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
By Gina, October 3, 2012 @ 1:00 pm
Chase wrote and claimed that our of their reps spoke to my tenant on 7/12 to say that I was not residing in my residence. I was out of town and I had no tenants since 2011. The rep could have spoke to my brother or his friend helping with the yard work. They would NEVER say that they were my tenant. They may not speak English well, co Chase put words in their mouth. Just to disqualify me living in my home. Chase auctioned my home on Aug. 10, 2012 without me knowing it. It is perfectly possible thr 7/12 meeting with the tenant just to justify the foreclosure of a non-resident. And they do not have notes indorced along with assignments.
By Fred, October 22, 2012 @ 4:02 pm
I worked for Chase but did not bank at Chase – this firm sucks and is pure EVIL, through and through!
By Cathy, November 2, 2012 @ 9:00 am
Wow. I hope this person has gotten this resolved, but if not, I sure would be looking at taking it to the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, as well as the Consumer Advocate at their local media stations. It is amazing how a little negative publicity can light a fire under these firms.
By admin, November 2, 2012 @ 9:08 am
I second that. One of the only ways that seems to get Chase unstuck is negative publicity.
By Phil, December 4, 2012 @ 1:46 pm
I know exactly how you feel. I am going through the same thing involving Chase. They have been no help to me.
One of my so called friends stole my Id and attempted to get my money from my accounts. I would not have known this unless I put an alert on my account to be notified over the $400.00 dollar purchase.
Well I was notified that someone tried to purchase an item via the internet with my debit card numbers. The transaction was blocked and was not completed. This started the whole investigation in my fraud case.
This happened 2 months ago. My account has been frozen and not one darn thing has been done to help me aces my money.
Several attempts with buying many different things using my debit card information I am still in battle with Chase. I was and still am looked at like I am the crook. I have so many police reports that have been sent to the fraud department. Even with proof of police reports my money has not been released.
As of yesterday they were still thinking I was a part of this all. Until a wire transfer was set up and my money released from my account. The fraud jerk that I have been dealing with finally said “we might have a problem” ya really tell me about it. Come to find out that 90K of my money has been transferred to an unknown account and I still cannot access my money.
So I hear ya. There is so much more to my story bottom line is chase is a joke. They go the extra mile to prove that they did nothing wrong, when in fact they released my money on someone else’s words and id pretending to be me. I believe that Chase does need to be looked into for bad customer service. They are a poor excuse for a bank. I needed my money months ago and they will not release it.
I am betting that there is more people out there that has had and having problems with them right now. There needs to be a way to make Chase pay for their stupid actions. The so called fraud department was all about telling me in so many words that I was the person involved when in reality I was the victom
By Bill, December 10, 2012 @ 7:28 pm
I opened several bank accounts with Washington Mutual Bank (Now J P Morgan Chase Bank) several years ago.
These accounts have been dormant since I opened them except for a few legitimate transactions, and numerous fraudulent transactions that Chase Bank has allowed to occur since I made them aware of this, and asked them to close the account one year ago, when I was notified by a police detective that somebody had a fraudulent check with my account number on it.
I have sent Chase Bank more than 65 emails and facsimile transmissions over the course of the last year, in addition to making several phone calls to them, requesting that the account be closed to prevent these fraudulent transactions from continuing to occur.
Despite these numerous requests, Chase Bank did not close the accounts, and in fact allowed the fraudulent transactions to continue to occur.
After Chase Bank allowed these fraudulent withdrawals to occur for a year, despite my repeated requests to close the account to prevent this from happening, they finally credited one of these accounts for less than one half of the fraudulent transactions that have occurred. Of course the fact that Chase Bank applied this partial credit very clearly indicates that they are admitting that they allowed this fraud to take place.
Attached you will find a spreadsheet detailing what has been fraudulently withdrawn from one of these accounts, the amount that Chase Bank has credited, and the balance due to me on this account.
Of course a full credit needs to occur with this account, as well as with the other accounts.
Chase is saying that they are not responsible for fraudulent transactions that have not been reported to them within 60 days, and that I did not give them a new mailing address, which is not true, as I gave them the new mailing address when I asked them to close the account one year ago. (I have not received monthly statements for several years prior to this.)
Chase Bank was presumably mailing statements to an incorrect address prior to this, and I was not allowed to view statements online as I have been in a remote area of the Philippines for the past 5 years, and Chase Bank had an old email address on file, which did not allow me to complete the online banking application, in order to view the account statements that were never mailed to me. Chase Bank never updated this email address to allow me to view online statements despite numerous requests to do so, until November of 2012.
The bottom line is that Chase Bank owes me the balance of fraudulent transactions that they allowed to occur with respect to the account that they applied a partial credit to, and the same holds true with respect to the other accounts I had with Chase Bank.
If Chase Bank continues to refuse to return my money to me, and forces me to litigate the matter, I am pretty certain that there are prior judgements that have been rendered against Chase Bank for them allowing fraudulent transactions to occur to their customers accounts, and I suspect that there are numerous other instances where Chase Bank has allowed this to occur, that have not been pursued by Chase Bank customers, so needless to say, I think the potential for a successful class action lawsuit is great.
By Molly, December 19, 2012 @ 7:48 am
Going through a similar thing. My wallet was stolen in June 2012. Drivers license, Chase debit card and another credit card. Police report filed and all credit cards and accounts closed. Six months later in December 2012 the theif had the nerve to walk into a chase bank, show the teller my DL and debit card and withdraw over $2K from my account. There is absolutely no security with Chase bank when it comes to tellers.
10 years ago I closed a joint account with an ex. A few months later I noticed a large withdrawal I didn’t make. I asked to see the tranaction slip and it had his signature on it. How the hell can a Chase teller allow someone not on my account to withdraw funds? Should have learned my lesson then but I continued banking with Chase. After this though I do not trust a dime with Chase.
I’m glad I read this because I generally give people the benefit of the doubt and I don’t know what the thief told the teller and afterall we are dealing with a ballsy criminal here, I’m trying to keep my anger directly towards the thief, but I’m so disappointed how easy chase made it for her to continue to victimize me.