Another week, another settlement between Chase and some arm of the government for laws that Chase has violated. The latest $83.3 million settlement is for “violating regulations that prohibit lending money for entities linked to countries engaged in illicit nuclear trade and that cover dealings with Cuba and Sudan.”
Bad bad Chase, Lawsuits | admin August 25, 2011 | 
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Oops, it is this easy:
According to Dworsky, the security loophole is in the 24-hour a day automated telephone account information systems used by some card issuers that allow cardholders to check the activity on their accounts. When a cardholder calls the customer service number on the back of the card from their home telephone, the bank verifies the caller ID of the call against their account records. If the phone number matches one on record, some banks shortcut further security checks and only ask for the last four digits of the account number rather than the whole number, and possibly also request the cardholder’s zip code.
And therein lies the flaw. The system can be easily tricked by a hacker who “spoofs” the caller ID of the telephone used to call the bank, making it appear to be from the consumer’s home phone. Now, only the last four digits of the account number are needed to gain access, which can be easily found on a discarded sales receipt from virtually any retail store.
Fraud | admin August 21, 2011 | Comments (0)
As our visitor traffic continues to consistently climb upward, I find two more blogs against Chase:
http://victoryoverchase.blogspot.com/
This seems to point to more people mad at Chase, not less.
Bad bad Chase | admin August 19, 2011 | Comments (0)
Not the largest of outages but we had a Chase customer report that Chase.com (the entire site) was unavailable for 5-10 minutes around noon Eastern today (August 17th).
outages | admin August 17, 2011 | Comments (0)
You would expect disenchanted hipsters to use YouTube to complain about the businesses they don’t like. But when 60+ year old customers, not the typical users of social media, are posting Chase Sucks! videos to YouTube, Chase must really have taken a turn for the worse.
Bad bad Chase | admin August 5, 2011 | Comments (1)
Just when you thought you knew all the ways that Chase could possibly screw up someones life, they come up with a new one, claiming you are dead. God only knows what possessed Chase to claim this woman was dead when she was in fact very much alive.
SANFORD, Florida– A Florida woman says she’s having numerous financial troubles because of a bank error that caused Chase Bank USA to declare her dead last November.
Wrenella Pierre has filed a lawsuit and Chase officials said Monday they’re investigating how the mistake happened.
When Pierre and her husband built their home in 2007, they got two mortgages through Chase.
According to the lawsuit, the bank notified credit-reporting agencies last year that Pierre had died. They sent a letter of condolence to the family, saying someone from the bank would be in touch about the mortgage.Pierre says she notified bank officials that she was alive and also went to a local branch to correct the mistake.
A month later, the lawsuit alleges, credit agencies still reported her dead.
Ineptitude, Lawsuits | admin July 12, 2011 | Comments (2)
There are quite a few cases of alleged or admitted fraud that JPMorgan Chase has been involved in recently I’m losing count. Well here is another one (Wall Street Journal, JPMorgan Settles Muni-Bid Case, 7/8/11). Does this bank have an ethical bone in its body?
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. agreed to a $228 million settlement to charges it rigged nearly 100 transactions involving municipal-bond auctions, federal and state authorities said.
It is the third, and largest, settlement reached with a bank in a continuing investigation into an alleged nationwide conspiracy to rig municipal-bond bidding processes. Banks bid for the business to invest the proceeds municipalities raise by selling bonds. Last year, Bank of America Corp. agreed to pay $137 million and in May, UBS AG agreed to pay $160.2 million.
The Securities and Exchange Commission, in a civil lawsuit, alleged that J.P. Morgan, the nation’s second largest by assets, manipulated the bidding process from 1997 to 2005. The SEC said agents handling the auctions gave J.P. Morgan a “last look” at all the bids, thereby allowing J.P. Morgan to win the auctions. The SEC complaint also alleged J.P. Morgan submitted intentionally losing bids to allow other banks to win auctions, and steered business to the agents that rigged the bids. The SEC said the rigging happened on at least 93 transactions in 31 states.
The New York-based bank said in a statement that it does not “tolerate anticompetitive activity or violations of law” and that the investigation focused on “a small desk that was discontinued.” The bank also pointed out that the employees, who are no longer at the bank, hid their actions from management.
