Q. Are you who you say you are?
A. Avanquest Software (formerly BVRP Software) has been in business since 1984. Maybe you ended up on this site when looking for one of the best of breed companies we’ve bought over the years: V-Com, Nova Development, Emme, Elibrium and FastTrack, to name but a few. (For further information read about our History.)
Q. Is my personal information safe with you?
A. You entrust your data to Avanquest and Avanquest only.
We guarantee that your email address won’t be shared with any third party that might later send you unsolicited emails. In fact, our privacy policy guarantees that your data will only be used for delivering the product you’ve ordered and for e-mailing any information and special offers you have requested from Avanquest – and from Avanquest only.
We’re also careful about protecting your privacy on the technical side: Our site is McAfee Secure, and uses SSL encryption to protect you from Identity Theft and Credit Card Fraud while you shop with us. This means that our site is tested and certified daily to pass the McAfee Secure Security Scan, guaranteeing you that our security processes meet the McAfee Secure standard to stop hackers from accessing confidential data. Your personal information therefore is kept safe from intruders on our secure servers. We are also PCI Compliant which means that we have met the standards for looking after data set out by credit card companies like Visa or MasterCard.
Q. Why am I asked to accept a cookie?
A. Cookies are small pieces of information that you give us permission to put on your system so that we can better provide you service on our site. It is a piece of text sent by a web server to a web browser, which enables the server to collect information from the browser.
The Avanquest website uses the following types of cookies:
• Temporary or Session cookies – These are placed on your PC when you enter the website and are removed when you close down your browser. Session cookies are used purely for the operation of the product catalogue and allow the website to track which products you have added to your basket and your preferred currency. We do not collect any personal information in this way.
• Persistent cookies – These may be placed on your machine if you have come to the Avanquest website as a result of promotional activity (email, advert etc) or registered with us. These cookies enable us to give you special offers, promotions and personalized service. This cookie will stay on your machine and is used purely for statistical analysis. We do not collect any personal information in this way.
Neither of these enables us access to your computer, or get your email address. You'll need to specifically type personal in and give it to us for us to get it.
Now why did we tell you all this? About 99% of visitors to our site are happy to accept cookies - we want the other 1% to be happy too.
Q. Is it safe to make payments with my credit card?
A. On the Avanquest web site, credit card transactions are guaranteed to be fully safe according to the SSL encrypting standard (Secure Socket Layer). This means that your financial information is encrypted using not just one but two keys to make it secure and confidential during transmission over the internet.
At our end, to guarantee your security, we’ve made our IT systems and facilities PCI (Payment Card Industry) compliant. This standard has been developed by Visa and MasterCard and is also being enforced by American Express, Discover Card and JCB. Your credit card number is encrypted and both electronic and physical security of the data has to be maintained at these high standards.
Q. How do you know which pages are secure?
A. Look for 'https:' in the url (rather than the normal 'http:') or for the little padlock on the bottom right had side of the page if you are using Internet Explorer or Firefox; an unbroken key if you are using Netscape.
IMPORTANT: If you are using an early version of Netscape or Internet Explorer - say, under v3 - these won't support good security so don't use them. Generally try and keep up with the latest version for greater security.
