Who we are

The Postal Club is operated by Business Game Changer Magazine. In this policy, “we”, “us” and “our” refer to The Postal Club. “You” refers to anyone who visits the site or creates an account.

If you need to contact us about anything in this policy, write to communitymanager@businessgamechanger.biz.

What we collect

We keep the data we hold about you to the minimum needed to run a community site. Specifically:

• Your email address. Required to create an account, recover a forgotten password, and send you notifications (which you can turn off).
• Your chosen display name and username. These appear publicly on your profile and in the member directory.
• Your profile information. Anything you voluntarily add to your profile — your bio, the topics you enjoy writing about, your letter-writing pace, the countries you are happy to write to, and so on. You choose what to share.
• Private messages. Messages you send through the site are stored so they can be delivered. We do not read them.
• A profile photograph (optional). Only if you choose to upload one.
• Technical data. Your IP address, browser type and basic activity data, used for security and spam prevention.
• Cookies. Standard WordPress and BuddyPress cookies for login sessions and site preferences.

What we do not collect

We deliberately do not collect:

• Your home address, postal address, or any physical mailing address.
• Your phone number.
• Your real name, unless you voluntarily add it to your display name or profile.
• Your date of birth, beyond confirming you are old enough to use the site.
• Payment or card details. Any premium memberships are handled by Gumroad, who collect payment information under their own privacy policy.

How addresses work

This is the most important thing about The Postal Club and we want to be completely clear about it.

When you feel ready to write to another member on paper, you share your postal address with them directly, through the private messaging system, or in any other way you choose. That message is between the two of you.

We do not have a central database of addresses. We do not match members based on location data. We do not pass addresses to third parties because we simply do not hold them.

This is a deliberate design choice. It keeps our members safe and it keeps our responsibilities to you small and clear.

How we use your data

We use your data only to:

• Run your account and let you use the site.
• Deliver messages between you and other members.
• Send you notifications you have asked for (new messages, pen pal requests, and so on).
• Protect the site from spam, abuse and fraud.
• Understand how the site is used, so we can improve it. This uses aggregated, anonymised data where possible.

We do not sell your data. We do not share it with advertisers. We do not use it to train artificial intelligence models.

Who we share with

We use a small number of carefully chosen service providers to run the site:

• Bluehost — our web host. Your data sits on their servers.
• Gumroad — handles premium membership payments, if you upgrade.
• Our email service provider — sends transactional emails like registration confirmations and notifications.
• Cloudflare (where applicable) — provides security and performance for the site.

Each of these has their own privacy practices. We share only what is necessary for them to do their job.

Your rights

Under UK GDPR and equivalent laws in your country, you have the right to:

• Access a copy of the data we hold about you.
• Correct anything that is wrong.
• Delete your account and the data associated with it.
• Export your data in a portable format.
• Object to how we use it, or withdraw consent.

To exercise any of these rights, email communitymanager@businessgamechanger.biz. We will respond within 30 days, usually much sooner.

A note on deletion: when you delete your account, your profile and messages are removed. Some data may be retained briefly for legal, security or backup reasons, then deleted. We will always tell you what happens.

How long we keep data

We keep your account data for as long as your account exists. When you close your account, we delete your profile and associated data. Backups are overwritten on a rolling basis and the data in them is purged within a reasonable period.

Inactive accounts — those with no login for a prolonged period — may be gently pruned from the directory. We will email you first.

Children

The Postal Club is intended for adults. You must be 16 or older to create an account. If we learn that a child under 16 has signed up, we will close the account and delete the data.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy in a meaningful way, we will let you know by email and by a notice on the site. Minor tidy-ups — fixing a typo, clarifying a sentence — will just be updated here with the revision date below.

Questions

If anything here is unclear, or you would like us to explain something in more detail, please write to us at communitymanager@businessgamechanger.biz. A real human reads every message.