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.
This is the first time I have seen Chase actually admit they instigate a parallel foreclosure whenever someone applies for a loan modification. In the case of this great story from CBS 5 News in Arizona. In this case, even though the homeowners had worked out a modification with Chase and made all required payments, Chase “accidentally” foreclosed anyways.
Chase has admitted that documents related to foreclosures (and the authority of Chase to foreclose on a given property) have not been sufficiently reviewed for accuracy so they stopped paused 56,000 foreclosures in order to review their process.
However, ever the opportunist, Chase chose not to freeze foreclosures in the Pacific Northwest states of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, because those states do not have a judicial process involved in foreclosures. In other words, they are continuing with the same practices in those states, because they didn’t or can’t get caught there like they did elsewhere.
Everything Chase does just seems to reinforce the image that they don’t actually care about the customers, just the money they bring in.
In the last days before WaMu was seized and sold to JP Morgan Chase in what turned out to be an immensely profitable deal for Chase, Washington Mutual executives sent a series of letters to the FDIC trying to convince them that WaMu was sufficiently capitalized and did not need intervention.
What’s more, the thrift had a plan to create $19 billion more in capital “without a penny of government assistance.”
The letter, WaMu’s last hope of survival after it failed to secure a buyer on its own, was addressed to Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Donald Kohn, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Chair Sheila Bair and OTS director John Reich.
The document includes a plea for leniency. A seizure “of a large, well-capitalized U.S. banking organization,” Mr. Fishman and Mr. Frank wrote, “is without precedent in U.S. history and will send a stark message to bank customers and investors. We think there is no reason to take such a dramatic step when our proposal would, quickly and simply, create $19 billion more capital for WaMu and reposition it to easily withstand the current market turmoil – all without a penny of government assistance.”
We’ve reported a few instances where Chase has filed foreclosures without the proper documentations that it actually owns the loans or has proper authority as servicer of the loan to foreclose. In one case that we’ve found, Chase couldn’t prove it owned the loan and the balance was dismissed by a judge.
It looks Chase’s documentation problems are a lot more widespread that the few cases we’ve seen, as they’ve just announced they are freezing 56,000 foreclosures because Chase employees signed off on documents without having properly reviewed them. Mind you, this is only the foreclosures, there are hundreds of thousands of additional loans that are delinquent that Chase may not be able to prove they own or have the right to foreclose as the loan servicer.
If you have a mortgage with Chase and are having problems, you may benefit by asking Chase to prove it has the proper documentation. In some cases they will not be able to prove this and you may have the leverage necessary to negotiate much better terms on your loan.
Update 10/1/10: Ohio is now asking Federal prosecutors to investigate possible defects in legal papers for thousands of foreclosures in Ohio.
Chase clearly got a steal of a deal when it acquired the assets of Washington Mutual for under $2 billion in 2008. With the deal, they got 2000 branches, $188 billion in sorely needed deposits and some huge potential gains on assets that they initial severely wrote down. Additionally, they negotiated a heck of a deal with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac so as not to be responsible for any of the loans WaMu sold off to investors blowing up. Their deal was so good, they recently estimated that they stand to make about $25 billion from Washington Mutual’s mortgages above what they original estimated in 2008.
So why do they keep trying to go back and get an even better deal?
For one, they have been trying to grab some of Washington Mutual’s $6 or so billion in tax credits for two years now.
Now, some leaked letters that JP Morgan Chase sent to the FDIC indicate that they are demanding the FDIC pay them more than $6 billion to cover the costs of WaMu related lawsuits.
Seriously? Even with $6 billion in lawsuit related costs, how was this not a smoking good deal for JP Morgan Chase? Aren’t they getting a little greedy?
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.
I logged onto my credit card account this morning. It let me in but everything says “Not Available”. That is the balance, payment due, minimum due, etc.
Is Chase having troubles again?
Incidentally, the apologies on Chase’s front page from the last outage are gone now.
Bad bad Chase, Fraud | admin October 3, 2010 | 
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