Blog for Seattle’s “Chase 5″

The Chase occupation in Seattle in November 2011 resulted in 5 arrests.  You can follow the plight of the 5 arrestees on their blog.

Apparently still up to no good, Chase is accused again of bad deeds

JPMorgan Chase Accused Of Fabricating Paperwork, Imposing Extra Costs On Borrowers

In a case that suggests the financial crisis far from marked the end of big bank misconduct, JPMorgan Chase is facing a potential class action lawsuit over claims that it manipulated thousands of mortgage documents in order to gain a financial advantage in bankruptcy cases.

The lawsuit, led by plaintiff Ernest Michael Bakenie, has yet to be recognized as an official class action filing in the California district court where it’s taking place, according to the blog Naked Capitalism. Still, the accusation is a major one: It alleges JPMorgan Chase increased profits by methodically fabricating paperwork in part to impose extra costs on borrowers over the course of thousands of bankruptcy cases dating back to 2009.

The charges are particularly serious given the national outcry over mortgage fraud and robo-signing in recent years, and a general atmosphere of increased scrutiny on mortgage activity since the housing crisis, which critics allege was caused in part by unethical mortgage practices on the part of big banks and lenders.

News of the case arrives amid what is already shaping up to be another season of setbacks for JPMorgan, with the bank’s profits falling by nearly a quarter in the past three months. In addition, the bank has halted its efforts to collect on consumer debts in multiple cities across the country.

The suit also comes just a few months after JPMorgan agreed to pay $153 million to settle another fraud case with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, this one based on accusations that JPMorgan was negligent in providing important details to investors about a mortgage transaction — claims that JPMorgan neither admitted nor denied.

It’s not yet clear whether something similar will happen with the California case, although the SEC settlement, reached in June 2011, wasn’t the first nor the last time that JPMorgan agreed to pay out a major sum in order to bring legal charges to a speedy conclusion.

JPMorgan isn’t the first big bank to be hit with a suit alleging mortgage misconduct in recent months. Firms including Bank of America, Allied Home Mortgage, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley are either fielding legal accusations related to mortgage misconduct or in the process of reaching major settlements on the topic.

Read more …

Chase can’t read, post number 172

It is a known fact that Chase runs daily account holder debits and credits to maximize fee revenue.  Running larger checks first results in many more smaller bounces if an account becomes overdrawn.

Have they extended this practice to accepting post-dated checks before they are supposed to, or do they just now know how to read?

I have used bill pay for two years to pay the rent to a new yorker.  The check from my branch in virginia was dated Jan 5.2012. It was deposited into his account on Jan.3,2012.  So then it was marked insufficient funds and returned to my bank.  Why are checks dated.  They charged him funds for a returned check.  He in  turn  is trying to charge me funds for giving  him an electronic fund transfer to get the money back to him quickly.  Late fees of $100, 12.50 insufficient funds and $15.00 wire transfer when I already paid my bank $20 to transfer him the money.  Is this how chase makes its money.  I see why he banks there.   They are out to get whatever they can.

Chase doesn’t know how to sell houses

A reader submitted this story of trying to buy a Chase short-sale.

I found my dream home in July.  It was on the market for $85,000 and I jumped at the chance to own this beautiful property. The seller accepted my offer and the only hurdle left was Chase.  Chase was apparently still appraising the house when I looked at it and after I made my offer of $80,000 they came back and told me that the house was worth $146,000 according to their BFO.  At that point, I was ready to just move on but my realtor and the realtors that had initially listed the house didn’t feel right about the increase and wanted to stick it out for just a bit longer.  I REALLY wanted this house so I said ok.  September and October went by with barely any word despite my asking for updates or even just a “Hello no thanks” but then, the day before Thanksgiving, a Chase representative contacted the initial realtors and mine and told them that they would accept my offer BUT I had to close by December 31st.  PERFECT timing seeing as I need to be out of my apartment by then.

