Category: Ineptitude

Don’t travel with Chase

Calling your bank to pre-authorize credit cards for spending in a foreign country is pretty standard practice. Looks like Chase isn’t quite with the program.

I have been traveling internationally for several months. Prior to my trip, I provided my banker with a list of places and dates so that I could still use my cards abroad. He said that everything would be fine.

So why were my cards promptly cancelled after my first transaction abroad, I wonder. Without contacting me, Chase issued a new card to my address in the States, and claimed that my current card was compromised (it wasn’t).

I called and got the run-around, but after spending all day on the phone, I got my card reactivated. The next day I attempted to make a transaction, and my card was swallowed by the ATM, citing that the card had been marked lost or stolen.

In order to retrieve my card from the foreign bank, I needed Chase to send a fax saying it was OK. But of course, Chase doesn’t do that sort of thing because they don’t have the right form.

So here I am right now, stranded in a foreign country, with no access to my money to pay for food, accommodation, transit or a flight home. I have been reduced to relying on the kindness of strangers in order not to starve. All because this bank is staffed with people of baffling, incredible incompetence.

Ineptitude | admin November 17, 2012 | Comments (0)

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.

Bad bad Chase, Fraud, Ineptitude | admin September 30, 2012 | Comments (7)

Zimmerman Flew and Tyler Knew

A reader points out that it seems unlikely the London Whale losses were not previously approved by Jamie Dimon:

Anyone who works for JPMorgan Chase will promptly admit that NOTHING can occur without going through a multi-approval process or without the clear and explicit consent of LOB and upper-level management.

That said, only a fool would believe Jamie’s statement that JPMC was unaware of the actions of their financial staff who ultimately made poor choices which resulted in what initially was reported internally as a minor loss but rapidly grew to an insurmountable and embarrassing loss.

Ineptitude | admin September 11, 2012 | Comments (1)

Another example of Chase destroying someones life unnecessarily

Posting this on behalf of a reader. Another example of Chase’s ineptness or downright uncaring attitude royally screwing a customer. If you got screwed by Chase in a bogus foreclosure, check this out. They might have to pay you for their mistakes.

How Chase Mortgage practically ruined my life

146 Stonegate Circle

After divorce, I kept the home and refinanced to my name, the loan was sold to Chase

The story is so complex and twisted, I hardly know where to start. What should have been a simple mistake made by the mortgage company, Chase, to my payments caused a downward spiral which has lasted for years and led to much turmoil and grief as I find myself now unemployed, swimming in debt and living in a 2 bedroom apartment while my home sits abandoned with Chase completely unreachable, sending me conflicting mail, conflicting balances & completely unwilling to correct the situation?

It all started several years ago in the beautiful Summer months. I am a single Mom of three fun and active girls, working a very demanding job in management in a Japanese Automobile company, making a fairly impressive salary. I struggled as any Mom would with affording extras; however, I made my mortgage payments and all other payments with a fair amount of ease and managed to add some enjoyment after the bills were paid. Just before the ending of my 15 year marriage, my ex-husband and I purchased this home at 146 Stongegate Circle. The home was an effort to save our marriage as we were both commuting and maintaining a much larger home and the three girls. In the divorce, I was awarded the home and would need to refinance if I could not sell. I did not necessarly plan to stay in the community due to my lack of emotional support in the community and the undesirable Lincoln School System. However, I happily made payments & poured some energy into landscaping and other improvements to the home for enjoyment and to improve the value in hopes of eventually selling. Eventually, I was forced to finance in my name by my ex-husband and all was well–or so I thought–I had a fixed-rate mortgage with my insurance included in the payment which I set up for automatic deduction from my bank account so as to never be late while managing my complex life. I never put any thought into insurance and continued to assume it was with the original insurer, Howell Hurt. I did receive a letter that the mortgage had been sold to Chase, but all would remain the same.

Just making my payments and planting my flowers

The nightmare begins-!st month Chase overcharges by nearly $300

One fine day in Alabama, I am managing my job as a Quality Engineer/Manager and I receive an email that my car insurance payment-which is automatically deducted-is declined due to insufficient funds. I am puzzled as I keep enough of a balance to know my bills will clears. Immediately I log on to my bank account to see if someone has stolen my identity and what I see first is the first of a series of months of torture from Chase. My house payment had been deducted, but it wasn’t the typical $1047.00. Instead, Chase had deducted $1355.00. Not too much of a difference this time, however as a single Mom, I am managing it closely. I decided not to panick because in my life I have learned ‘everything can be worked out–usually with a nice phone call– everything until now. I am going to walk you through the steps that led to my payment escalating to nearly $1500 dollars, harassing phone calls at work from collectors, yet noone could help resolve the issue, eventually leaving the home in fear of foreclosure, hostility at work leading to unemployment, rental home burning and I am now unemployed, homeless and Chase will not provide any relief– just continued phone calls to collect a debt I did not owe. The stress this has caused me is impossible to place into words.

Landscaping improvements

What happens when you call Chase?

