For the last month, I continue to receive pre-recorded phone calls on my personal cell phone (listed on the national do not call list since 6). The message states "This is not a sales call. We need to speak with you regarding an important business matter. Please call us at 1-800-237-8764, so we may update your records. Please call now." No company name is ever mentioned. It does not matter if I pick up the call, or let it go to voice mail. The message is the same. I get one of these calls about three times a week. Before yesterday, I either erased the message, or ignored the call.
When the call came through again yesterday morning, I decided to check the internet today, to see what I could find out. I spent an hour hitting every reverse look-up site I could find. I tried searching the Better Business Bureau's site. Finally, I resorted to doing a blind search in Yahoo. Imagine my surprise, when on the first line is a reference to a report on this website in regards to Certegy Payment Recovery. I revisted the Better Business Bureau site armed with a name. However, the phone number does not show as registered with Certegy at the BBB Then I went to Certegy's own website. Again, I find that this phone number does not appear on their site. Now I am concerned.
As a side note... I have read every report on this site in regards to Certegy. As a former Operations Manager for several major retailers, I understand how Certegy and all the other Check Verification and Recovery companies work. It is not uncommon for them to be rude, obnoxious, or abusive. If they approve a check, they own the check. As a retailer, I hated using them because not only were they rude to my customers, they were rude to me and my staff as well. At one point, we felt forced to write the person's name who gave a voice authorization as well as the authorization number. Otherwise, they would deny you spoke to a representative and claim you made up the authorization number. All this, to deny ownership of a bad check. Remember, Certegy (and companies like them) are all about risk management and making money. They will do whatever is barely legal to get their money back.
Back to my issue... Why am I concerned? Because as an email, this is called phisshing. At this time, I am not aware of any collections against me or my family. I never, EVER use my cell phone as a contact with any company I do business with. I do not write checks for merchandise I buy (I have a check card for that).
So, why is a company calling a number they should not have, claiming to have an important business matter that requires me to update my records? My gut feeling is this is not who we think it is. I have already filed two complaints today. The first was with the Do Not Call list. The second was directly to the Federal Trade Commission asking them to investigate the potentially illegal attempt to gain personal information about me and my family. If I had time today, I would attempt to contact Certegy directly. That will have to wait for Monday.
Thank you to those who have posted before to this site. Without you, I would still be dead in the water, wondering if I should call the number back. As of right now, I plan to continue ignoring their calls, until someone can give me a good reason not to.
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