Chase’s current practices preys on widows or widowers of borrowers who own homes with loans taken out by their deceased spouse. These practices are also callous and cause unnecessary mental anguish to people who lose their husbands or wives.

My mother has lived in her home for almost 24 years, including her entire 19-year marriage with my step-father, who died in 2008. She was late paying her real estate taxes in 2010, and her lender Chase began escrowing taxes but made a mistake in their calculations and almost doubled mom’s payments instead of just increasing by $90 per month as they should have. My mom couldn’t afford the doubled payment, and tried to tell Chase they were collecting too much for taxes but all their associates refused to talk to her because my step-dad had gotten a veteran’s loan in his own name. Chase refused my mom’s payments for a year because they weren’t enough according to their mistaken figures, and their associates called constantly and kept asking to speak to my step-dad and sending letters addressed to him. My mom had to repeatedly tell them, “My husband is dead,” a painful and almost daily reminder of her loss. Chase would never update the information in their records even after we sent them certified death certificates twice. Chase sent mom a notice correcting her payment amount a year after the increase, which showed her correct monthly payment to be only $90 more to cover the taxes. Mom could have paid that all along, but by now she was behind because of all the payments Chase refused to accept, and Chase would never talk to her about any type of settlement or loan modification. When mom hired a lawyer Chase’s lawyer told us Chase would agree to talk to mom if she re-opened the estate file of my step-father and got them more paperwork, but after we did all that and completed all sorts of paperwork to modify the loan at their request they told us they would not work with her or even review the paperwork they had asked for because she was not the original borrower. So basically Chase made a mistake and doubled her payments, caused her mental anguish on a daily basis by making her repeat the phrase, “My husband is dead,” made her incur attorney’s fees to re-open my step-dad’s estate, made her complete paperwork they never intended to review, only to tell her they are foreclosing on her anyway.

I’m sure my mom is not the only widow or widower who has run into this situation with Chase. Chase’s practices are callous and irresponsible, especially when they caused my mom to fall behind in the first place with their own mistake in calculating her payment. Their practices are also likely to affect two especially vulnerable groups — the elderly and the poor — who are the most likely to be widowed and unable to financially handle a big change in their mortgage payment due to the lender’s mistakes, even temporarily.

Please help us tell Chase that their practices on dealing with widows and widowers are not acceptable, and get them to modify mom’s loan like they do with other homeowners and let her make payments to keep her house.