Cross-account debt payment a new trend for Chase?
Here is something Chase apparently did that is really pushing the edges of ethics and legality.
Yes we have been late on payments to the point when my husband had to give Chase our checking account number to make a payment.
So far so good, the customer agreed to allow Chase a one time EFT from their checking account to satisfy a late credit card payment. But then Chase took the next unethical and probably illegal step and kept taking money out of the checking account, when they were not authorized to do so.
Ever since then, which was 6 months ago, Chase has been automatically taking payments out of our checking account without our authorization and us knowing about the transaction. Because of these incidents our family has suffered from lack of food in our house, care for our child, and medical/dental treatment.
This fits right in with the many documented cases of Chase debiting peoples accounts to satisfy what may or may not be a valid old debt, without informing the customer as to why or that the debit even happened. This has even caused people to unknowingly rack up overdraft charges.
So far, the stories we’ve seen have been limited to old debt that was seemingly charged off and forgotten by the customer, but apparently not by Chase. This story represents a new trend where Chase is willing to bend, possibly break the rules for current debt that is still in relatively current form.
This begs the question of how far Chase is willing to go to gets its payment. If you’ve EVER paid your credit card by authorizing an EFT from your checking account at a non-Chase bank, will they now start debiting your checking account if your payment is even a day late? What if you have never authorized a payment from another account but you have a checking, savings, or investment account also at Chase? Will they start taking funds from ANY account they have access to to satisfy current debt that they feel might be in danger?
I would not be surprised if stories just like these scenarios break in the next few months.
Bad bad Chase | admin August 2, 2010
