Does Chase actually protect your money

This customer’s experience along with other comments we’ve gotten seems to indicate that Chase let’s fraud go unchecked and locks down accounts due to normal activity which they call fraud.

Last June my wallet was stolen with my drivers license, chase debit card and another credit card. Police report was filed, cards and accounts closed. Six months later the thief had the nerve to walk into a Chase branch hand over my ID and debit card and the teller gave her $2K of MY money. 1) The card she had was closed and reported stolen to Chase 2) the address on the license no longer matches the address on record at chase and 3) she didn’t know my account number BUT she was able to withdraw MY funds.

I had a similar experience 10 years ago where I had a joint checking account with an ex, we closed the account and both opened individual accounts.  A few months later I noticed a large withdrawal I didn’t make. When I asked to see the slip sure enough it had my ex’s signature on it. How could a teller (this was not theft or forgery) give someone not on my account MY money?  I should have learned my lesson from that experience not to bank with Chase.
When I reported what happened with the identity theft the Chase employee seemed shocked that I didn’t want to open yet another account with them.  Sorry Chase, ATM convenience doesn’t win over security.

I’m also disgusted that Chase’s attitude was “it’s ok, we see this all the time,you’ll get your money back”.  Really? and we wonder why banks are broke – they let criminals walk out with customers money because eh, so what? FDIC insured! I’m ready to start burying my money in the backyard.  with .05% I see no difference, other than its probably safer in my mattress than with Chase bank.

Can Chase really be this bad?

I get more and more letters from people with bad, I mean really bad, Chase experiences.  Can Chase really be this inept?

Hello my name is Mitch my fiancé and I currently have a checking and a saving account at your bank which we will be closing and removing all of our funds from because of the level of unprofessionalism we have received from you establishment.
We have had our accounts frozen for what your customer service reps have told is suspicion fraud on a check, now I understand if there fraud you would take precaution, but the fact that no one contacted either me or my fiancé and you just went ahead and put our accounts on restriction is absolutely unacceptable, further more you put our savings on restriction as well. I am not being garnished so I know legally you should not be able to put my fucking checking account on restriction.  You people are absolutely ridiculous, putting us in a position where we cannot access out hard earned money to pay our bills or food or gas is ridiculous,  I spoke with one of you reps who said it was because the check was not endorsed but after going though the paper I signed when I signed up for the account, I have possession of a booklet which states that if a check is not endorsed you will still accept it and endorse so I need to know who I need to talk to or how I go about getting compensation
because we have obtained at least $100 in overdue fees one of those being a chase credit card I my fiancé’s name, all because we were unable to access our money.
I mean honestly If you suspect fraud then you contact the account holders by, phone, email, snail mail, something but you did none of that and then just froze all of my money, how is anyone suppose to feel safe banking with you guys if at any minute you can just basically freeze their funds and tell them they are basically broke. So far we have spoken with over 4 different reps and I feel like you guys are wrong and you are just trying to cover your ass.
You have no right to freeze my funds, epically my savings this is the most absurd thing I have ever seen and I going to do some more research on this because my mother in law works in an attorney’s office  and I swear if there is one bit of foul play here I will take legal action, and I guarantee you  this is going to hit more media networks and blog websites than you can imagine you can’t play with someone’s life like this.

Think your money is safe with Chase? Think again.

A reader sent us this harrowing story that is full of an unbelievable amount of incompetence on Chase’s part.

I would like to tell you what is happening to us at this very moment..

In the early morning hours of September 22nd my husband and I witnessed a man trying to steal our truck. We caught him in the act, but not before he ran away with my husbands wallet. We gave chase but he evaded us. Inside the wallet was my husbands drivers license, his debit card, a credit card and his military ID witch contained his social security number. I immediately called our bank, Chase, and reported  the card stolen and had the card deactivated. I also called the credit card company and did the same. Since his social security number had now been compromised, I also placed a fraud alert with the 3 credit bureaus. Even going one step further, I placed a freeze on both our credit with all 3 as well. We also filed a police report.  I thought we were ok since I had done my part as a consumer to protect ourselves from possible harm.

