Chase can’t properly identify own check, has innocent man jailed

Chase seems to have done just about everything wrong in this case.  First, they had a man jailed claiming he presented them with a forged check. That check was valid and had in fact been issued by Chase bank itself.  Second, Chase let the man stay in jail over the weekend rather than doing everything they could to make sure he got out after they determined he was no in the wrong.  Third, after an entire year of trying to get Chase to even acknowledge the mistake (much less reimburse him for all the costs he experience because of their mistake) they only apologized after the local media ran a story and contacted Chase.

Here is the story:

AUBURN, Wash. – Buying his own home was a big accomplishment for construction worker, Ikenna Njoku, of Auburn. He’s only 28 years old.

“I was really excited. For the first time, I actually got to buy a lawn mower, mow my lawn and everything,” said Njoku.

Njoku qualified for the first time home buyer rebate on his tax return.

“It was really important, I had a vehicle I was looking on paying off,” said. Njoku. And it wasn’t just any vehicle. “It was a 2001 Infinity I-30, silver…just like my favorite car, “he said.

Njoku signed up to have the rebate deposited directly into his Chase Bank account. But when the IRS rebate arrived, there was a problem.  Chase had closed Njoku’s account because of overdrawn checks in the past. The bank deducted $600 to cover what he owed them and mailed him a cashier’s check for the difference–$8,463.21.

But when Njoku showed up at the Chase branch near his house intending to cash the check, he was in for a nasty surprise.

The check had Njoku’s name and address on it and was issued by JP Morgan Chase. But the Chase Customer Banker who handles large checks at the Auburn branch was immediately suspicious.

“I was embarrassed,” Njoku said. “She asked me what I did for a living. Asked me where I got the check from, looked me up and down—like ‘you just bought a house in Auburn, really?’ She didn’t believe that,” he said.

The Customer Banker said the check looked fake, so she took it, along with Njoku’s driver license and credit card, and called Bank Support.

After waiting for about 15 minutes, Njoku said he got impatient and told Chase he was leaving to do an important errand. By the time he got back, the bank was closed. Njoku said he called customer service and asked them what he should do. He says they told him to go back to the bank the next day to get his money.

But when Njoku arrived, it wasn’t the money that was waiting for him.

“They just threw me in jail; they called the police and said this guy has a fraudulent check,” Njoku said.

Auburn police arrested him for forgery – a felony crime.

“I was like – you’re making a mistake, you’re making a mistake, don’t take me to jail, I got work tomorrow. I can’t afford to miss work,” he said.

Njoku was taken to jail on June 24, 2010, which was a Thursday. The next day, Chase Special Investigations, realized it was a mistake. The check was legitimate. The Investigator called Auburn Police and left a message with the detective handling the case, but it was her day off. So Njoku stayed in jail for the entire weekend. Finally, on Monday, he was released.

Auburn Police Commander Dave Colglazier said Chase could have done a lot more to let them know they’d locked up an innocent man.

“We do have a main line that comes into our front office,” he said. “There are ways to reach someone 24/7 at a police department.”

For Njoku, going to jail for five days meant a lot more than just losing his freedom. He said the entire time he was “just stressed out…trying to figure out what was going on with my vehicle.  I love my vehicle,” he said.

Njoku’s car had been towed from the bank parking lot and his check seized as evidence.

“I had to wait a couple of weeks,” he said, “and my car got sold, auctioned off.”

Njoku says he didn’t have the money to pay the impound fees and fines to get his car back before it was sold.  He said he also lost his job because he didn’t show up for work while he was in jail.

After all of that, Njoku said he never heard a word from Chase.

“They haven’t even sent me a letter or apologized,” he said. “It’s been a year we’ve been trying to contact these guys.”

Finally, A Seattle attorney offered to help. Last week, Felix Luna sent Chase a scathing letter. Read the attorneys’ letter to Chase

“It’s one thing to make a mistake,” Luna said. “It’s one thing to make multiple errors of judgment like Chase has made and then, once you realize that your error has caused such harm to somebody else, to just ignore it for a year. I think he deserved better. I think all their customers do.”

Like Njoku, KING 5 had a difficult time getting answers from Chase. A week after first contacting them, they sent a two line e-mail.

“We received the letter and are reviewing the situation.  We’ll be reaching out to the customer,” wrote Darcy Donoahoe-Wilmot, from Chase Media Relations.

But on Thursday, Chase issued an apology.

