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Okay. We use TeleCheck at the store where I work. For the uninitiated, it's an electronic check approval system. Some stores use it for approval only and keep the check, some of them convert the checks to a completely electronic process where the customer signs a receipt and the merchant voids the check. We do the latter.
A regular customer comes in. He's an older man, and a well-known person in the community, and is probably in what's considered 'upper' class in this area (it's rural alabama, we're all middle class at best, people need to deal with that). Anyway, about six months ago, TeleCheck started returning a Code 4 on his checks, which means we are under NO circumstances allowed to take the check. It does not tell us WHY, just that we can't. It's either because they've had a returned check with TeleCheck, had a returned check that was reported to TeleCheck, or there's some other problem somewhere. Anyway, when this first occurred, the guy was given the number to TeleCheck's Check Writer Services so he could call and get it straightened out...sometimes it's just a glitch, and I figured that's what was wrong with his.
Apparently, he never called, because several times over the past six months, he's come back in, and always had a Code 4, and has been given the number to call. Well, yesterday was his last straw. My co-worker, who was about to go off shift, was the one who waited on him. She got a code 4 and the following ensued.
CM: What in the hell does code 4 mean?
CW: It means that it won't approve the check.
CM: Well why not?
CW: Umm...
Me: It could be a number of reasons. A lot of times it's just a glitch in the system, or your driver's license number may have been punched in wrong in the past, or someone wrote a check somewhere else and had a similar license number to yours, yours was accidentally put on theirs and the check bounced...there's a lot of reasons. (The same explanation I'd given him EVERY TIME.)
CW: You'll have to call TeleCheck to get it straightened out.
CM: Well YOU need to call YOUR BOSS and tell him he needs to get his damn machine straightened out.
It's probably a good thing I wasn't the cashier on duty, because at this point I would have probably told him that if HE had called TeleCheck SIX BLOODY MONTHS AGO when this problem started, like we told him he should, he wouldn't have the problem NOW. Anyway, Coworker gives him the number again, and he proceeds to call right there in the middle of the store. And he got hateful with the TeleCheck operator...I don't remember exactly what he said, but I know he was smart and hateful about everything to her. Well he gets finished, and it turns out that the problem was that his license number had been put in wrong when he had written a check.
CM: It'll go through now. You're gonna have to tell your boss if he don't get that damn machine to working right, I'll have to buy my fuel somewhere else.
Now, maybe it's just me, but I thought by showing a Code 4 on an account that had had the wrong license number input on it meant the machine WAS working correctly?
A regular customer comes in. He's an older man, and a well-known person in the community, and is probably in what's considered 'upper' class in this area (it's rural alabama, we're all middle class at best, people need to deal with that). Anyway, about six months ago, TeleCheck started returning a Code 4 on his checks, which means we are under NO circumstances allowed to take the check. It does not tell us WHY, just that we can't. It's either because they've had a returned check with TeleCheck, had a returned check that was reported to TeleCheck, or there's some other problem somewhere. Anyway, when this first occurred, the guy was given the number to TeleCheck's Check Writer Services so he could call and get it straightened out...sometimes it's just a glitch, and I figured that's what was wrong with his.
Apparently, he never called, because several times over the past six months, he's come back in, and always had a Code 4, and has been given the number to call. Well, yesterday was his last straw. My co-worker, who was about to go off shift, was the one who waited on him. She got a code 4 and the following ensued.
CM: What in the hell does code 4 mean?
CW: It means that it won't approve the check.
CM: Well why not?
CW: Umm...
Me: It could be a number of reasons. A lot of times it's just a glitch in the system, or your driver's license number may have been punched in wrong in the past, or someone wrote a check somewhere else and had a similar license number to yours, yours was accidentally put on theirs and the check bounced...there's a lot of reasons. (The same explanation I'd given him EVERY TIME.)
CW: You'll have to call TeleCheck to get it straightened out.
CM: Well YOU need to call YOUR BOSS and tell him he needs to get his damn machine straightened out.
It's probably a good thing I wasn't the cashier on duty, because at this point I would have probably told him that if HE had called TeleCheck SIX BLOODY MONTHS AGO when this problem started, like we told him he should, he wouldn't have the problem NOW. Anyway, Coworker gives him the number again, and he proceeds to call right there in the middle of the store. And he got hateful with the TeleCheck operator...I don't remember exactly what he said, but I know he was smart and hateful about everything to her. Well he gets finished, and it turns out that the problem was that his license number had been put in wrong when he had written a check.
CM: It'll go through now. You're gonna have to tell your boss if he don't get that damn machine to working right, I'll have to buy my fuel somewhere else.
Now, maybe it's just me, but I thought by showing a Code 4 on an account that had had the wrong license number input on it meant the machine WAS working correctly?
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