The following Wednesday, September 26th, I went online and checked my bank account like I do every few days. I noticed i was several hundred dollars in the negative. I start scrolling through the charges and see numerous fraudulent purchases, as well as a $500 cash withdrawal and a deposited $400 fraudulent check from someone I had never met. Immediately I called chase to find out what happened. I was informed that the card had been re-activated on Monday the 24th. I asked how this was possible and I was told that this was done at a branch. So this criminal who stole our information walked into the bank, sat down with a manager and was handed our bank account on a silver platter. I was transferred all over the place demanding answers as to how this could be allowed to happen when I had already reported the card stolen, and a replacement was on the way. I was told I needed to go into a branch to find out. I called my husband, who left work and went to the nearest chase branch.

Turns out, the branch he went to was the very branch that gave this man our account.  After 3 hours of questioning, my husband was informed that “It didn’t look good for us because the man made ATM transactions, which would require them man to know my husbands pin number. ”

I proceeded to call the bank several times that day and was given no help. I also called the branch and asked how this was allowed to happen. The manager stumbled and stuttered and referred me back to the fraud department, who had referred me back to the branch. Several times I asked the fraud department, as well as the actual branch if a new card had been issued. I was repeatedly told NO.

My husband went back to the police station to file a report about his identity being used and was told ” Good luck, the city just fired 300 law enforcement personnel and this would very low on the priority list.”

Getting no help from the bank, and no help from the police, we started going through the charges. There was a charge for a hotel a few cities away. My husband went to that hotel and discovered that the man was still there using my husbands name. He called the police for that city, who immediately responded. When the police went to the room, they discovered a man there who had my husbands ID, credit card and debit card. Not just one debit card, but 2 debit cards in my husbands name. After going to the station to identify the man, it was discovered that this was not the man who stole the wallet. The police investigation is still ongoing so all I can say is we did find the military ID.

The next morning my husband went back to the bank with the new card number written down, along with the case number from the police. He spoke with the vice president of the branch this time, who went white upon seeing my husband and hearing the story. It was her who had sat across from the criminal and given him a new card and new pin number. Why were we told several times that no new card had been issued??

The woman called corporate and explained what had happened, telling them that we were indeed victims of fraud. They re-opened the investigation but were told that it still doesn’t look good. They’re now looking at us as if we are the criminals.

In the meantime, I am in the negative, my direct deposit paycheck is somewhere floating in space because my account is frozen. I have my car payment and mortgage due, have very little food left and am already very close to my credit card limit.  I received an email from the gas company saying that the payment I made on Friday sept 21 was returned due to my frozen account. This was not on the list of fraudulent changes, and in fact was made before the card was ever even stolen.

I am at an utter loss for words. Here are 2 working class citizens  who pay our taxes, have never been overdrawn at the bank, not a single blemish on our records yet are being treated like criminals for something that  bank is 100%  at fault for.

I did my part. And you turned around and allowed a criminal to over take my account, and now are pointing the finger at us. How can’t this happen? If this investigation does not end in our favor, I will reporting this to the OCC as well as every media outlet I can get in touch with. This is wrong,and chase needs to take responsibility for what they have done.

New security flaw for Chase credit cards

Oops, it is this easy:

According to Dworsky, the security loophole is in the 24-hour a day automated telephone account information systems used by some card issuers that allow cardholders to check the activity on their accounts.  When a cardholder calls the customer service number on the back of the card from their home telephone, the bank verifies the caller ID of the call against their account records.  If the phone number matches one on record, some banks shortcut further security checks and only ask for the last four digits of the account number rather than the whole number, and possibly also request the cardholder’s zip code.

And therein lies the flaw.  The system can be easily tricked by a hacker who “spoofs” the caller ID of the telephone used to call the bank, making it appear to be from the consumer’s home phone.   Now, only the last four digits of the account number are needed to gain access, which can be easily found on a discarded sales receipt from virtually any retail store.

JPMorgan Chase gets nailed for fraud in bond case

This story clearly shows that Chase has a history defrauding its customers to benefit itself.

NEW YORK, March 7 (Reuters) – JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) has settled a lawsuit accusing it of defrauding bond investors out of at least $1.2 billion through bad record keeping, court records show.

The settlement of the five-year-old case comes as banks’ ability to handle paperwork faces intense scrutiny, especially over their mortgage operations.

Investors had accused JPMorgan of deleting records on $46.8 billion of bonds from roughly 6,500 bond issues that had not been cashed in, and then covering up its mistakes.