Here’s the process. Call the number for Chase. Auto system answers and request your account number. You enter you account number. The auto system tells you the current payment information; You are eventually given the opportunity to request to speak to a representative; Wait. A representative finally gets on the phone and it is difficult to understand them as they have a very strong accent. You begin to explain there is a problem with your account and the endless chain of transfers begin-each time placing you back through the system to re-enter your account number, hear the account information, representative; transfer. At some point your lunch break is over. I began to sneak off into conference rooms to get on the phone, taking lots of breaks and doing all I could to try to straighten this out. I was transferred to every department and met with the same repeated routine.

Getting my job done before Chase started harassing me

Bills are getting behind, frustration is mounting & work is suffering

Next month. Same drill. After three months of being overcharged and nobody can tell me why, I am starting to get behind on other bills. My insurance can’t be paid. My insurance on my vehicle is cancelled due to late payments. The bank financing my car receives notice and places a forced insurance on my vehicle, several hundred dollars a month. Received a ‘random’ audit from the state of Alabama on car insurance. Tried to explain and fax proof of insurance. Continue calling Chase every other day. People at work start staring at me while I’m on the phone. As a female manager, it is easy to become a target. Females in HR giving me dirty looks. I shrug it off.

Chase admits mistake & makes attempts to correct

FINALLY. I speak with the mortgage company who sold my loan to Chase. They were so very apologetic this was happening to me. Turns out the local insurance company had a scandal and sold all it’s business to another insurance company. The information was somehow messed up and Chase was billing the wrong insurance company. Did not find insurance so placed a more expensive insurance which drained my escrow. I had no knowledge of this. Chase apologized and reimbursed me the overcharges.

Next month…. payment up to $1455. This was not corrected until I moved out of the house. I moved out of the house? Yes. The demise continued to a point where the only hope I had of surviving was leaving the house and renting before foreclosure and then sue.

Ok. So months continue until I decide the only way for me was to pay the amount I owed… not what there statements said (which changed every month on a fixed rate mortgage. I must’ve have spoken to every single representative in every single department at Chase. At the same time, the loan modification rage started. This seemed to be the ONLY department that would work with me. They were holding a workshop in Atlanta, Georgia for those struggling with their mortgage. I went. I took a day from work and headed to Atlanta to meet face to face with my enemy, Chase Mortgage. By the time this meeting occurred, I had been overpaying Chase for a year, took out 2 credit cards to continue the excess charges while they were working it out, stayed behind on other bills and felt completely trapped. At some point, I declared to Chase that I would STOP paying the amount they were charging and only pay what my payment was supposed to be. Therefore when I sent my 1100 dollar payment, they would hold it over til the next month and apply to the next payment and my mortgage was falling behind.

The representative seemed to be a very nice man. He assured me he could take care of it. His idea was to modify the loan and start over. Great. I brought him most of the information he needed to the meeting and we exchanged emails. I explained I am ultra busy at work and I am being watched carefully. (My environment had continued to worsen at work; The HR dept. seemed determined to prove I was doing something besides working) I let him know I would have a tough time making copies and getting information. Now, every time I sent him something, he’d ask for something else. The process grew more complicated and I grew more frustrated. He was requesting I prove I had hardship. My only hardship was caused by Chase’s mistake. He continued to treat me as if he was doing me a favor and I’m holding up the process by not showing hardship. I continued to remind him I did not lose my job, I did not suffer a loss of income, that my hardship was Chase had made a mistake on my mortgage. It came to a point when I realized this modification process was not going to happen. I placed my home on the market and prepared for the worse. I knew I must sell it before I lost it. Well, then, guess what? Somehow this representative contacted my realtor.My realtor called and let me know, he thought they were starting foreclosure. This caused a strain with my realtor and myself as I assured him I had done my best to keep paying while Chase was over-charging.

Chase representative will not help and will not give me another representative

Suddenly the Chase representative became very rude and would not return my emails. I asked him to PLEASE assign me to a new representative. I never heard another word back from him. I did not know what to do. I kept getting phone calls from Chase,repeatedly on my work phone. I tried to tell them over and over that I had a rep I was working with. I spent way too much time on the phone with them. Co-workers began to give me disdainful looks at I hid in conference rooms for privacy. The worst happened when I spent too much time prior to going into work one am and an HR Manager began to record my time. I did not know at the time how much I was being watched. They actually asked a guard to log my time as I traveled between plants. She began to question associates who worked with me about what time I arrived and if I was on the phone. I filed a complaint as this was now harassment.

I was stressed beyond words. I still had done nothing wrong. I paid my payments just fine until Chase made this mistake. Now, my car insurance premium was high, my mortgage was behind, my home wouldn’t sell, the representative wouldn’t return my emails, I now had credit card balances, feared foreclosure and now feared losing my job. All because I did nothing but attempt to pay my mortgage to keep a home for me and my three girls.

