TeleCheck is a check acceptance company. TeleCheck helps more than 374,000 merchant locations decide whether to accept check transactions by analyzing information about check transactions that previously have been sent through its system. If TeleCheck did not approve your check transaction, we apologize for the inconvenience. For more information, please write or call TeleCheck today.
No. TeleCheck never tells a store that a check is good or bad. If your check is not approved, it simply means that TeleCheck does not have enough information about your check to approve the transaction or that you may have an unpaid check or debt.
No. TeleCheck never knows the balance in your account. Decisions are made based on information in TeleCheck’s files and a statistical analysis of your check compared to all checks that have passed through TeleCheck’s system.
TeleCheck can establish a positive file for you. If you provide TeleCheck with the information listed below, and TeleCheck verifies the information, your files can be updated, improving the likelihood your checks will be approved in the future.
TeleCheck may request additional information.
TeleCheck sees a lot of checks, and the data TeleCheck derives from these checks provides tremendous analytical opportunity to fight fraud.
Together, check verification and risk-based decisioning work as invaluable weapons to combat commercial losses associated with check fraud.
Risk decisioning is one of the most effective and necessary tools available to control costs and protect the check writing process. TeleCheck's risk analytics have permeated the retail landscape based on their reputation of sound reliability. In fact, TeleCheck routinely works in cooperation with law enforcement at all levels to detect and deter fraud. Be assured that TeleCheck does not share the specifics about any debt with any third party retailers or financial institutions, we take your privacy as seriously as you do.
For merchants, risk decisioning helps control and reduce financial loss. Merchants can accept checks with greater confidence that the checks are reliable.
TeleCheck alerts consumers as well as merchants to fraud - a TeleCheck acceptance decision is often the first warning a consumer receives of their account's compromise. TeleCheck provides consumer convenience, as risk decisioning lets merchants continue to offer check writing as a payment option. And, above all, risk decisioning results in lower prices for consumers because the merchant has been able to reduce losses associated with check fraud.
Things like:
These are just some "frontline" fraud indicators, but TeleCheck studies many others as well. In fact, there are literally hundreds of variables TeleCheck evaluates daily to predict, with ever-refining accuracy, when and where check fraud is likely to occur.
When a consumer writes a check to a TeleCheck subscribing merchant, the merchant first submits the check to TeleCheck for analysis before accepting it. The merchant does this by either manually or electronically feeding the check's MICR information and often the check writer's ID number to TeleCheck.
When TeleCheck receives these pieces of identifying data, it first looks for "matches" of the identifying data within its database of transactions, reviewing for evidence of an unpaid check or account debt on checking accounts known to be held or used by that check writer. Then, TeleCheck analyzes the transaction against one of its many risk models. The model looks for "fraudulent" characteristics and good characteristics and provides risk decisioning accordingly. If the transaction is above the applicable threshold of acceptable risk, TeleCheck will flag it and issue a single-digit code, a "3" back to the merchant. This "Code 3" is telling the merchant that the transaction contains a significant level of risk markers.
These models are very effective in reducing fraud, but they are only predictive, based on information obtained at the point-of-sale and historical data. They cannot predict with 100% accuracy which check transactions will complete or return. However, through this predictive risk decisioning, TeleCheck aids retailers in saving billions of dollars that might otherwise be lost to fraudulent activity, the kind of financial loss that is rarely recouped.
No, See the below details regarding 3rd party checks, certain non-3rd party checks and international checks.
The following check types cannot be processed through ECA (Electronic Check Acceptance):
Below are non-3rd party checks that TeleCheck also does not support.
Note: some exceptions may apply.
In most cases, TeleCheck did not perform a funds check on your account at the point-of-sale, and your account balance was not weighed into its risk decisioning. The transaction carried risk indicators independent of bank balance.
Evidence of prior bad check writing history is not determinative in how a risk model ultimately decisions on a check transaction. The transaction carried other risk indicators.
Also, when your transaction was analyzed, it probably had several characteristics that made it look risky. In fact, if the account number was rarely, or never seen by TeleCheck before, this in itself could be a factor in a decision to decline.
Check acceptance is a choice made by retailers. Surely you've experienced shopping at a store that will not accept checks. Those merchants have experienced too many check-related losses and decided the gamble is not worth it. Obviously, TeleCheck does not want to prevent good check transactions from being completed, but, a consumer's ability to write checks is only as good as a merchant's ability to safely accept them. If a merchant can't achieve an acceptable level of security in a payment method, the payment method ceases to be an option.
TeleCheck looks at transactions by identifiers that will pinpoint who you are to the exclusion of all other individuals — your personal identifiers — to authenticate you to TeleCheck. By verifying this information, TeleCheck can be assured that any release of your personally-identifiable financial information held in its databases is limited to you and a third party, pursuant to your instructions.
Evidence of prior bad check writing history is not determinative in how a risk model ultimately decisions on a check transaction. The transaction carried other risk indicators.
You could be continuing to experience check declines because of fraudulent activity on your account occurring outside the fraudulent activity you originally reported. For example: you report that checks 200-225 on account 1234 were stolen. If a fraudster is using check numbers on account 1234 that are outside that range, the records will post active. If a fraudster is counterfeiting/printing checks on your account number, that data may have been submitted to TeleCheck. Or, a fraudster could be using your driver’s license number to cash checks on other accounts. When this occurs, it can "link" those bank accounts to your bank account. Or, the risks associated with a transaction can result in risk-based declines. If you’re having continuing problems, we urge you to contact TeleCheck periodically to check on the status and provide us with updated information. We'll work with you.
TeleCheck will identify up to the three major reasons your check was declined. If you were declined because of unpaid checks or bank account debt, TeleCheck can provide the specific details of that debt to you – just ask. You may also have been declined as a result of risk decisioning. There can be hundreds of variables active within a risk model and the risk-based decisions it generates. Each risk model is tailored – with certain variables used, others not, and weighted. Oftentimes, the models are tailored to specific concerns of the merchant being serviced. If they are in the midst of high fraud loss, their controls might be higher than the next merchant's.
If your decline was risk-based, you would not have seen evidence of unpaid debt on file in your report. A risk-based decline is not based on evidence of unpaid debt. The variables of risk models are "non-judgmental." Risk decisioning is based on statistical probabilities.
Your credit experiences are not taken into account when TeleCheck analyzes a check transaction. A risk model is designed to act as a safety precaution and does not speak to or reflect on a check writer’s credit status.
This could happen for a variety of reasons: misprinted information on ID cards or MICRs, IDs incorrectly keyed at the point of sale, or multiple check writers on a single account, such as a business account. TeleCheck can "unlink" these inaccurate associations when alerted and given necessary data.
Report check theft to:
TeleCheck Fraud, Identity Theft Department
(800) 710-9898
https://getassistance.telecheck.com/forgery-or-identity-theft.html
Fidelity National Information Services
(800) 437-5120
www.askcertegy.com
ChexSystems
www.consumerdebit.com
CrossCheck
(800) 843-0760
www.cross-check.com