Short Response: So many people shop at Walmart stores these days but do not stop to consider Walmart’s check policy. The company does accept checks from customers. A caveat is that there are limits to using checks at Walmart. Instead of having to spend a great amount of time navigating around Walmart’s website to find out what the conditions are for paying with checks at the store, you can read this article to get the important details.
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Using A Personal Check to Pay for Walmart Purchases
All of the Walmart locations today will take your personal check as an accepted form of payment at their registers for buying goods and services. There are registers that will not accept your personal check though. Self checkout registers do not take them because these machines are not set up to check identification and scan checks. Our staff confirmed these policies because not all of the information was available on the company website.
Requirements to Pay With A Personal Check
Walmart has the same policy regardless of whether you pay with checks that are in-state or out-of state. It means that you can pay with your usual personal checks even when you shop at a Walmart while on vacation in another state.
1. Your name has to be printed on the check – Walmart prevents check fraud by confirming that your ID matches the name at the top of the check. Business checks are the only exception. Employees are able to utilize business checks in the stores without their name on the check. The store might require that an employee ID be provided alongside the government photo identification.
2. Photo ID issued by the government – Walmart will accept your American passport, state ID card, state driver’s license, military ID, or your social security card with a photo ID. Managers have discretion on accepting foreign passports. You can not use or cash checks in store without showing an acceptable ID.
3. Telecheck Verification Scan – Walmart employs a check verification third party company called TeleCheck to determine how risky a check may be and to fight fraud. Your check must pass the TeleCheck scan in order to pay with it.
About The Way TeleCheck Works
The vast majority of Walmart stores rely on TeleCheck to provide the verification services for customer checks. A few of them utilize Certegy instead. The two firms are the biggest check verification service providers today in retail outlets.
You will have to allow the register cashier to pass your check through the scanning machine (for TeleCheck or Certegy) in order to pay with it. Walmart makes this clear in their checkout lanes with a statement that explains you will have to allow your check to be processed accordingly to pay with it.
Meanwhile, the TeleCheck machine will gather the information off of your check (routing and bank account numbers and dollar amount) along with your ID information to check the riskiness of the check in their database information. This protects Walmart by determining the odds of your check being returned because of fraud or insufficient funds.
In Conclusion About Walmart’s Check Policy
Walmart accepts checks if you provide government ID and your check can pass a TeleCheck scan. TeleCheck admitted that only a bank account number it had not scanned before could create sufficient risk to cause the check to be declined. From time to time, Walmart will end up rejecting good checks because of mistakes like this made by TeleCheck.