I felt forced to Rent before my credit was ruined…. then, the worst happened… lost my job and my rental home burned. Still no help from Chase

Not knowing what to do, I figured if Chase would not modify and they were threatening foreclosure; it would be best to leave now and rent before they ruined my credit. I did. I left the home on the market and rented a farmhouse for me and my girls and told Chase I was tired of the struggle, just go ahead and foreclose. Now, I’m maintaining the Power Bill at the old home and the new. I continued to visit the home owned by Chase and paint and keep it up. Yet, they charged me a huge amount of money to winterize the home.

I asked the Chase representative repeatedly to give me another representative. He would not answer my emails. I never got another representative. I eventually lost my job due to the situation caused by Chase Mortgage. Then, shortly after, I came home to find a horrible accident of unknown origin happened and my home that I rented had burned. I am now jobless and homeless. I cannot make the mortgage, I cannot modify the loan, I cannot get Chase to return my emails, I cannot sell the home and Chase is completely unreachable. The power bill for the home owned by Chase was up to 1500 dollars to maintain it while trying to sell. I never got a new representative to work with so every attempt to talk to them was still the same chain of representative transferring my calls. I can’t afford the power bill to even move back in, so I rent a nasty apartment that flooded and had

Bad bad Chase, Foreclosure, Ineptitude | admin June 24, 2012 | Comments (2)

Dimon’s incomprehensible answer to the $2B loss

Huh?

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Ineptitude | admin May 15, 2012 | Comments (2)

JPMorgan Chase blows $2 Billion in proprietary trade losses

JPMorgan Chase’s loss of $2 Billion in proprietary trading losses reported yesterday by egg-on-the-face CEO Jamie Dimon only helps to show the banks true colors – a relentless quest for profits above all else.

JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the United States, said Thursday that it lost $2 billion in the past six weeks in a trading portfolio designed to hedge against risks the company takes with its own money.

Read the entire story.

A reader remembers Dimon commenting on Google’s “Don’t be Evil” motto: “We have a motto too. It’s make more money.”

This loss can only mean that Chase will try to boost it’s profits by sucking more fees out of customers.

Fees & charges, Ineptitude | admin May 11, 2012 | Comments (2)

Chase banking glitch causes double charges on accounts

Another gift from the technically savvy people at Chase (article 1, article 2).

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM) acknowledged Tuesday that it accidentally charged customers in some states twice for their debit-card transactions.On Tuesday afternoon, the bank fixed the glitch that had affected transactions between Friday and Monday, a spokesman said. J.P. Morgan will refund any fees tied to the double bookings.

Purchases were booked as a temporary charge, but when the transaction was actually processed, the temporary charge remained, which meant the customer was charged twice for that same purchase, customer accounts show.

By Tuesday afternoon, J.P. Morgan, the nation’s largest bank by assets, had credited customers for the errant charges. Account balances are corrected, a spokesman said. The original, duplicate and corrected transactions are still on the online account statements until those are synchronized overnight, at which point only one transaction will be shown.

Fraud is not the issue, the spokesman said. Rather, a technical glitch related to a recently changed computer program inside the bank occurred Monday, the first business day of the month. Since debit transactions made over the weekend are also processed Monday night, those were also impacted by the double booking.

Chase couldn’t say how many of its 25 million customers and transactions were impacted. But the glitch hit customers in the tri-state metropolitan region of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

Chase told customers in Twitter messages, “We do apologize for the error. We are working to get the charges reversed as quickly as possible. We appreciate your patience.”

“Chase bank gave me a heart attack,” one Twitter post said. “I was declined for a $2 coffee this AM, checked account… HUNDREDS of $ in duplicated charges.”

On March 26, J.P. Morgan Chase said its consumer-banking website experienced technical difficulties that slowed online banking for several hours and intermittently made access to the site unavailable, including through mobile devices. It resolved the issue the same day.

Ineptitude | admin April 4, 2012 | Comments (2)

Chase iPhone apps crazy deposit limits

A reader writes:

Chase Bank has been advertising it’s iPhone App all over TV. What a wonderful thing technology is. However, they have restrictions on the app that are not disclosed to customers… or even written down anywhere. Their policy for making deposits using the application (“QuickDeposit” sm) is you can deposit $2000 per day per account and up to $5000 per month per account.” It seems silly to limit deposits but that’s not the issue. The issue is they set these limits “per MONTH.” A person of reasonable intelligence might believe this might mean March 1-31, for example. But no. Chase doesn’t mean this. You might think this means your statement cycle date, i.e. 2/14 – 3/14. But no they don’t mean this either. Seems Chase has made up some “arbitrary” 30-day period based on when you might have last used their application. This is not disclosed ANYWHERE. It is not on their website, not in an info packet in any branch and not even in the service agreement or terms of use for the application.
They just made it up. It is extremely misleading for consumers and I would think that a financial institution regulated by the federal government would be a lot more keen on disclosures to customers. Who would remember the “last date” they used the application and whether or not any previous deposit amounts might have been at or near the arbitrary $5000 deposit limit?

Is chase doing this to outsmart potential crook without considering its ability to frustrate customers?

Ineptitude | admin March 16, 2012 | Comments (2)

Chase-Sucks.org

All About Chase & WaMu's Suckyness