My check was rejected today!

[Blue.Fairy2]

OMG...

I was at my normal grocery store, where I DO write checks quite often. When I went to pay, my check was declined, cashier could not explain why and called another women over to help. She tells me in a loud voice, with 5 or 6 people behind me, it's because I wrote "bad checks and owe the store money"!

Holy cow,I told her it was not true, she needed to get a manager. She refused and told me to move to the service desk, nothing they could do. She was going to void my $200+ in TDay groceries. It was then, that I told her , I refuse to move unless you can get a manager. Manager came over, "held" my order in the system and we moved to service desk. Again I was told "nothing they could do, don’t know what the code means, no way to over ride it yada yada"

I told him he needed to figure it out, I've been a customer 20+ years and have no problem calling main headquarters from my cell phone right then and there to get an answer.

At this point he tells me "not necessary" to make the call, and over rides it in their system. Didn't he just say he couldn't do that? Hands me a card the check company 800 number and tells me to "have a great day"

When I get home, I do call check company and told the same as the others here...something flagged it as fraud, no records in system for me, so sorry.

This is bull. I perfectly understand check fraud, I've been a bank manager/vp for many years. Bottom line, you either need to take checks or you don’t. But to put customers through this type of insult and embarrassment it just not acceptable.

I did call corp hq for the grocery store, let them know how I was treated, (which was really my main complaint) and told them if they don’t make changes to their policy, I will not be doing business with them in the future.

I gave them a time frame that I thought was acceptable to reply to my complaint, and told them if I don’t hear back, I shop someplace else. Period.

I had no idea this was such a widespread issue....

Good for you! I know how you feel and how the others that this has happen to feel...something needs to be done about the abuse by Telecheck in my book it is defamation of character and it seems nothing has changed in more than 15 years.

 

[MrsPooh]

All these stories made me remember another run-in I had with Telecheck. This was back in the late 1990s. Mid-December I needed new tires for my car. At the time I drove a model that required rather expensive sport tires. I had a new set of tires installed at NTB and paid by check. The total was nearly $700. I wrote the check and the cashier ran it through Telecheck for approval. It was approved no problem. After I was handed the receipt I realized that he had failed to give me the 10% discount. He re-ran my order and I had to write a new check for just over $600. It began to run my check and I told him I didn't want it run through Telecheck because they had just run one for a large amount. I had to deal with Telecheck at my job and I knew it could cause a problem. He insisted the only way they would accept the check was by running it through the Telecheck system.

I forget about the incident until I was at Best Buy the following Sunday trying to purchase a game system for my dd's Christmas. I got there early for the special and had to stand in a long line to get the system at the sale price. When I tried to pay by check it was declined. Fortunately for me I had a credit card with me at the time (don't usually carry one) and was able to pay for it.

When I called they told me that I was over the authorized limit. They told me that the authorizations stay on for two weeks and that since I had over $1500 authorized they would not ok any more until two weeks had passed. I couldn't figure out where I had written that much in checks. They told me about the two big ones. I explained that one was an error and was returned to me. No go - I couldn't write checks anywhere that used Telecheck until after the holidays - what a mess.

From a business point of view I understand the use of Telecheck though. We paid them a percentage of each check they guaranteed but if a check was returned we could redeposit it against a Telecheck account and have the money back the next day rather than trying to collect from the customer. I clearly remember three times we accepted checks they would not guarantee - they bounced and we ended up having to file complaints with the prosecuting attorney's office - never did collect the money.

 

[kahpets]

This is good information, I rarely write checks anymore either. My parents were "flagged" a few years ago but the only place they had problems with was a particular grocery store. My dad would get so livid because money management is something he takes a lot of pride in. They just stopped shopping there altogether because it became such a hassle to have to wait for a manager everytime they went through the checkout lane.

Another good point people have made is the fraud alert systems built into credit cards. A few years ago on BF we got two laptops and Capitol One denied the purchase and we had that lovely message on the phone when we got home! Luckily another card worked. It's probably a good idea to call ahead if you're going on a vacation or making a big purchase.

I rarely if ever write checks anymore, but I agree with calling ahead if you're going on vacation or will be making large purchases, outside of your normal spending habits. Since having my card flagged while I was in Europe on vacation a few years ago, I now call my credit card company ahead of time, and it's never been an issue since.

There is no excuse for rude behavior, and it sounds like Telecheck has a whole other set of issues, but most of these fraud protections are there to protect all of us.