Consumer complaint received 2019-11-16
Company: Certegy Holdings, LLC
State: AZ
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports
Sub-product: Credit reporting
Issue: Problem with a credit reporting company's investigation into an existing problem
Sub-issue: Difficulty submitting a dispute or getting information about a dispute over the phone

Complaint:
On XX/XX/2019 I wrote a check for groceries at our neighborhood grocery store. The check was denied despite the fact that there several thousand dollars in funds in the account. The merchant explained that they were following the recommendations of Certegy, a company they do business with for cashing checks. We have cashed checks at that merchant many times over a span of 15 years, and never had any problems with bounced checks or denials. I attempted to go to the specified Certegy webpage, and was unable to reach it. I called the phone number provided on the denial receipt. Those two approaches did not give me any information about how I could find out why they were recommending that my checks not be honored. But the denial recommendation was clearly related to credit information they were reporting to the merchant. I decided to try again the next day. But first I filed a request for my credit information held by all of the major credit reporting companies, and received and downloaded those reports the same day. None of the reports indicated anything inaccurate, out of date, or showed any credit history problems whatsoever. Because I continued to have trouble accessing the Certegy website the next day, I did a web search on Certegy, and was able to find out how to search information about my denied transaction online at the Certegy website. When I was finally able to do that search, it reported that there was no record of any denied transaction. I then filed a request for all information held by Certegy about me as required under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. I provided all of the information that they required about my accounts, tracking number, drivers license, social security number etc. 
When I received their report, it showed only the basic information about the denied transaction, but did not report any of the information upon which their denial recommendation was based. The reason offered for Certegy 's denial recommendation was that the transaction " did not meet the acceptance guidelines, which can vary by store and transaction. '' Brilliant! Their report provided nothing more than what I already knew from the denial notice, and certainly provided nothing actionable. I followed up with a second letter to Certegy, complaining that their report did not meet the requirements of the Fair Credit Reporting Act in that it failed to provide ALL information held about me, and did not therefore provide me with any opportunity to review and correct erroneous information they held which might have been the basis of their denial recommendation. Their response to my second letter was a form letter stating that they would be " unable to locate any data in our system.. .in order to forward you a consumer file disclosure report. '' I was instructed to provide " additional information '' to them - but the additional information requested was exactly the same information that I had provided in my initial request ( bank account numbers, tracking numbers, drivers license number, social security number, etc. ). 
It is clear that Certegy makes it unreasonably difficult for consumers to pursue their rights to review and correct their credit information. The actions of Certegy in our case have resulted in our inability to use our checking account with that merchant, which is our primary source of groceries, and with which we have a long history of doing business. 
In my view, Certegy is acting in violation of the intent of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and I wish to file a formal complaint about their actions in our case.

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation