sent us information, contact us and we will delete it.

11Links to other sites

The Site links to phone and email apps, and to pages that help with a question, such as a manufacturer's manual page or a town or county page. Those services have their own privacy policies and we do not control what they collect. Our Site does not embed social media tracking buttons.

12Changes to this policy

When we change this policy we will change the "Last updated" date at the top. If a change affects how we use information you have already given us in a way you would not expect, we will tell you by email or text before the change takes effect and, where the law requires it, ask for your consent.

13How to contact us

We acknowledge privacy questions and requests within two business days.