Certergy Check Services/Walgreens

Business location Tampa, Fla.

I was beginning to think that I had stumbled down the rabbit hole into

some fresh consumer hell from which I could never escape. You're not

going to believe what happened to me, even though you may have

encountered the same nonsense from this ersatz check authorization

service. Here's what happened---and I apologize if I carry on and on

with too much detail.

On Thursday, November 17th, I went to the Walgreen's Pharmacy in

Edina, Minnesota to pick up my prescription drugs. I also bought

some facial cream and would have bought some hair conditioner, too, but

they didn't have the kind I wanted. Anyway, these purchases totaled

$141.09--way too much, in my opinion, but what could I do? I don't set

prices. Like most consumers, I'm just a pawn. So I wrote out a check

for $141.09 that was cheerfully accepted by the store. No problem.

So, the next day when my husband and I were shopping around, we went

to the Walgreen's in Richfield, Minnesota, where we live, to see if

that store carried this conditioner I wanted. They did. It was on

sale-and I had a coupon! We also picked up a few other items we hadn't

been able to find at the other store. Life was good until I gave the

cashier a check for $24.53. Suddenly, Walgreen's would not accept my

check.

Of course, I tried to explain that it was all a big mistake. I just

wrote a check yesterday for over $140 at the store in Edina, and they

took my check. The cashier didn't believe me. She kept asking if I

had another way to pay. "Don't you have any cash or credit cards?" I

wanted an explanation. She had none. All she could offer was a slip

with routing, account, and check numbers listed, along with the name,

address, and toll free number of CERTEGY CHECK SERVICES. Then she kept

telling me to call the 800 number listed on the paper. "They'll

explain why, " she said, "We don't know. They never tell us anything."

When I kept insisting there was something really wrong, she called the

manager. She didn't know anything, either. She claimed she didn't

know anything because of privacy/confidentiality issues, either. She

also told me to call the 800 number.

When I called this number, though, I had to give more personal

information through the touchtone phone. Then a recording came on and

told me, "There was no negative report or history about the account in

question, blah, blah...." It didn't make any sense because this long

scripted speech told me there was nothing wrong with my check, but they

weren't going to accept my check anyway....but they wouldn't tell me

why.

I called the manager at the Edina store, and he was just as mystified

as I was. He couldn't believe no explanation was given. He also

couldn't believe that there wasn't a live person available that I could

talk to. He referred me to Walgreens.com, but I told him I needed help

from a real person. He offered to look into it and said he'd get back

to me.

My husband called the toll-free number and got through the voice mail

junk this time. So I got to speak to a live person named Wilson.

During our conversation, he'd ask me questions. type on his keyboard,

wait, then apologize to me while he was waiting for the responses to

give me. He finally told me, "There's no negative report on this

account."

"Yeah, I know there isn't. So why didn't they take my check?"

"Because of a processing error with the check."

"What does that mean?"

"The scanner failed to pick up the number at the bottom of your check."

I informed him that it sure did pick up the number at the bottom of my

check because I had a slip of paper with his company's name and

toll-free number, and the numbers on the bottom of my check, my check

number, the routing number, even the response code,

When he started apologizing again, I told him I was sorry, too, but

sorry doesn't cut it when you're embarrassed and humiliated in a store

with about 10 people standing behind you and looking at you as though

you're a thief or scam artist.

"I told you I was sorry, " he hissed. That's when I asked for his

supervisor. He gave me a reference number for our conversation, then

transferred me to some airhead named Anna who could only read scripted

responses, not explain anything.

Anna launched into this big speech about how there were many reasons

for declining checks-dollar amount, check writing activity, processing

errors, blah, blah. Then she dropped this gem: the system had to

"prevent fraud so it declined a valid check.:

"What did you say?" I asked. "Run that by me again."

She repeated it. "You know, when you go home tonight," I told her,

"and start thinking you did a great job today, I hope you think about

what you just said. You're reading a script of ridiculous things that

don't make sense. What you just said doesn't make any sense at all."

Now, most people would have been taken aback, even insulted enough to

go silent or get snotty. Not Anna. She came back with another keeper:

"The system questioned the recent activity because you wrote a check

yesterday."