Njoku said that even after he got out of jail, he said was confused and upset. “For a month, two months, I was just down and depressed,” he said.

He’s still happy he bought his house, but sad that his experience with his own bank was so humiliating.

“They treated me like a criminal,” he said.

Come on Chase, have a heart

Oh Chase, you just really want bad publicity, don’t you?  For God’s sake, just let this father of an injured active serviceman coming home from Iraq stay in his home a little longer so that the son has a home to come back to.  After all, you are foreclosing because you told him to miss payments so he would qualify for a loan modification.

20-year-old soldier Aaron Collette is currently on a tour of duty in Iraq. Next month, he’s scheduled to return to Oregon for two weeks of hard-earned leave. After surviving an IED explosion next to his squad this month, Aaron is looking forward to some quiet time with his family.

There’s a problem, though. Through no fault of their own, Aaron’s family will be kicked out of their home on August 9th – just ten days before Aaron returns. JPMorgan Chase is foreclosing on Aaron’s father Tim Collette, and has so far refused to modify Tim’s mortgage.

Tim Collette is on a mission to save his home – at least, temporarily. He’s simply asking for Chase to delay foreclosure proceedings so that Aaron can come home to Oregon this summer.

Like many homeowners in foreclosure, Tim Collette played by the rules. He put a $100,000 downpayment on his home when he purchased it back in 2006. But when the economy crashed in 2008, Tim’s cabinet refinishing business dried up. Tim struggled to make his mortgage payments each month, and eventually called Chase for assistance in restructuring his loan.

The bank told Tim that he’d need to miss two payments to qualify. Once he did that (per the bank’s instructions), the bank began foreclosure proceedings. After yanking Tim around for more than a year, Chase decided not to modify Tim’s mortgage and scheduled the final foreclosure date for June 20th.

When news of Tim’s story initially broke, JPMorgan Chase quickly told reporters they’d find a solution for Tim and placed his June 20th foreclosure on hold. But as soon as the media attention waned, the bank called Tim again and told him the foreclosure was back on – now scheduled for August 9th.

U.S. law prohibits banks from foreclosing on the homes of active duty military members, but JPMorgan Chase has mistakenly foreclosed on at least 27 service members. Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said of this mistake, “There is no class of citizen that we hold in higher regard…this is the worst [mistake] we’ve made. We deeply apologize to our veterans … and we’re sorry.”

Tim’s son Aaron isn’t the homeowner in this situation. But this is Aaron’s home. It’s his bedroom. His family. His safe place to return to after serving his country in Iraq. Chase Bank has already shown that, when under scrutiny by the media and with the determined advocacy of groups like Economic Fairness Oregon, they’ll delay foreclosure proceedings. Let’s see what happens when Change.org activists send thousands of messages to Chase Bank in support of Tim and his family.

 

JPMorgan Chase admits it lied about the quality of mortgage backed securities

Dishonesty seems to be in the Chase corporate culture with this latest admission by Chase that it lied about the quality of mortgage-backed securities it sold to other banks and credit unions (Marketplace, 6/21/11).  As it sold the securities, it claimed they had near-zero default levels, but almost immediately after they were purchased, defaults soared so high the securities became almost worthless.

Bogus securities sold by Chase and the Royal Bank of Scotland lost so much value they caused the failure of five credit unions.

Yea, these are the guys that are watching your money.  Still think Chase doesn’t arrange your deposits and debits to cause overdrafts?

What gives when Chase calls you to offer a short sale?

We recently received this comment from a reader:

Hello, I have a property which was a 2nd home. My brother-in-law and I bought it 7 years ago in Nevada. A few years back I started covering my brother-in-laws share. I’am about six months unpaid and presently the property is in foreclosure. I have sent no paper-work as request since it is biased. Well around 2-months ago during the foreclosure I got a call from a Chase rep. on a Sat. morn. stating that I qualfied for a short-sell. He asked me if I wanted to proceed and to select from a list of real estate brokers they have used in the area or if I had an agent. I said I have a real estate agent and set a conference call between the rep, agent, and I. We just had an offer and I accpeted, though now they want me to sign my life away. The document they sent me is called a request for consideration of Short sell? They requested the and even set-up the short sell to me, and they offered me a 25.000.00 check upon closing with no forbearance. Have you heard of people not giving any paperwork and going this far?  This is very misleading! Should I get a lawyer?

Here is my advice:

Get a lawyer!  Chase is a sneaky bank and it is more likely than not that this will benefit them somehow.

