Privacy and Cookie Policy

Your privacy is very important to us. To better protect your privacy, we provide this notice explaining our online information practices and the choices you can make about the way your information is collected and used. If you have any questions or concerns about this policy, you may contact us at any time for further details. 

We will never sell, share, or otherwise give out your information to others in any ways different from those disclosed in this policy. By visiting hookah-shisha.com, you are accepting the practices as described below.

This notice applies to all information collected or submitted on the www.hookah-shisha.com website. On some pages, you can order products, make requests, and opt in to receive emails. You may decide not to provide certain information, but that may prevent you from using key features of our online shopping experience. 

To process an order, we require you to provide billing information (credit card), shipping and any other necessary contact information (email address/phone number). This information is secure and will never be made publicly available to other parties, and will only be used by our staff to process orders. Your credit card information will only be shared with our bank for payment authorization, and we do not save this information in our database.

We use the information you provide about yourself when placing an order only to complete that order. We do not share this information with outside parties. 

We use and store email addresses to answer any emails we receive from you, or to contact you (by email or by phone) if any order-related issues arise. Your email address is also used to provide you with order and shipping confirmations so you can more clearly track the progress of your order as it makes its way through our system. 

Contact information is not used for any other purpose and is not shared with outside parties. You can opt to register on our website if you would like to receive frequent email updates on our new products, services, and promotions. Information you submit on our website will not be used for this purpose unless you "opt in" on our website. You may also un-subscribe to this email at any time.

Hookah-Shisha.com uses cookies to collect information about you. Cookies are small pieces of information that are saved locally on your hard drive as a small text file that are used by us and third party web services (see Google Analytics Tracking below) 

Cookies are solely used to identify visitors who have previously registered or visited our website. We do not use cookies to store or view any of your personal information. You must have cookies enabled on your browser to place an order on the hookah-shisha.com website. If you do not wish to enable cookies on your browser, you may still place your order over our Live Chat or by telephone.  

We utilize Google Analytics and other similar services to track website user activity at both the aggregate and individual levels. Google is able to track your web activity and online behavior on our website by user ID tracking, a feature we have enabled within Google Analytics. Your user ID and personal information is always anonymous to us within the Google Analytics program. Google uses the information they gather to create personalized advertisements for you based on your online behavior. 

Google is very transparent about their privacy practices. To learn more about how Google uses your information, click here. 

Google does provide an opt-out option if you do not wish to have your information used by Google Analytics. To do so, you will need to install the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on, which can be found here.   

We use third parties to perform services such as payment processing and credit card authorization, fraud protection, age verification, A/B testing, evaluation of visitor activity, and data analysis. We provide your personal information to these third parties with the sole intent of using the services they perform. 

When you create an account with us, you are required to provide us with an email address so we can send subsequent confirmation emails after you place an order with us. If you have selected to receive our promotional emails, you will be included in our email campaigns. You will always have the option of unsubscribing from our promotional emails by clicking unsubscribe at the bottom of any email.

In our commitment to provide the most outstanding customer service possible, we have a live chat feature where you can chat in real-time with a hookah-shisha.com Customer Service Representative. This service is provided by LiveChat, a multi-channel communication platform that manages online interactions. 

When you engage in a chat with one of our representatives, LiveChat automatically recognizes your domain name and "Internet Protocol" (IP address). The domain name and IP address reveal nothing personal about you other than the IP address from which you have accessed our site. LiveChat also collects information about the type of Internet browser you are using, operating system, the search engine (if any) you used to access our site along with any keywords used, as well as the number of Hookah-Shisha.com's web pages you have accessed. 

This information is solely used for internal purposes and is in no way shared with any outside parties. We use this information to help our team develop better and more easily accessible web pages and to troubleshoot any site-related issues. LiveChat does not record your email address unless otherwise provided by you at the beginning of a chat.

Hookah-Shisha.com is obligated to protect your personal information. To prevent unauthorized access, maintain data accuracy, and ensure the correct use of information, we have put in place appropriate physical, electronic, and operational procedures to safeguard and secure the information we are given online. We use an SSL (secure socket layer) encryption certificate provided by VeriSign, the leading SSL Certificate authority enabling secure e-commerce and communications. Credit card transactions are processed through our secure internal credit card processor.

In an effort to combat credit card fraud and to prevent the purchase of our products by minors, Hookah-Shisha.com reserves the right to request additional verification before an order is processed and shipped (see Credit Card Review below) for requirement details.

Hookah-Shisha.com contains hyperlinks to third party websites. Hookah-Shisha.com is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of said third party websites or advertisers. Hookah-Shisha.com does not share any of your personal information to third parties to which we link. Please check with those websites to determine their privacy policy.

