Topic: Anyone else tagged by CERTEGY???
in Forum: Humor

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This is the company that is supposed to guarantee your checks to merchants that you buy from, such as Wally Mart, Albertson's, Home Depot, etc. Turns out one of their highly skilled, background checked employees SOLD over 6 MILLION people's personal banking information to a "Data Broker", who in turn sold it to several "Direct Marketing Organizations" WTF?!?!?

Here's a little of what I've learned about this scam company...
They provide a "service" to merchants to "Verify" your check writing capabilities, ergo, are the checks good or not? Say you go to Wally Mart, and write a check for, say $10. The check gets run thru a machine that either accepts it, or declines it. If it is declined, the cleck/salesperson gives you what looks like a parking lot ticket stub, with a reason for decline, usually a "Code 2". No one seems to know what the h e l l "Code 2" means, tho. So, you call the number on the ticket, and you get someone from this company, Certegy, and they say they CANNOT "verify" whether or not you have any money in your account...that is not what they do, as they "DON"T HAVE THAT INFO"...your check was declined because you wrote 2 other checks earlier that week. HUH???????
SO...if they "don't have access to your banking information, how the h e l l did one of their employees STEAL IT????

Anyway, what they "suggest" is that you put a "freeze" on your credit reports, and request a "Free" credit report from the 3 major reporting agencies...guess who owns "Certegy"? Equifax! Why would I need to get a "Free" report from the company that is denying my checks?
What they want is for you to fill out a "GOLD application", and send them....your name, SOCIAL SECURITY number, and...A BLANK CHECK!!!!
Hmmm...they want me to send them all of the info they supposedly already have, because that's how they know my checks are no good?!?!?
They say they don't use whether or not you have any money in your account to deny/accept your checks...they use a "computer algorithm" which tracks your check writing history. If you write what the computer thinks is too many, "Denied". If you rarely write a check at a certain place..."Denied".
I just don't get it....
I did a Google search on this company, and boy was I floored. MANY blogs/forum posts on this, as well as what appears to be an official Certegy web site, complete with NON-SECURED files you can download for more info.

Any input on this?
GOOGLE CERTEGY
Joel Adams
C3VR Lifetime Member #56
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"Money can't buy happiness -- but somehow it's more comforting to cry in a CORVETTE than in a Kia"







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MICK - C3VR Lifetime Member #113

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St. Petersburg, FL-based Certegy Check Services Inc. is a division of Fidelity National Information Services, a financial processing company. A former employee of Certegy, which provides check services to US retail merchants, misappropriated and sold consumer information to a data broker who in turn sold a subset of that data to a limited number of direct marketing organizations.
According to a civil complaint filed by Certegy in the Circuit Court of the Sixth Judicial Circuit in St. Petersburg, FL, the employee was senior level database administrator William G. Sullivan, who had been employed by the company for seven years and who was entrusted with defining and enforcing data access rights.
According to the filing, Sullivan obtained information from Certegy’s database and, either individually or through his wholly owned entity, S&S, was paid for the information by list broker JAM Marketing Inc. JAM had gone on to disseminate the misappropriated information to other direct marketing firms, including Strategia Marketing LLC, Data Secure IP LLC, MC List Escrow Inc.; Quality Resources Inc.; Whitehat.com Inc; and Quality Teleservices Management Inc., doing business as Custom Response Teleservices.
In the court document, Certegy said that the broker and the direct-marketing companies were not aware that the information had been stolen.
No phone listing or Web entry was available for JAM Marketing and MC List Escrow, both of which are based in Seminole, FL. Strategia Marketing would not take calls from a reporter and said it only responded to written questions sent through the mail.
Calls to Data Secure IP LLC were not returned.
A person who did not want to be quoted at Quality Resources Inc. said that while the company was named in the filing, it did not buy data from the entity. An employee of Whitehat.com was not aware of the filing but planned to look into it. Finally, an employee of Quality Teleservices Management Inc., doing business as Custom Response Teleservices, was also not aware of the lawsuit and said that the company buys its data directly from its clients.
The misappropriated information included names, addresses, and telephone numbers as well as, in many cases, dates of birth and bank account or credit card information. Approximately 2.3 million records are believed to be at issue, with approximately 2.2 million containing bank account information and 99,000 containing credit card information. The company is still investigating the time period over which the misappropriations occurred...."
Check out the entire article HERE



We had to go to the bank and get a new account set up to protect our a$$es. They(CERTEGY)say that no incidence of ID theft has been found, but, why should I believe them?
Joel Adams
C3VR Lifetime Member #56
My Link
(click for Texas-sized view!) NCRS
"Money can't buy happiness -- but somehow it's more comforting to cry in a CORVETTE than in a Kia"

Jimmy B.
Just can't wait to get on the road again.
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Mama took the letter we got to the bank today, and they said they did have someone else come in yesterday with the same crap. Then they started the "Why don't ya just sign up for the on-line banking" push again...sure...just what we need...lets make it even EASIER for hackers to get into our account!

We're just hoping for the best...maybe no-one wants my identity! I ain't got any money, or personality, or class...

Joel Adams
C3VR Lifetime Member #56
My Link
(click for Texas-sized view!) NCRS
"Money can't buy happiness -- but somehow it's more comforting to cry in a CORVETTE than in a Kia"









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Ya gotta be more careful these days about who might have your financial info...and these days, it could be anyone...

Joel Adams
C3VR Lifetime Member #56
My Link
(click for Texas-sized view!) NCRS
"Money can't buy happiness -- but somehow it's more comforting to cry in a CORVETTE than in a Kia"



Ya gotta be more careful these days about who might have your financial info...and these days, it could be anyone...

Yes Joel Scott did see you at Funfest this year... Fact of the matter there were several people who saw you there bro. (an we kin prove hit fo shore....)