"Wait a minute. Say that again," I asked. She did.

"Do you have any idea how absurd that is? What you're telling me is

that I can't write a check out to Walgreen's on Monday, then write

another check to Walgreen's on Tuesday?"

She chirped out more script about the system and how it questioned

things, blah, blah.

"So I can't write a check to two different Walgreen's two days in a

row? I'm not allowed to do that? That doesn't make sense at all!"

Then she started another speech: "A check is a promissory note, not

cash. It's different from cash. It takes two days for a check to

clear-"

At that point, I told her this conversation was over. "I just can't

talk to you anymore. I can't do it." Then I actually told her to hang

up the phone. She refused to do it. I explained to her that one of us

would have to hang up the phone sometime. Otherwise, the conversation

would never end. She wouldn't do it. I kept telling her to hang up,

and she kept on with this phony, perfunctory politeness: Thank you

SOOO much for calling. I'm sooo glad you called, have a nice

weekend---all because I told her I couldn't talk to her anymore. I

finally set the phone's receiver on the table and walked away.

So much for my experience with Certegy Check Services.

When I called the manager again and spoke to him, he seemed extremely

concerned and interested. Unfortunately, his contact at Walgreen's

Corporate Office in Illinois just turned these concerns back to

Certegy. Guess who called me back on Monday? None other than Anna

Airhead. Obviously, I can't share the whole exchange with you.

There's not enough space in this e-mail to truly express how

invalidated and insulted I, a consumer with good credit and a good

check-writing history, felt. Walgreen's and Certegy are punishing me

for being a shopper--and for paying big bucks for their overpriced

drugs. Not my fault. But they really make you feel as though it IS

your fault.

As for the second conversation with Anna, she came up with more

nonsense. First she told me they "hadn't seen any checks(from my

account) at all." She also told me my account had a history of no

activity. Wrong, wrong. Then she told me "You've never written a

check to Walgreen's before."

"What? Yes, I have-"

"This is the first check you've ever written to Walgreen's."

When I protested and told her I'd had this particular checking account

for over 7 years and had never had any problems with it, that it was an

account of good standing, she agreed with me. So why wouldn't they

accept my check? What was the problem?

Then she came up with a new reason: "In the last 2 months, there hasn't

been a lot of activity in stores."

What? What are you talking about? I protested some more, and she

contradicted herself again. She said I wrote a check to Marshall's in

October, then again in November, and mentioned other stores to which

I'd written checks. So, there HAD been activity in stores. When I

tried to reason some more with her, Anna became accusatory. "And then

the day before Friday, you wrote a check for $141. Then you went out

and wrote a check for only $24.53 at another Walgreen's store!"

"So?

"The system read that as fraud-and the possibility that someone had

stolen your identity."

"So you're telling me that I can't write a check in one Walgreen's

store, then go to another Walgreen's store the next day and write

another check."

"No," she said, "I'm not telling you that."

"Yes, you are. That's exactly what you told me. You just told me

that-seconds ago."

"No, I'm saying the system read it as fraud."

"Because one day I wrote a check at one Walgreen's, another day I wrote

another check at a different Walgreen's."

"No," she insisted, "I'm no saying that..."

See how slippery these people are? I'd be willing to bet that they

used to run telemarketing scams to screw old people out of their life

savings. I'm not even going to get into how the second phone

conversation ended, with Anna trying every way in the book NOT to let

me speak to her supervisor.

You are not alone. We are not alone with our disgust at this

pseudo-check security system. Any ideas on what we consumers can do

about this problem?

D.G.

Comment On This

Comment On This

I am a senior and since I get paid at the beginning that near the end of the month, I bouce a check for medication or groceries. I pay an extra fee or fees to the bank for processing. I then pay another fee to vendor. The checks always get picked up and paid off. I also called Certegy and they said no outstanding checks but a hold was put on my checking and would stay for 90 days just to keep me writing a bad check. I am paying large fees to write these checks but they said they could not remove it. I am in the process of writing my congressman regarding what is going on which I think is agaist the law. Stopping another check until your outstanding checks get paid is okay but this 90 hold thru another company is illegal or a bill should be passed which does this. Write your congressmen. In this economy, this hold should be stopped and eliminated all together.