Hookah-Shisha.com may disclose any personal information when required by law or in a good-faith belief that such action is necessary to:

1. Cooperate with the investigations of purported unlawful activities (including but not limited to: credit card fraud, purchases of our products by minors, and use of our products with controlled substances) and conform to the edicts of state and federal law or comply with legal process served on Hookah-Shisha.com.

2. Protect and defend the rights or property of Hookah-Shisha.com and related properties, or visitors to the Hookah-Shisha.com sites and related properties.

3. Identify persons who may be violating the law, the rights of third parties, or otherwise misusing the Hookah-Shisha.com network or its related properties.

All products sold at Hookah-Shisha.com are intended for legal tobacco smoking use by adults (21 years or older) only. We operate within the legal age requirements for tobacco purchase of each individual state, city, and county. Any other use of such products, by minors or for use with controlled substances is punishable by law.

Credit card fraud is a felony and we will aggressively prosecute anyone attempting to misuse a credit card number. We track every transaction and will use all means available to prosecute persons attempting to commit fraud.

We do not sell products to persons under the legal age for tobacco purchases within their respective state. To verify your age, we use a non-affiliated third party company, Veratad Technologies, LLC, to confirm that the information you provided upon checkout is accurate and that you meet the legal age requirement to order from our website. 

How does Veratad work?
Veratad Age Verification services employs multiple trusted data sources that contain billions of public records that assist in providing age validation based on the personal information you have submitted to us. We only use this service to attempt to verify your age and identity while keeping your information completely safe from distribution. Veratad uses secure 256-bit encryption technology to ensure safe delivery of the information you provide online. Veratad does not save or store sensitive personal information, nor will it be shared or sold to third parties. 

What if Veratad cannot confirm my age?
Some shoppers may not be able to have their age confirmed based on a Veratad search alone. Your public record data may be limited or simply too outdated for Veratad to confirm that your personal information is accurate. If this happens, we will reach out to you via email and phone in order to manually verify your age. We typically require you to provide a photo of yourself holding a valid state-issued ID card to confirm both your identity and age.

Once age verification is completed, we will manually override the negative age score within our system so you will not be subjected to the same process on future orders. None of the information you provide via email will be saved in our database or shared with outside parties, and any age verification emails containing your sensitive information can be deleted permanently upon your request.

We understand that a pre-authorization has already been captured as payment for your order, which is why orders awaiting age verification are contacted daily using the email address and phone number submitted online until we either confirm your age or cancel the order. Please note that funds can be easily be released back to you in the event that age verification cannot be completed. Only after an order ships, will we ever collect final payment for your order.

At Hookah-Shisha.com, we take the threat of credit card fraud very seriously. We use an internal fraud score algorithm that evaluates every order based on the billing information you provided on our website, the shipping information provided, the credit card information entered, and order size (in dollars). Any orders that receive a high fraud score will be subjected to credit card fraud evaluation. In addition to our algorithm, we have a team of professionals who review and process orders, and they have license to initiate fraud review based on their own autonomous evaluations.

What is required of the credit card review?
Much like the age verification process, credit card review can be permanently completed in one email. We typically require you to send a photo of the cardholder, holding his/her credit card and state-issued ID card or passport so we can confirm the credit card number and identity of the cardholder all at once. We only require the last 4 digits of the credit card to be visible in the picture, as well as the name on the card and ID card or passport to confirm that they are a match. None of the information you provide via email will be saved or shared with outside parties, and we will delete any email containing your sensitive information upon your request.

If the image you provide is acceptable for verification, your order will then be processed and the credit card used for the order will be permanently verified for future orders. However, we reserve the right to re-open fraud evaluation at any time upon detecting potentially fraudulent activity.

What if I am unable to complete fraud review with an image?
We have alternative methods of fraud verification reserved for the event that we cannot complete fraud review via email. Our first step is typically to complete a small charge on your credit card (no more than $2.00), and at that point we will ask you to log into your personal online banking account and confirm the dollar amount of the charge based on the statement you see. We will not charge your card a second time without prior customer consent, and the amount we charge will be discounted from your order subtotal.

If neither method is possible for you, we can opt to cancel the original transaction and request a manual bank transfer. This method adds extra business days to order processing time, as we will not ship the order until the bank transfer is confirmed.

All materials including images, illustrations, designs, icons, photographs, logos, slogans, content, source code and other written and visual materials on the Hookah-Shisha.com Website and any of its affiliates are the exclusive copyright, trademark, and/or otherwise noted intellectual property owned and/or licensed by Hookah-Shisha.com. Any misuse of this or any affiliate website may be punishable by law.

We may occasionally update our Privacy Policy to reflect any internal changes made to our online processes. If we do happen to make changes to this Policy, we will update this page and the effective date listed below:

Effective Date: January 1, 2024