Data Deletion Policy

1. How to request deletion

Email [email protected] from the email address on your account, with the subject line “Delete my account”. Tell us:

• the email address of the account, and
• whether you want the whole account deleted, or only specific information (for example, one request and its chat).

If you cannot email from that address, write to us anyway — we will verify your identity another way before deleting anything. We do this to make sure nobody else can delete your account.

You can also reach us through the support address listed at the bottom of this page.

2. If you signed in with Google or Facebook

When social sign-in is available on iNEED.PARTS, removing or disconnecting iNEED.PARTS in your Google or Facebook account settings stops us receiving any further information from them, but it does not by itself delete the account you already have with us. To delete that, send the request in section 1.

3. What happens, and when

We acknowledge your request within 7 days and complete it within 30 days.

Deleted

• Your name, email address, mobile number and password.
• Your requests, the chat content in them, and photos you uploaded.
• Supplier profile details, team membership, and your reviews and vouches.
• Notification and session records.

Anonymised instead of deleted

Where information is entangled with another user’s records — a chat between a buyer and a supplier, or a quote that formed part of a completed deal — we remove your identifying details and keep the remainder unlinked from you, so that the other party keeps their own history.

Kept, because the law requires it

• Credit purchases, invoices and payment records — five years, under South African tax law.
• Records needed to establish, exercise or defend a legal claim, for as long as that claim can be brought.
• Records of serious abuse — a minimal record that an account was closed for fraud or unlawful trading, kept to stop the same person signing up again.

We will tell you which of these applied to your request.

4. Suppliers with unspent credits

Deleting a supplier account forfeits nothing you are owed: ask for the refund first under the Refund and Credits Policy, then ask for deletion. Once the account is deleted, the credit balance is gone and cannot be reconstructed.

5. Deleting less than everything

You do not have to delete the whole account. You can ask us to remove a single request, a photo, a review, or your mobile number — and most profile details you can edit yourself under Account at any time.

6. Backups

Deleted data disappears from the live service immediately and from our encrypted backups within 90 days, as those backups age out. We do not restore deleted personal information from a backup except where doing so is legally required.

7. If you are not satisfied

Contact us first. If we have not resolved it, you may complain to the Information Regulator (South Africa), JD House, 27 Stiemens Street, Braamfontein, Johannesburg 2001, [email protected].