They said the second-largest U.S. bank did this so it could retain for itself unclaimed bond proceeds that belonged to thousands of investors.

JPMorgan “stole the trust funds and concealed the theft long enough to try to run out the statute of limitations,” an amended complaint filed in 2009 said.

If that wasn’t clear enough, Chase is accused of deleting records so that it would be harder for people to claim bond proceeds so Chase could keep any of the proceeds that went unclaimed.

Chase fraud protection – now you see it, now you don’t

This story pretty much confirms what we’ve seen though other reports, that Chase has little to no interest in helping you avoid fraud on your debit card or in limiting your loss after the fact.  In many cases they seem to blame fraud on the customer for not protecting their card well enough or simply accusing the customer of having performed the fraudulent transactions themselves.

In short, when they are truly on the hook because the law says so (with credit cards) their fraud protection seems to do the job, but when the law doesn’t force them to be responsible (with debit cards) they seem to skirt responsibility whenever possible.

My wife and I formed and S corporation as we are both independent contractors. Me in the environmental industry, she in Property Management. We opened a business account with Chase bank. One of the alluring aspects was their highly touted “Fraud Protection”. Since we already use a Visa Card issued from Chase and they call us with any suspicious activity on the card, it seemed like we would be protected. Sometimes in fact, they do not push through a Visa charge because it’s not consistent with our purchasing patterns. While annoying this was also reassuring as regards FRAUD PROTECTION.

I can tell you that when Chase is “on the hook” for Visa charges to a credit card, their FRAUD Protection is top drawer. On the other hand, when the money is stolen from an individuals account via ATM or Debit card, Chase Bank sings another tune. They just DO NOT care. Essentially…the money is not theirs, why should they?

Our story continues:

Well, starting in April someone must have skimmed my wife’s debit card numbers or something, because money started disappearing from the account. Neither of us were missing a card, and these were debit card charges WITHOUT the use of the pin number, so “Credit charges to our Debit card…I guess? I don’t know, I’m not a banker.

Read the rest of the story at chase-sucks.com

Chase debit card skimmed? Chase won’t protect you

Debit card skimming is a fairly common occurrence these days, meaning that at least several times a year I hear about it happening in the general area where I live.  We’ve reported on why debit cards are not as well protected as credit cards in a past post, and this story confirms that fact precicely.

Details: I had and still have possession of my ATM card. On the 27th and 28th of last month 2 separate ATM withdrawals of $500 each were taken out of my account by hackers. On the 28th when I tried to use my card at a local merchant it was declined. Almost simultaneously I received a voicemail from Chasebank fraud division. I returned their call immediately and answered all their questions. They said my $1000 would TEMPORARILY be put back into my account pending their investigation. 5 HOURS later I was informed by ChaseBank fraud department that they had concluded their investigation AND THEY WERE NOT GOING TO REIMBURSE ME THE $1000 THAT WAS S T O L E N FROM MY ACCOUNT!!!
Why? Their 2 reasons: 1.) the 2 withdrawals were made in the same geograhical area in which I live. 2). there were no bad pin tries.

Of course, those reasons simply don’t add up with the reality of Chase’s very own ATMs being fitted with skimmers on occasion.  First, if your card is skimmed, it is very likely that local thieves are to blame and they will use it in your local area.  Second, if your card is skimmed, they will have your PIN number.  In any case, what idiot thief would take a debit card for which they did not have the PIN and try random PIN numbers at an ATM.

In this particular case, what Chase called the same geographical area turned out to be two places each more than 100 miles from where the customer lived.

Why does Chase do things like this that are so obviously out of touch with reality?  Until some insider leaks some emails that confirms that Chase frequently denies debit card fraud claims not because they don’t believe it is fraud but because they know they can get away with it, we’ll just have to speculate that is the reason.

To avoid skimmers, hide your PIN when using an ATM

Here is some footage police recovered from an actual pinhole camera that thieves installed at an ATM in the UK.  You can clearly see that covering up the keypad when entering your PIN is an effective way to thwart thieves from getting your PIN.

While they might still skim your card number, and be able to attempt to charge your card using credit mode, it will keep them from using your debit card/PIN combination.  This is important because some banks, especially Chase, have proven to be much less forgiving when it come to protecting you against debit card fraud when your PIN number is used.  If your card is used along with the PIN number, Chase may claim that you made the charge personally.