Since my offer had been accepted I figured I’d happily turn in my 30 days to my apartment and get packing.  3 days later, Chase decides that the initial BFO was far to old to still be valid so they should do another one, just to be safe.  Well, it’s now December 21st and on December 19th, they decided that their new BFO was about the same, they wouldn’t disclose the exact amount but they said it’s “close”.  So now, I am left potentially homeless.  I can’t impose on my family to take me in, my friends mostly live too far away and I can’t really afford a hotel until I find another house or apartment.  It’s really frustrating and I can’t understand how that’s even ok or legal but I guess since it was a verbal thing I’m totally screwed. I did send a few Chase representatives a smart alecky email but at this point I’m so frustrated and panicking about where I’m going to be in 10 days that I don’t know what else to do.  I will be looking for another house but there’s no way I’m going to be closed and moved in in that period of time and I really REALLY don’t want to make a decision based on a time crunch.  I know that there’s no legal recourse for me because them telling me my offer was accepted was entirely verbal but I just want to get my story out there so no one else ends up in my situation.

So it seems that Chase does short-sales just like they do loan modifications – with out any clue of what they are doing.

Chase’s mistake gives customer the run-around

A reader sent us this story, which has to be one of the most blatant examples of Chase having no clue what they are doing.

Chase is merely a group of putrid thieves. I’ll explain what happened at this ridiculous bank.. i want more people to know about what a sad deal they have going on there.

I didn’t know a single thing about chase last week. I saw a coupon for a bonus of 150 dollars for opening an account with them. I’m pretty young, just got my first job, knew i wanted to open up my first checking account.. so i did a tiny bit of research on them.. they seemed somewhat legitamite as a company.. not just one of those archaic internet scams with no information and no physical locations. But they still were a scam..

I open my account online, give my opening deposit, check the verifications for the deposits and every thing is seemingly dandy. This is about the 2nd day of dealing with chase.. what I expected so far.

So my account opens up that day after doing the verifications. They even text me and tell me how great it is that i will recieve text updates about my account. I think. oh.. they can’t be too shady.

Log on next morning to check on my account.. it says.. invalid. Please call this number. They gave their standard service number. I thought.. oh great. here we go.

I call the number.. ask them a seemingly extremely perplex question of.. “what’s the problem here? I am wondering why my account is invalid. I have not deposited nor taken any money from it. All I did was open my account 2 days ago.”

They reply.. “we’re sorry, we can not reveal this information to you. Please go to a chase branch near you and talk to a personal banker.”

Ugh.. that’s fine.. i’ll just go up there and they can verify it, hopefully quickly, but i doubt it. They didn’t tell me any thing about what it would require on the phone. they merely said.. “go to a branch, we won’t be revealing any thing to you”.

I prefer being safe than sorry, so I actually brought my original birth certificate from when I was born, my drivers license, and my social security card.. just to be sure I could have every thing they could possibly imagine to bother me with, to save me some trouble.

But oh.. guess what. That’s not enough. These bankers start saying that my state issued birth certificate from when i was born.. with all the seals and every thing.. and drivers license.. and social security card aren’t enough. I need some “letter of social security” to open a bank account. All that was not enough. Not once would they ever explain why. “We cannot reveal that information to our customers.”

I figure this is ridiculous, and my mom says it’s ridiculous. But.. I want to give them a chance, even though I offered them all that, i want to give them one more chance. I call the social security office.. even THEY told me “A what? a letter of social security? do you have your social security card? well that’s all you need. it has all the print needed to be verified. I’ve worked here for 20 years and i’ve never heard of a letter for it.”

Well that’s refreshing.. so i call and call until finally some one says “I’ve never heard of this either but if a letter is what you want i can write you a letter that says that number belongs to you.”

After hours and hours of waiting in line at the social security place, I finally get my letter for great ole chase bank that has me on a wild goose chase for they won’t even explain why. The lady even wrote on the letter.. if you have any more possible doubts about the identity of this person.. you can come to our office or give us a call and talk to us about it.

I go to another chase branch. I figure.. great.. what else are they going to try. Do I have to bring every one i’ve ever met in my entire existence to say “yeah, that’s him”. Or do I not exist. Seriously.

I go up there with the letter and every thing. They make their calls to their main office as usual.. and then they go and say.. we’re not going to be accepting this. It doesn’t have all the stamps we want on it. All the stamps? I tell them.. I need information about what you’re talking about and I need it now. No one I know has ever heard about doing all this to open up a simple, standard account.

Then they say one of their workers might have typed in the wrong social security number in their system, and some one has been banking under my social security number.

So I respond to them.. That’s great. Well what do they have to prove their identity? I’ve got all this to prove I am who I say I am.. what do they have?

