Chase down again

Readers are reporting another outage this morning that has lasted several hours.  The login screen as of now appears active and I can’t test it as I am not a Chase customer.  One reader reported being redirected to this page.

Dear Chase, please don’t enroll me in stuff I don’t want

The consumer advocate at your local newspaper or TV station is still the best way to get big organizations like Chase to do the right thing.  For some reason, negative publicity still bothers them.  Take this exchange for example:

Dear Greg: In 2009, Chase Bank sent me an advertisement stating that, with the opening of a new checking account with a minimum $1,000 deposit, they would give me — yes, give me — $100. My first deposit was $1,064 on Dec. 16, 2009. Then the proverbial other shoe: They deducted $25 of the $100 on Dec. 23 for what they called a “Leisure Rewards” program annual fee, plus another $25 under the same charge code. In plain English, they had taken back $50 of the so-called $100 “incentive” to open an account. I figured it was only a matter of time before they deducted the remaining $50 for something else and went smiling into the sunset. I closed the account to a zero balance on March 26, 2010. On Jan. 1, 2011, they billed me for the last $50 of the account — a difficult transaction since the account had been closed for nine months! This did not stop Chase. They simply charged a “negative” balance to my non-existent account. They added $27 for account overdraw, bringing the total to $77. Their collection people have been calling us morning, noon and night.

Dear Donald: It was so much easier when banks gave new customers a toaster! But let me cut to the chase. I donned a pair of oven mitts and handed off your scorching hot letter to my contact at the bank. According to Chase, the deductions from your account were the result of your enrollment in the Leisure Rewards program — even though you say you never heard of the program until you were charged for it. In the interest of moving on, Chase has applied a $77 credit to your account, marked it “closed,” stopped all collection efforts, and confirmed that your credit record has been muddied.

I suspect that they won’t be enrolling people in Leisure Rewards anymore as that program is going away, at least for debit cards, but this is very similar to how they’ve been enrolling customers in overdraft protection without asking for years, until the government made them stop.

As for the rest of it, like billing the closed account for a $50 fee that no-one at Chase is likely to be able to figure out, well that’s just how Chase is, if you’ll believe the 1,000 or so stories we’ve posted here since 2005.

Reflect on WaMu’s seizure

This fridary 9/25 is the one year anniversary of WaMu’s seizure by the FDIC and sale to JP Morgan Chase. This is a good time to reflect on whether things have gotten better or worse under Chase than they were under WaMu. In the past year I haven’t heard a single story about a WaMu customer being pleased that their bank is now Chase.

More home equity line lawsuits

More lawsuits against Chase for revoking home equity lines. The latest one in California.

Not WaMu’s money but they won’t give it back!

Charles sent his credit card payment to the address listed on his credit card companies website. That company also handled some cards for WaMu. Somehow the payment ended up in WaMu’s hands and they cashed the check even though it wasn’t made out to them. Now they won’t give the money back. (story)

“New” credit card

Chase is launching the new blueprint credit card that allows you to separate and pay off certain types of purchases, such as groceries, each month (your Full Pay categories), while carrying a balance for other purchases. It gives you tools to set goals for paying off large purchases over time. Most importantly, it waves the interest between the date of purchase and the due date on Full Pay category purchases. Oh wait, my Bank of America credit card (and most other cards) already does this, it’s called THE GRACE PERIOD! Nice try Chase.

Debit cards can be dangerous

There is no way around it, debit cards are dangerous – not only do you risk overdraft fees for many small charges if you banks automatic overdraft protection is in place, but disputing a charge can be infinitely harder than with a credit card. If you do have to dispute a charge, here is a handy guide. The best advice we can give you is to stay away from using debits cards for purchases. If you do need to use a payment card, use your credit card instead and pay the bill as soon as it comes to avoid fees.

Chase’s odd definition of “high-risk”

If you have never taken a cash advance on your card, pay your bill on time, and don’t use your card often enough, Chase claims you are a high risk and will raise your interest rate. (story)