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The Paperless Trail

Checks Imbalances 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

Even though ChexSystems' practices have garnered tremendous amounts of ire among sections of the public, getting direct information about the company itself is roughly equivalent to oil-wrestling a contortionist in a frictionless body stocking. There is almost no direct way to contact the company, or to find reliable information about its practices.

• Introduction • One Strike, You're Out • The Paperless Trail • The Disloyal Opposition • Warning Shots • The Starving Class • An Alternative: PassChecking --- • Consumer Complaints about Chexsystems • Consumer Complaints about Certegy

The general advice for those dealing with ChexSystems is to write the company at its headquarters, located in Woodbury, Minnesota, or call their direct "customer information" line. However, the line is completely automated, and there is no option to speak to an actual customer representative.

Interestingly, despite the automated message's claim that a customer can request their report via the Web site, there is no link, page, or form in which to do so. You can "initiate" a request on the site, but to actually obtain a report, you must mail ChexSystems or call the automated customer line. The Web site itself is not entitled "ChexSystems", or even "ChexHelp" (as its URL title indicates), but the ominously generic "Consumer Debit Resource, Inc."

If you utilize the automated phone line to request a copy of your report, you must provide exhaustive personal data, including your Social Security number. Unless you live in a state with "free disclosure" laws, or were recently denied when trying to open a checking account, you'll have to pay a $9 fee to get your report. However, the author was able to get his report for free, despite not meeting either of these qualifications.

Tracking down the history of ChexSystems is only slightly easier. The company was founded in 1971 as a subsidiary of the Deluxe Corporation, a check-printing business established in 1915. In 2000, Deluxe spun its electronic transactions arm -- including ChexSystems -- into eFunds, a financial services company based in Scottsdale, Arizona. eFunds specializes in "risk management" and "global outsourcing solutions" , and even offers an informative downloadable white paper on the benefits of outsourcing. (Representatives of eFunds were not available to comment.)

Although both eFunds and ChexSystems provide definitive statements on protecting privacy rights and customer data, a closer look reveals their true motivations as an information warehouse.

ChexSystems recently partnered with Bridger Insight -- itself a product of none other than ChoicePoint -- to provide an "identity verification component" to its data mining system. Once an individual's information is in the records, ChexSystems will provide an "ID confidence" three-digit numerical score, similar to credit scores or a rental application score. The scores are then segmented into high, medium, or low risk categories according to how close or far the data matches an individual's identity.

One has to wonder where this fits in the general definition of "unbiased," or what level of "ID confidence" ChoicePoint's data raiders had before they hijacked the company's records.

Next: The Disloyal Opposition

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