For one, Nevada appears to be a state that allows for a deficiency judgement, which means that they can go after you for the amount you ow in excess of that paid on the loan through the short sale.  California by comparison is a state where you can not be held liable for additional debt as a result of a short sale or foreclosure.

Until Chase either forecloses or the property is sold, they can’t do anything to go after you for the unpaid loan balance.  For agreeing to a short sale, you allow them to move forward on obtaining a deficiency judgement and going after more of your assets.

Furthermore, Nevada appears to be a one-action recourse state, which means that they can either foreclose on your property, or sue you to recover the unpaid debt, but not both.  By agreeing to the short sale, you are allowing them to sue you for the unpaid debt whereas otherwise they would not be able to if they foreclosed on the property.

Let me repeat my first remark – get a lawyer, preferably one familiar with Nevada law.

When even the police think Chase sucks, they must really suck

This is just too classic.

January 10, 2011

Chase Bank

Reference Chase home LoanDear Sir

I want to start off by thanking you for sending the Police to my home. This was quite interesting to speak to them. I am very upset about my home loan can not get anyone to speak to me at Chase but your call center. I have been calling them for two years and can not talk to anyone but a call center. I have become so upset. I have sent the paper work in about 24 times and have never received an answer. The San Jose Police were very helpful. The advised me “Chase Bank is the worst bank in the world and they will take your home they help no one”. What does this say about your Bank if a Police department feels this way?

Read more …

When a borrower is delinquent, Chase calls … the parents?

Very odd.  Either Chase is ignoring the requests to stop calling for someone that doesn’t live there, or like Chase often does, different people from different departments can’t seem to get a hold of the same information.

Hi! We are receiving contant calls from Chase regarding my daughter and her husband. They married 4 years ago and have called Chase several times, but they continue to call our house…How to stop them?

Read more …

Chase harassment and the personal blog

What do you do when a big company like Chase goes above and beyond all sense of civility and reasonableness when trying to deal with delinquent payments?  You march out in front of your local branch and start you own blog, like this Chase customer did to protest mistreatment, and call it Why I Hate Chase Bank.  Here is an exerpt from the blog:

When one of the Chase representatives would happen to get me at a semi-good enough time to take a call, and to patiently go through all the stupid ‘required’ verifications, name (see: please call me A.), complete address, phone, name of my employer, where the vehicle is parked at night, who the primary driver is, who is my insurance carrier, etc. etc. etc.

I at first answer all their invasive series of questions like well, most of the above but I just love (sic) the ‘what is the reason that caused you to fall behind on your payment’ question?

So, we get through all the questions, now to the ‘meat’ of the call, the money. The representative then asks: May I take your payment now? I can schedule it for as late as this Friday.

In my case, I would usually explain that I would bring in a cash payment to one of the branch locations on Monday, Tuesday whenever I next expected to be able to make said payment.

Insert unhappy representatives reply: “blah, blah, blah”

Thank you, and good-bye!

2-5 hours later, the phone calls begin.. guess who? Chase again, supposedly knowing nothing of the previous representatives earlier call and discussion, thereby proceeding to badger me through their &^%$ series of verifications, etc. etc. etc.

As I try to break in to ask the representative to “please look at their records, I already spoke with someone about my payment earlier today”, I am interrupted with SIR, we have to go through these questions before I can even access your account.

I’m now over the phone calls, no-more phone calls. My right to peaceful use is not going to be constantly interrupted by Chase and a systematic auto-dialed collection calls from hell!

Arrggh!

Chase auto loan shenanigans

This troubling story was submitted by a reader.  There are so many things that Chase seems to have done here that are illegal and disrespectful, where to start?

We had our Jeep Liberty Sport 2002 taken from Chase auto in 4-2009 Chase never contacts us before of after the auto was repoed I filed with the PA AG and Chase VP was interview and stated that the auto was damaged in the frame (Not True) High Miles (Not True) the reg/title was not transfered for over a year after the repo. All personal items were lost and the Tag is still missing to date and being used! Chase VP claimed via phone that it was sold for $4900 It was missing for 3 months from time of repo to auction. Chase filed SC court action this month and are demanding $9990 claiming the auto was sold for $2700 (book value $7400 Loan due $7300)The dates that appear in the docket are wrong! and it appears the Jeep was switched at auction and a damage one in its place. A auto check found the Jeep was total a year ago and if it had frame damage that is the reason for the accident that happened 2 months after purchased