NY TV news story on Chase abruptly raising minimum payments

Now that the outage is over, back to the real Chase-Sucks news – the stuff that Chase does to customers every day.

While extortion is a pretty strong word, how would you describe it when Chase knowingly puts people into an impossible situation by raising minimum payments.  Great story.

Chase not being flexible with customers hurt by the outage

On Wednesday, a Chase official made the following statement:

“If a customer incurred a late fee during this outage, they should call us via telephone banking or go into a branch, and we will rescind that late fee,” she said. “If they incurred these fees during the outage because they could not make a payment any other way, then it is our responsibility and we will refund that late fee.”

The language sounds like it is specifically crafted to give them an easy out by just claiming a customer didn’t try every other way to make a payment, and it looks like they are already availing themselves of this.  Here is a comment we received:

I finally was able to get in yesterday afternoon as I needed to pay my 2 cards – they were due on the 15th.  It was after the 5 p.m. EST cut off time (I’m on PST).  I called and got customer service, as I wanted to know if I could pay at a branch. My only option: pay $14.95 to have them take the payment and process effective the due date. $14.95 per credit card. I wanted to know how they could charge this fee when they have been down. Her response: you had the option to call our number and pay via our automated system before 5 p.m. EST.  Great.  I always pay online from where I’m at. I didn’t have any of my info (phone #, credit card #, bank account #).  Seriously sucks.

C’mon Chase, you seriously messed up and not everyone had time to wait on an extended hold on you seriously backed-up telephone banking or make it into a branch.  You should be waiving fees like this left and right.

Chase online banking downtime misinformation continues

Website Chicago Breaking Business reports the following:

The online sites for Chase retail banking and credit card transactions are down due to technical problems, a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase & Co. confirmed this morning. The problem began overnight, and the company is working to fix it, said spokesman Tom Kelly.

The bank urges customers to conduct their transactions at a branch or by phone, at 800-935-9935. A recording at that phone number tells callers to expect a long wait to speak with a banker.

In this little bit Chase has communicated about the outage, they are still not telling the truth.  It did not begin overnight.  It clearly began sometime yesterday morning or afternoon.

Update: 10:30 am PT:  A slightly different story has appeared on ABC News and while the story still claims the site has been down since last night, Chase’s spokesman is now quoted as saying:

The service has been down since Monday night, but bank spokesman Thomas Kelly couldn’t specify the exact time service was disrupted.

Does this mean they don’t know when it went down?

Update 9/15/10:  A comment on this story suggests that Chase had a scheduled maintenance window on Sunday.

Actually, they did have maintenance scheduled for Sunday Morning. Sunday afternoon and night site worked and crashed Monday evening before 4 pm or so, also noteworthy is that the site crashed last month as well, but made no news splash as the outage was mostly in the weekend. It did captured by a few websites that collect Chase gripes..

In all fairness to Chase, we have to entertain the possibility perhaps the maintenance message was up because of the close proximity to the maintenance window the day before if in fact there was one (you can’t believe everything you read).  Or not.  It is disturbing to hear that they might have had an outage last month as well.

Couple brings car loan current, Chase reposesses anyways

I’ve wondered for a while now, given all the bad behavior from Chase I see, whether they are inept or malicious.  I am beginning to lean towards malicious and this next story is another strike in that direction.

In short, it appears that Chase told a couple that if they brought their loan current, their car would not be repossessed.  The couple came in and paid their loan current, and that evening Chase had their car reposssessed.

This seems very similar to what Chase has been doing with people late on their mortgages, telling them to keep paying a trial modification all the while working on foreclosure in parallel.  It all just seems like Chase’s standard operating procedure for getting more money out of customers any way they can, even if they have to lie to do it.

Chase’s sleazy mortgage refinancing

Personally, I have found mortgage brokers less honest than used car salesmen, so the fact that a mortgage broker working for Chase slipped in an extra flood insurance policy into escrow for a refinance doesn’t surprise me.

