TeleCheck Is Part Of The First Data Family TeleCheck provides industry-leading check acceptance, check processing and risk analysis services to thousands of retailers and financial institutions. For nearly 40 years, TeleCheck has safeguarded businesses and financial institutions from check-related losses and fraud. Accepting checks has never been riskier; with TeleCheck, however, retailers are still able to offer check acceptance to consumers as a safe and secure payment option for purchases in stores, online, and over the phone.

The TeleCheck Electronic Check Acceptance® (ECA®) service converts a paper check into an electronic item at the point of sale. The ECA service allows retailers to accept checks as quickly, safely and easily as they accept credit cards. Think of it as a check without the paper.

How TeleCheck Works

When a check is presented to your sales clerk, the check is authorized through a specially-designed, secure TeleCheck system that captures banking information and the amount of the check. Once the check is approved, a receipt of the electronic transaction is presented for the customer to sign. When they sign the receipt, they will receive a copy for their records along with the check to keep. It's that simple.

Signing the ECA receipt is similar to signing a credit card slip. Their signature on the receipt authorizes TeleCheck to present the check to their bank electronically and deposit the funds into your business account.

An ECA transaction takes the same amount of time to be presented to the bank as a paper check, usually within one to two business days.

The ECA transaction appears on the customer's bank statement in the same area as ATM transactions and direct deposit payroll checks. The transaction will reflect the date the check cleared their account, the check number, the amount and the place where the check was presented.

TeleCheck provides the TeleCheck Electronic Check Acceptance service so that businesses have the opportunity for increased efficiency, reduced risk and higher productivity, all of which eventually benefit you—the consumer.

TeleCheck Fights Fraud

To effectively win this battle and reduce the numerous types of fraud, frontline stakeholders -- banks, retailers, consumers – need tools to predict where identity theft or fraud might occur before it occurs – not after. And that’s where TeleCheck comes in. For the last 40 years, TeleCheck has been an industry leader in check acceptance, check processing and data analytics. These services are valuable tools for merchants and banks in attempting to recognize and deter fraud before it occurs.

TeleCheck sees a lot of checks, and the data TeleCheck derives from these checks provides tremendous analytical opportunity to fight fraud.

Debt verification: TeleCheck maintains a live database comprised of check and bank account debt records reported by hundreds of thousands of merchants. TeleCheck can verify the presence or lack of unpaid debt related to a check writer in response to subscribing merchant’s queries and provide check acceptance decisions based on what it finds.

Risk-based decisioning: TeleCheck has also examined historical check data and identified patterns by analyzing and comparing the characteristics of valid check transactions vs. invalid (fraudulent) check transactions. From the knowledge it has gathered, TeleCheck has built statistical profiles of what a solid check transaction looks like – and what a fraudulent one may look like, too. Using these analytical profiles as backdrops, TeleCheck can also provide predictive risk decisioning to its merchants to augment its base line debt verification services.

Together, check verification and risk-based decisioning work as invaluable weapons to combat commercial losses associated with check fraud.