J.P. Morgan said the net total it would pay was $211.2 million: $51.2 million to the SEC; $50 million to the Internal Revenue Service; $35 million to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency; and $75 million to the states involved. The bank said the payments wouldn’t materially affect its earnings.
There are concurrent court settlements with the various parties involved and there is some overlap, so while the agreement with the states is actually for $92 million, $17 million of that will go to other agencies, said Susan E. Kinsman, a spokeswoman for Connecticut State Attorney General George Jepsen, who headed the investigations for the states.
It is the second settlement J.P. Morgan has reached with the SEC in just over two weeks. In late June, the bank agreed to pay $153.6 million to settle charges its employees aggressively sold a complex debt security while failing to inform the investors about certain material facts.
The muni-auction settlements also included enforcement actions from the Federal Reserve and the OCC demanding that the bank increase its risk compliance management.
Federal tax laws require proceeds of municipal-bond sales to be invested at fair-market value. Bidding agents typically organize a process in which banks compete on bids for the investment business in order to ensure the fair-market-value test is met.
The Justice Department has identified more than a dozen banks as alleged co-conspirators in the bid-rigging probe.However, federal and state agencies allege widespread collusion between the bidding agents and big banks corrupted the process across dozens of states during the late 1990s and first half of the 2000s. The Justice Department has identified more than a dozen banks as alleged co-conspirators. To date, 18 people have been charged.
“When powerful financial institutions … conspire with each other to intentionally violate regulations designed to ensure fair investment prices, the integrity of the municipal marketplace becomes corrupted,” said Elaine C. Greenberg, head of the SEC’s Municipal Securities and Public Pensions Unit.
As part of its deal with the Justice Department, J.P. Morgan won’t face a criminal antitrust prosecution if it meets a series of conditions, including cooperating with the investigation. The bank also admitted and accepted responsibility for the illegal conduct of its former employees.
The SEC also said Thursday that it has barred former J.P. Morgan vice president James L. Hertz from the securities industry based on his guilty plea last December in connection with municipal-bond transactions. Mr. Hertz has been cooperating with the probe.
Bad bad Chase, Lawsuits | admin July 10, 2011 | Comments (3)
Making an account overdrawn by $10 million to restrict access to an account sure makes it sound like Chase doesn’t really know what they are doing.
I opened a joint account and I’ve been a loyal customer of Chase for about 12 years. I have great credit history. I deposited several hundred dollars when I opened an additional checking account online last weekend. Then, when the business week started, I got a series of 4 text messages telling me my account was overdrawn by $9,999,135.00 and did I want to cover that overdraft with a transfer from my other accounts. Ha. Like that would be possible. I didn’t get a call from a Chase person–just the shocking texts. And then when I called, they said “Oh. Yes. That’s our way of locking down your account in case there has been fraud.” Sure, because a sudden $9,999,135.00 withdrawal doesn’t freak me out as much as real fraud. If they want to do that, I at least deserve a personal phone call to explain. instead, they’d rather give you a heart attack by sending you a phantom text message with an almost $10 million dollar apparent w/d. That is beyond stupid.
Then they said there was a problem with my SSN and I had to go to the SSA to get a piece of paper verifying I am me and then make more time to go in to a Chase branch. Seriously? Who has time for that? And I’ve been a verified customer for YEARS. Then I got smart and told them it prob wasn’t my SSN with a problem; it might be the joint account holder. They said “Let me look. …oh….hm…Oh you’re right.” What I don’t understand is, why does Chase even “open” an account that isn’t verified? I cannot access the initial deposit until this mess is resolved. Chase should simply deny the application instead of taking my money and then locking it up. They should approve me but not the other holder, whom I have known for years and saw the SSN card myself in order to enter the info online for the application. They should let ME access my money. Why they would ‘approve’ an account only to promptly close it is RIDICULOUS. they are not protecting me from fraud–they are removing my own access to my own money. Right now, fraudsters are more likely to get my money than I am. I cannot believe Chase’s policies are so ridiculous. JUST DENY THE APPLICATION. Don’t accept it, immediately restrict it, and then keep my money. When I get this mess resolved, by re-opening the account that I JUST opened 7 days ago, I will be sure to close it for good. I am not doing anymore business with Chase. I will open this account at Wells Fargo or Some local credit union instead of dealing with Chase’ stupid policies and very very impersonal banking. I even requested a manager contact me, and they wrote me back saying, sorry. You have to call us again. We can’t tell you anything.
