Lucid Points

Just the entire Kramer entrance compilation.

Sagan and Hawking in a new age rap ballad.  It starts with the famous “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”

Great tribute, John.

Members of Pink Floyd discuss the making of Money.

This looks great…

Here’s the official website.

Amazing.  Must have channeled Nostradamus. 

Does anyone remember what this is?

Oh, yeah.  Its called sky.  I remember that.

A couple of weeks ago, I attempted to purchase an iPhone from one of our areas AT&T stores.  I ordered in ahead of time, and the store had it ready for me to pick up.  Very nice service, I might add.  With the total price in hand, I had a company check made out and then left for the store.

I was promptly waited on, and while my normal sales rep was not there at the time, one of the other associates was glad to assist me.  She rang up the order on the POS system, I handed her the check and my drivers license to complete the sale.

Here is where the entire transaction fell apart:  My company check was declined.  She tried again to no avail.  Of course, they would gladly accept another method of payment, and even though I had cash and credit cards on me (certainly the cash would be accepted), I choose to leave the phone in the store.

See, this is the second time that this has happened, and I wanted to get to the bottom of the problem.

Apparently this happens at the store a lot.  The first time it happened, the rep said "that it probably has nothing to do with you or the account" implying that even the store personnel find it annoying.

It seems that AT&T stores use a company called Certegy to provide check guarantee services.  When a check is declined, a receipt prints out with a number for the customer to call and find out why their check has been declined.  I called the number.

I was told that the information provided to Certegy during the sales transaction failed their identity theft risk algorithm.  Which basically means that they consider the check a risk of being stolen.  The only data gathered was routing number, account number, check number, amount, and my drivers license.  Here is my theory:  the check is from a corporation, and assuming that they scan some sort of credit database to verify data, I think the transaction was declined because there were no matches with that account and my drivers license.  Well, duh!  Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I contend that Certegy is likely declining practically all checks drawn on corporations because it would be highly unlikely that a match could be made with a drivers license, since I don’t ever recall completing paperwork of any type that would match my drivers license number to that bank account.

Of course, there has been no problem with the account whatsoever in the past.  No returned checks, no identity theft problems, nothing.  The account is over 5 years old.  There were plenty of funds in the account to cover the purchase.  AT&T has a real customer service problem here.  Although I understand how the computer systems work, and understand that its not personal, I bet most people are embarrassed or insulted by these "declines".

AT&T needs to make Certegy understand that Certegy works for AT&T, and AT&T does not appreciate having their customers treated like this.  Someone C-level at AT&T needs to investigate this and take corrective action.  I would also recommend that Apple look into the problem as well, since they are single-handedly responsible for AT&T’s spectacular performance as of late, and they may interested to know that I did not buy the iPhone (i actually decided to go with a phone I had on Alltel).  I understand the problems and issues with taking checks in a wireless store environment as I used to deal with these companies myself when selling point of sale software to them, so I know quite a bit about the store operational issues. I’m not the only one having trouble dealing with Certegy, by the way.