“Well, we can’t reveal that information to you.” Seriously.. you guys don’t even know what you’re saying now. You’ve got me jumping through all these hoops for nothing. How about this.. how do I know this is chase bank? How do i know this doesn’t just look like chase bank and have all these forged documents on the walls? I want undeniable proof. I gave them so many chances, and after all this, I’m done with them.

And as for the opening deposit money.. they said they have frozen the account and will not transfer or provide any of my own money back to me until “I clear this up”. Clear what up?! It’s a problem with your system. You can go down to whatever offices you think you need to, you can pick you a number, and you can wait in line to get what you need to fix the problem in your system. I’m not the information system manager for chase bank, I don’t need to be traveling the globe to compensate for your problems.

To lock the account and not provide my own money back too is just thievery. That’s a great scam isn’t it? Snatch peoples money right out of their hands, put it in an account, freeze the account, and tell them they’ll never get it until they prove who they are and nothing is sufficient to prove who they are. I can’t even drive by that place any more, it disgusts me.

Chase adopts Pew simplified disclosure forms, shows just how fee hungry they are

Chase is tooting it’s own horn about adopting simplified disclosure forms developed by the Pew Health Group.  These forms are in fact quite an improvement over the typical checking account disclosures.  But at least one analyst is willing to call this out for what it is:

Philip Van Doorn, senior bank analyst with TheStreet, says the bank’s effort to become more consumer-friendly is largely out of necessity.

“They had better be in an environment where you have a new unfettered [CFPB] that is going to be aggressive on this type of issue,” Van Doorn says. Essentially, Chase is being proactive about making changes that are likely going to be enforced by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sometime in the near future anyway, according to Van Doorn.

Regardless, the simplified disclosure form makes it very easy to see Chase for exactly the kind of bank that it is, fee hungry.  For instance

• Chase charges $5 for a money order; the Post Office charges $1.10 up to $500 and $1.55 up to $1,000.
• $15 for incoming wires.  My bank does this for free.
• $30 for outgoing wires.  My bank charges $11.
• $12 monthly service fee unless you meet minimum balance and other requirements
• $12 per day when you draw from your overdraft protection line.  My bank charges a one time fee of $10 and interest.
• $34 stop payment fee. That is very high!
• They charge YOU $12 when someone else’s check bounces!
• They charge $2 for a counter check.  My bank gives these away for free.

I think this new disclosure thing might work to their disadvantage.

Chase to air greed-washing TV campaign

For Chase, a TV Show to Promote Its Charity

By BRIAN STELTER, The New York Times
Published: December 9, 2011

When a television network broadcasts an awards show created by a multinational bank’s marketers, what is it? An advertisement? A tribute to deserving charities? An entertainment spectacle?

On Saturday, it might be all of the above.

In a gambit to promote its charitable work — and maybe polish its image, which has suffered since the financial collapse in 2008 — JPMorgan Chase is financing and sponsoring the “American Giving Awards,” which will be televised by NBC on Saturday night. The two-hour show, with Bob Costas as host, will profile recipients of Chase donations, will be book-ended by Chase commercials and will regularly remind viewers that the whole event is “presented by Chase.”

The producers and the network suggested Friday that the awards show was a feel-good holiday season special. Kimberly B. Davis, the president of the JPMorgan Chase Foundation, said it was about celebrating “ordinary people doing extraordinary things in communities.”

But to others, the show has another bottom line. It’s a “‘greed-washing’ campaign to score P.R. points,” countered Lisa Graves, whose publication “PR Watch” investigates company public relations campaigns. The $2 million in donations that will be featured on Saturday “are a drop in the bucket compared to its ultra-lush benefits for bankers who profited richly from the swaps that undermined our nation’s financial security,” she said.

The “American Giving Awards” are part of a broader business world trend. Not content to have the news media cover its good works, many companies are creating their own media, often cloaked as entertainment.

Big banks, in particular, “do a lot of socially driven programs, but they don’t consistently tell people about them,” said Steve Cone, a marketing executive for AARP who formerly worked at Citigroup and Fidelity.

And given the financial downturn, “there’s more pressure now to say, ‘We’re not all evil, here’s the good things we do,’ ” said Allen P. Adamson, a managing director at the brand firm Landor Associates.

Read more …

Chase credit card minimum payment class action lawsuit

The court has approved class action status for a lawsuit alleging that Chase improperly violated customer credit card terms when they raised the minimum payment for some customers from 2% of the outstanding balance to 5%.

You can find more information on this lawsuit here.