Bad Checks

[casey13]

So when you have construction cut the phone lines, you no longer have the system that checks checks. We lost a lot of stuff in terms of we couldn't take credit card, debit cards, or gift cards and we also couldn't activate any type of gift card, phone card, phones (contract or prepaid), and we couldn't access our websites. We also couldn't access the schedules and our symbol network. Oh, and we can't call out either. Exciting.

Anyway, so because our system was down, we had a bunch of people writing bad checks. My experience was I sold someone a console and several accessories. It was about 550 dollars. They also have a tv that's on the floor that's got a spiderwrap on it. I ask if they want to pay for it here and they say no. There's nothing I can do despite some of the other departments that are closely related telling me to insist they pay for it here. Except the fact that those particular ones are allowed to be taken up to the front and the manager would write me up if I insisted that they pay for them back there. There's a reason why they are spiderwrapped.

So loss prevention is freaking out really bad, partially because we have had huge electronic sales and well, we can't verify checks with everything down. There was someone buying about 1500 dollars worth of stuff earlier and then there were my guys. I told the lp guy that I checked his ID and it did match all the information on the check. The check reader did manage to read the check too.

The guys come back and he says he's got about three hundred left in the account if he buys the stuff his girlfriend wants. They choose to get a cheaper, older style console and a handheld with some games so it's about 250. Our system kicked back on about thirty minutes earlier so this time it kicks back their check with a nice error message. Then my coworker walks up and informs me in front of the customer that there's a bunch of police cars outside. He thinks it's probably his expensive order that he had someone do up at a different register The customers take the slip and says they are going to go call the number.

Then the lp manager comes over and asks which registers he wrote checks at. I point out the two. He then informs us that hey, the guys that had bought the stuff from me had a warrant and they caught them. They only had 15 dollars in the account anyway.

So we're going to see if I get written up. I shouldn't because the system was down but I know at my old job, they did write up people who took bad checks. However, they didn't really train us in what to do when telcheck is down.

[Hobbs]

Why the heck would you take checks if you can't verify checks? At my store, if the system goes down, no checks are accepted at all.

[EvilEmpryss]

So when you have construction cut the phone lines, you no longer have the system that checks checks. .... We also couldn't access the schedules and our symbol network. Oh, and we can't call out either. Exciting.

On the plus side, no one could call and complain!

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Why the heck would you take checks if you can't verify checks? At my store, if the system goes down, no checks are accepted at all.

What he said. When our registers farted last Saturday afternoon, we couldn't take debit cards or checks at all.

[fireheart]

What he said. When our registers farted last Saturday afternoon, we couldn't take debit cards or checks at all.

That just gave me some great visual imagery just then

Where do you suppose a register expels its gas? Out the vents or in the customer's faces? (the SC's of course )

From what I know, if the system is down, no checks are accepted. We do have a list of people who we don't accept checks from, but the list itself is fairly small. And we only have one person I know on a regular basis who actually uses checks outside of some businesses.

[SG15Z]

Our POS system will not take a check if the system used to verify it are down. So when it's down, it's down. We can't do anything.

[Shalom]

Can't you just call the bank and ask them if the check is good? (Oh, right, I forgot. No damn phones. I guess you couldn't, unless someone has a cell phone.)

I remember the good ole days. When a customer gave us a check at the locksmith shop where I worked, we'd call the bank that it was drawn on. We'd give them the account number, check number, date and amount, and they'd either say "Good at present" or "Not good at present". If the latter, we'd refuse the check.

(This was how we did things in 1987, back before the WWW was more than a gleam in Tim Bernors-Lee's eye. Remember calling VISA for authorisation numbers to write on the three-part charge slips? Those were the days, all right.)

So one day the boss comes back with a check for $110 or so that someone had given him at a jobsite; he said he had a bad feeling about it for some reason. Sure enough, I called the bank and the check was rubber.

Now they won't tell you how much money is in the account, but we kept calling back, every couple hours, and giving them all the information with a payable amount of $5 less. When we got down to $85, they said "Good at present".

So:

Bossman drives over to the bank, pulls $25 out of his wallet, fills out a deposit slip and deposits it in SC's account. Then he hands the teller the check and demands the cash. Now there's enough money in the account, the check clears, and he walks off with the dough. We were all when he came back to the shop and told us what he'd done. Boss said he'd rather take the $25 loss than have to spend months running around after the SC to get anything.

I only wish I could have seen the SC's face when he found out he suddenly didn't have any money left in his checking account.

[bankworking]

I only wish I could have seen the SC's face when he found out he suddenly didn't have any money left in his checking account.

That's hilarious! Wouldn't work at my place though, because we can't verify that a personal check is good over the phone, only in person. We have to actually see the check.

[SG15Z]

I only wish I could have seen the SC's face when he found out he suddenly didn't have any money left in his checking account.

LOL That's great!!!

[Pezzle]

ROFL, as a matter of contrast, a store I work at is pursuing an individual for theft by deception due to a rubber check - 1200 bones. We went to court the other day - my dad-boss believes in the whole pursuit of principle thing.

[Andara Bledin]

Can't you just call the bank and ask them if the check is good? (Oh, right, I forgot. No damn phones. I guess you couldn't, unless someone has a cell phone.)

You could, but they won't tell you. Heck, most of the time the bank won't even confirm if the account number belongs to an active account or not, much less whether there's any funds in it.

These days, we have to jump through hoops followed by our customer jumping through hoops just to get their bank to answer the questionnaire we send out for when a customer wants to get open credit terms. And the last few times, they've then had to harass their bank themselves to get a response.

^-.-^

[casey13]

They might have not realized telcheck wasn't working. I do think they knew and decided that profits were much better than loosing half the business we did get. We are part of a major chain and well, we already ticked off a bunch of people by turning away credit, debit, and shopping cards.