Certegy

After making sure my bills were cleared and confirming I had more than enough money in my account ($1500), I drove to a nearby store to make an urgent purchase. Unfortunately, after rining up the cart full of items, my payment couldn't be authorized. No explanation g I've. Cashier tried a few times, and finally information printed out to call certegy. The automated system didn't work for my phone, but I borrowed my sons phone and it worked. However, nothing could be achieved by calling this number except referral to the website. No option to speak with a person at all. I went to the website and entered my information, and still, nothing was available. It tells you that you can request a one time a year free report, BUT none of that worked and I needed to be able to make a purchase right then. My bank was on the other side of the state with no branches nearby. I had no alternative payment methods. After this, I called the merchants corporate office, and also got nowhere. It seems certegy and the businesses using certegy are impossible to work with. After finally leaving a review about certegy, I received an email requesting my number and a call that connected me to an agent. What I learned is that nobody can answer the questions: "what is wrong?" "How do I fix it?" Because this is all a computer system. My first communication I was placed on hold for a supervisor and disconnected. I emailed the company and received another call and had to go through the whole ordeal again before being allowed to speak with a supervisor. She was understanding and did provide me the most helpful information. They cannot see what the systems issues are, and they cannot change it or override it. It just is what it is for everyone. Then, the individual stores might elect to have specific requirements based on their needs that will be entered in and payments will be filtered through that. Therefore, just because the system does not authorize the payment, doesn't mean the checks are bad. This makes people look bad and prevents them from using their own funds to make a purchase because the system won't allow it based on various factors that can even be specified by the store itself. Therefore, I am not shopping anywhere that uses certegy. I will be explaining this to every merchant and informing them of alternatives. I will also be looking at other ways to shop to avoid issues such as this.