Chase rips off yet another customer
I’ve seen TONS of reports whereby Chase simply takes money out of someones account (with a notation like “transferred to another account”) to satisfy an old debt, typically at an organization that Chase has swallowed. They never give anyone warning and don’t send any kind of letter explaining what happened. Well, here is another one, with the twist that the “old debt” is due to Chase screwing up.
Here’s the story: In April of 2008, I opened a WAMU account because I
was in San Fran (And they had awesome saving rates of 5%). I was happy
with the account until I was getting ready to move back to Michigan
where there is not a single WAMU around (This was just before the big
banking blow up and Wamu’s takeover by Chase). I went into the WAMU
branch, and closed both of my accounts since dealing with a bank you
have no access to is a pain, and ATM fees are killers.Fast forward to around October of last year. I hadn’t had a bank
account since I closed up my WAMU account so I decided to go to Chase
since my parents have used them for years and years and have never had
a problem. I hadn’t had any problems either, until today.So today I go on my online account and notice a rather strange
withdrawal of near a thousand dollars with a description of
“Transfered to another account”. Now, after having had my WoW account
hacked I thought at first that someone got into my account online at
Chase, and moved some money. I looked over all the transfer logs, and
saw nothing of interest.Call up Chase. Get through to a representative finally, and say “Hey,
I noticed this almost thousand dollar transfer, and wonder what’s up.”
So, first time, they go to check, I get disconnected. Call again get
someone else. They again go off and check on it, and come back saying
“Well, that was money you owed WAMU”. Now that’s odd, a bank account I
closed with a 0 balance and I owed them money. The rep then went on to
tell me the account was closed in April of 09…however I had closed
the account in November/December of 08. Odd.I finally get them to fax the statement over to prove that I somehow
owed this money. The fees were all overdraft (Up to 3 a week mind you
of 35 bucks a piece) on fees that Chase was charging to the account
labelled “Maintenance Fee”. Apparently, my account came back to life
like some bank account zombie, and ate my lunch…and rent…and cable
payment…and gas and electric as well. To top all that off, despite
having two addresses on file, an email address, and two phone numbers,
they couldn’t be arsed enough to tell me that my account was over
drafted (And no, I didn’t have any access to WAMU’s online system
since the accounts were closed). I went on to call my roommate in San
Fran, since he still lives in the cottage, and he told me nothing had
come for me since I left.
Bad bad Chase, Ineptitude | admin June 2, 2010
