Secure Check™

NSF Check Recovery

I recently saw a sign on the wall behind the counter of a store that read “We will gladly accept your personal check up to $50 with a $100 cash deposit”. Well obviously this storeowner made it clear that he wasn’t interested in taking checks. The problem is that by refusing to accept checks he is probably turning away business that would have made his business more profitable.

A great solution to this general fear of accepting checks is the Secure Check electronic check recovery program. The best part of this program is that it costs you the merchant nothing. Yes, please let me repeat that – it will cost you nothing, nadda, zilch!

Here is how the program works:

A customer writes a check in your store or service business. Without the need to run the check through any special check reading equipment you deposit the check in the normal manner at your local bank branch. Should the check bounce then your bank will forward the check directly to Secure Check for collection. When Secure Check receives the check they convert the check into an electronic transaction and the check is processed through the U.S. Federal Reserve Automated Clearing House (ACH). Using the latest technology by Star™ and Visa™, Secure Check’s proprietary check processing system verifies customer account balance daily and schedules transactions accordingly, to recover your funds on an average of five times faster than any other method. Because Secure Check is processing the item through the ACH system they have the first right to receive the funds prior to any paper checks that the customer may have written in the meantime which are due to clear that day. As a result Secure Check is able to recover funds for the merchant an incredible 88% of the time!

Now that Secure Check has your funds what do they do with it? The answer is that they deposit 100% of those funds directly into your checking account.

So to review the last few paragraphs it costs you NOTHING and you receive 100%.

Well, that sounds mighty friendly. You may be wondering how Secure Check makes their money. Almost every state legally permits a NSF penalty surcharge to be added to the original check amount. In most states this is around $25.00 and this amount (whatever your state’s legal limit is) will be retained by Secure Check as their fee.

For every day Secure Check receives a returned item you are notified by your choice of email, fax, or regular mail. You may also receive special notifications of checks that exceed a pre-determined amount.

A highlight of the Secure Check service is that the complete history of your account activity is available to you 24/7 by logging into our real-time online reporting system. You may view the check writer’s information, dates, amount, return reason, pay status and even the original check image. The website is formatted so that you have the ability to download reports into a variety of popular accounting programs

OK, so what about the checks that can’t be collected through the Federal Reserve’s ACH system. These ineligible items include: Account closed, refer to maker, invalid account, counterfeit, do not redeposit, checks post dated 180 days or more and items over $2500, as well as those accounts which are still open but never have enough funds to cover the original check. At your option, Secure Check will put these checks into Secondary Collection on your behalf. What this means is that Secure Check will send the bad check writer letters and make phone calls. There is never any discourteous or heavy handed tactics used with these contacts. We save clients for you by not offending them. With secondary collection being complicated and costly because of legal fees and hands on staff communication, upon collection Secure Check will forward to you the face amount of the check minus 20% to cover processing. About 99% of our clients choose to allow secondary collection as this is their next best option for collecting on bad checks. However, as an alternative, you may simply elect to have the check returned to you if it cannot be collected electronically.

If this sounds like the right check protection program for your business then we encourage you to sign up today. The application process couldn’t be easier as there are only 2 forms needed that you can print out from the link below and they take less than 5 minutes to complete. The first form is the Electronic Check Recovery Agreement which is a simply worded one page month to month agreement (that’s right no long contract required!) and the second form is the Bank Forwarding Authorization form which we will send to your bank’s check processing department. Please complete and sign these two forms and fax them back to us at 215-489-7880 along with a voided check from your checking account. Within a couple of days you will be setup and Secure Check will send you a welcome package with decals for your register and the login information for the reporting website.

Should you have any questions about the program please feel free to contact Kevin via e-mail or by calling 215-489-7878 or toll-free at 800-717-1245.