Is Chase getting desperate about losing its overdraft fee income?

Buried in a comment to this post about Chase’s letters asking customers to opt-in to overdraft protection (now that they have to have customers opt in) is an interesting comment:

Either way, Hubby and I have been inundated with mail from them about this. I’m not joking when I say we’ve received over 10 separate letters from Chase about it. Talk about killing trees. We are likely switching banks soon.

Ten separate letters?  Now if that doesn’t sound like desperation …

Accessories to show off your displeasure of Chase

Bumper sticker, available here.

I dare someone to walk into a Chase branch to make a deposit with this t-shirt:

This t-shirt just says it all”

Chase (still) sucks

An oldie and a goodie from back in 2005 reminds us that Chase hasn’t changed much in the last 5 years:

I noticed that after complaining about Banknorth sending me snail mail spam on this blog, googling for “Banknorth Sucks” now puts my website at the number one spot. So after my interaction with Chase today (who I have a credit card with), let’s see how high I can rank for “Chase Sucks”.

I use my Chase Mastercard occasionally and always pay the balance off in full well before the payment due date. As I went to pay the card on-line, there was a vague “fee” for 35 dollars. I called Chase to see what it was as I never pay late. I always pay on-line, and I always have the payment come directly out of my bank account, which has more than enough funds to cover my small charges.

The woman informed me that they attempted to withdraw funds and the withdrawal fee failed. She didn’t know why. I confirmed the routing and account number with her. Both were correct.

I then asked why I was being charged if they couldn’t get the transaction to work. “Because it failed.” she said. So apparently, if they fail to get something to work, it is my fault and I don’t get a chance to fix it.

“Uh, so why didn’t you inform me before charging me a fee?”

“How would we do that?” she asked.

“You have my email address and my phone number.”

“We can’t do that.”

This went around and around while I tried to express the insanity of this system. With other fun accusations like my payment was late even though I haven’t even received this month’s statement yet, and that my previous payments were made by phone, even though I’ve never called in a payment in my life.

After all this, I said, “Look, this is ridiculous, the failed transaction is your problem, I’ve never payed via phone, your records are crap, please just waive the fee.”

“I’d be glad to waive the fee this one time for you sir.”

So apparently this woman just enjoys arguing, and I could have saved myself 15 minutes if I had just begun with, “Please waive stupid fees from my account.”. “Yes sir right away sir.”

Unsolicited loan modification – what is Chase up to?

David reports:

we received a Loan Modification Agreement from chase dated June 10, 2010.  the property is 4 rental units, and payments are current.  we DID NOT request a Loan Modification.  this came FedEx with a cover letter urging us to hurry up and return the signed agreement by 6/24/2010.

we have been ‘pre-qualified’ for a ‘special program’.  monthly payment remains essentially the same, mortgage balance to be reduced by $110,481 (from $330,481) to $220,000, term to be reduced by 119 months, and the current adjustable rate (3.03%) to become fixed @ 5%.

there may be tax consequences! on the reduced principal, and this could have an undesirable on our credit rating.

what is chase up to?  we smell a rat!

This seems way too generous for Chase to offer to someone that isn’t behind on their mortgage payments and has NOT requested a loan modification.  Are they soliciting this to get them to sign up for a trial modification with lower payments, then deny them, demand a baloon payment, and foreclose?  Could Chase really be THAT predatory?

The credit card roller coaster

This story is truly a product of the times we are in right now, with most credit card issuers desperately trying to put a stop loss on the massive credit liability they created in the last decade or two.  Unfortunately, many good customers are getting caught in the cross hairs.

Like this one.

First his Capital One credit card was closed due to not being used enough.  This caused his credit rating to drop such that Chase decided he was a greater credit risk and they gave his credit limit a severe haircut and raise his interest rate.

JP Morgan Chase may have much larger loan liability than claimed

The SEC has been asking JP Morgan Chase for more information related to its reserves set aside for bad loans it sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and other investors.  With hundreds of billions at stake here, JP Morgan Chase could be asked to buy back much more than its current reserve levels reflect.

WaMu bankruptcy drags on, investigation may yet happen (yawn)

As of a few weeks ago:

1. The WaMu bankruptcy Judge denied shareholders request to appoint an investigation into WaMu’s seizure/failure.

2. Said just did though order WaMu (the holding company) to share with shareholders results from its own investigation and told them to talk with shareholders to work this out.

So where are we at now? As this update from Business Week summarizes:

1. Shareholders still have a change to ask for an investigation if they can show the judge that WaMu’s investigation wasn’t good enough

2. Shareholders still have a shot at forcing an annual meeting and forcing out the current directors to get their own crew on board to better direct WaMu’s bankruptcy.

What’s in an IP

IP in this case being internet protocol.  When someone visits a website, the web server typically tracks what page they access and where they are accessing from, or their IP address.  It is pretty easy to look up an IP address in the global database and see what organization it is assigned to.  Which is where it gets interesting when the IP address is from Chase, on a Chase-sucks blog like chasehomefinancesucks.com.  Here are the details from Chase’s recent visit to that site:

16th June 2010 09:46:44
21 hours 24 mins 8 secs
IE 6.0
WinXP
unknown United States Returning Visits:
Location:
New York, United States
Jpmorgan Chase & Co. (159.53.110.140) [Label IP Address]
chasehomefinancesucks.com/my-story/
chasehomefinancesucks.com/tag/modification-efforts/

So someone at Chase apparently spent quite some time browsing that site.  What kills me though is that they are accessing with Internet Explorer version 6, which Microsoft recently announced they are no longer supporting.  Just for the record, Microsoft currently distributes version 8, and is soon to come out with version 9.