I went to refinance my home, in doing so, it came to my attention that the flood insurance had been added to my escrow account without notification. Three years ago my house had been rezoned into the 100 yr. flood zone. Although I have had a separate flood policy with Allstate, it was grandfathered in. I was never notified that I was being charged for insurance through may escrow account. When I went to refinance

with Chase a couple of months ago, this is where I found it. I have been on the phone for hours at a time to resolve this issue, only to be transferred from one branch to another on several different occasions.  I finally called my insurance agent to get payment history from Chase for the flood insurance and the only history they have is where I paid the policy myself, even though they have been taking it out of my escrow account for the past three years. No one with Chase will tell me where the money went. The are telling me that Allstate has been paid, Allstate has showed me records where they have only received payment from me. Chase won’t show me any records at all. They are crooks and owe me several thousand dollars for overpayment of flood insurance. I am looking for another mortgage company different from Chase, I will move my Money Market Account, Savings, Checking, My Mother’s account and my mother in law’s account out of that bank if some thing doesn’t get resolved in a hurry. The have gotten far to big and don’t care about customer service. What they don’t realize is that there are other banks that would like to have our money. Don’t do business with them you will regret it.

One way Chase is rejecting loan modifications

Here is one example of how Chase is rejecting people who should be qualifying for a loan modification:

When he tried to change the terms of his home loan, Michael Guzman was rejected because the bank didn’t consider his joblessness a long-term hardship.

Perhaps Chase didn’t read the HAMP rules, because …

Guzman, of Lake Stevens, has been unemployed for more than two years and was told — incorrectly — by Chase last year that his joblessness did not count as a permanent hardship.

Chase’s answer when the fact that loss of a job should be considered a permanent hardship?

“Servicers continue to evolve their implementation of HAMP,” Chase said in a statement.

Moreover, Chase said, it asked Guzman to reapply for loan assistance, but he has refused.

Guzman said he’s already submitted paperwork three times.

Chase still confiscating funds for old debts without warning

We are still seeing reports that Chase is practicing the despicable practice of confiscating funds for old debts without any warning, explanation, or notice after the fact.  It goes something like this:

You are going along happily and then one day notice a bunch of money missing from your checking account.  You call Chase and they say, yea, we took some money out to satisfy an old debt you deadbeat.  Deadbeat you say?  I paid that old debt?  Prove it says Chase.

Here is the latest story:

2 years ago I have a balance with washington mutual and collection agen did contact me to make payment arrangenment and so I thought I already deal with the agency.

and I just open new checking account with chase which is they bought WaMu just only for my direct deposit suddenely on the day of my paycheck chase wipe out all my salary and apply to the balance that I owe without any disclose information.

usually when you open the bank that you still ow they will not going to allow to open any new checking acct so now i left with 0 dollars.

So please DO NOT DEAL WITH CHASE IS JUST TO MANY TRICKY WAY

Is Chase inept or malicious?

With many of the stories we get about the way Chase bank treats its customers, it is a toss-up as to whether Chase does the things it does because they don’t have a clue or whether they really have a master plan that is all about sucking the most money out of their customers in whatever way possible, ethical or not.  If they really do have a master plan, disguising it in a veil of ineptitude is a stroke of genius.

This recent story about the deal Chase struck with Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac in early 2009 related to their purchase of WaMu mortgages has me leaning towards the master plan theory.  Here is an excerpt from the story:

Yet J.P. Morgan seems better-positioned than rivals for repurchases. That could have a lot to do with a deal it forged with government-backed mortgage buyers last year. In September 2008, J.P. Morgan bought certain assets and liabilities of failed Washington Mutual Bank. Then, in the first quarter of 2009, J.P. Morgan cut a deal with the government agencies that “resolved certain current and future” repurchase claims stemming from WaMu mortgages. It isn’t clear how many loans were involved and what the settlement cost. In 2010, a J.P. Morgan filing merely said a $714 million hit in the 2009 first quarter was “primarily related” to the deal.

But it looks like money well spent. The WaMu repurchase exposure could have been particularly nasty. The bank wrote about $490 billion of mortgages from 2005 through the middle of 2008, and appeared to sell well over half of them. What is more, WaMu specialized in option-adjustable-rate mortgages, which showed high losses and appear to be more vulnerable to repurchase demands.

In this case they clearly showed that they are thinking things through ahead of time, which would seem to indicate that the way they treat their customers, from delayed loan modifications to lowered credit lines and increased minimum payments is more of a plan than anything else.

But that is just my theory.