Chase closes long-time customer account for no reason

Another story that attests to the mysterious and often backwards ways of Chase.  The story calls the seemingly random closing of good standing customers accounts for no reason (that Chase will give) a mistake, but I can’t help but wonder if Chase just determined the customers weren’t profitable and decided to cut them loose.

MONROE, Wash. – Mike and Meagan Farrell have been customers at their neighborhood bank on Highway 2 in Monroe for six years. First, when it was Washington Mutual and later, when it became Chase.

They’re on a first name basis with the tellers and managers.

“It was our personal banking place, you know, one stop banking,” said Mike Farrell.

The Farrells not only had their checking and savings accounts at Chase; they had individual retirement accounts there, even a savings account for their 10-year-old daughter.

They had tens of thousands of dollars in the bank. And they were happy customers.

“We were considered platinum, premium customers,” said Meagan Farrell.

Then on Saturday, August 27, Meagan walked to the mailbox.

“I went and got the mail, and I opened it up, and I was mortified by what I read,” she said.

Account closing

It was a letter from Chase.

“It says here [in the letter], ‘We are writing to notify you that we are closing your deposit accounts in accordance with your Chase deposit agreement terms and conditions,’” said Mike Farrell.

It was a one-page form letter that said, “Your account will be closed 10 business days from the date of this letter.”

The letter set off a cascade of problems the Farrells are still recovering from. It instructed them to stop using their ATM debit cards and destroy them. Missing among all of the fine print and instructions was any reason for Chase’s drastic actions.

So the Farrells called the phone number on the letter and talked to customer service.

“They just told us, ‘We’re closing your account,’ and they said that they could not give us a reason why,” said Mike.

It was a weekend. So the Farrells figured their friends at the local branch in Monroe would be able to sort it all out on Monday. Yet when they arrived at the bank they’d always counted on, they were in for another shock.

“Our accounts were already frozen and they had already bounced all of our outstanding checks. Even though there was sufficient funds to cover everything,” Meagan Farrell said.

The Farrells say the bankers were sympathetic but said that the decision had been made at the corporate level.

“They also seemed confused. The manager said they usually only see this sort of thing in cases of check fraud, which they knew that we weren’t committing any check fraud,” said Meagan.

Read more …

17 Comments

  • By Shehab Hamad, January 30, 2012 @ 4:08 am

    I hate Chase. I was a loyal customer and for no reason, on a Saturday evening, my credit card was declined. I call only to find out that, with no notification at all, my account had been frozen for termination. All my money, for gas, food, school books and life is tied up in that account. The reason? Because they can. They are a horrible, evil, heartless corporation. Now I have to wait 10 business days so I can use my own hard earned money. BANK ELSEWHERE!

  • By Kim Phan, August 29, 2012 @ 11:29 pm

    This just happened to me the other day! I received the same letter. I am still not able to get a straight answer on why my 4 personal accounts were closed! There were fraud charges in my account I had to deal with a couple months ago, and I had to open up new accounts twice, because the banker never resolved the problem in the first place. IT WAS A COMPLETE DISASTER!. I have 3 credit cards and a auto loan with them too. I have also been a loyal customer for over 10 years, back when they were wamu. What a shame! I am taking my business as well as friends and family elsewhere.

  • By Hossien Ebrahimi, September 11, 2012 @ 8:27 pm

    Our chase checking account was restricted without any notice as well. We had this account for 13 years (started when it was Washington Mutual bank). I was an excellent customer in every way, direct deposit two pay checks, home mortgage with chase, credit cards, ATM cards and the whole deal. All of the sudden they resided to close my account. When asked why both by phone and going to their branch, I was told they can not tell me why. I will spread the news on face book site and all my friends and family that Chase sucks big time.

  • By Another Victim of Chase, November 2, 2012 @ 4:31 pm

    Chase closed my business account and would not give a reason as to why.
    Very odd situation as I have been doing business with chase for years, I have excellent credit, maintain high balances, and have always paid on my loans.
    Something is definitely very wrong at Chase. What’s really odd is they said I could keep my personal account and visa card and even the merchant services, but were canceling my business account. How bizarre. In life you get an abundance of what you tolerate, so I terminate all chase services and recommend anyone else do the same.

  • By whit, November 3, 2012 @ 8:34 pm

    Chase messed up yes, but the bankers at that local branch? shame on them. instead of telling the couple that there is nothing they can do they should have fought harder, basically do what farrells did, which is to ask Chase to look into it again.

    state that we know this couple and that this has to be a mistake

    the frozen account and letter? yes it’s bad

    but nothing is worse then being told sorry, that’s it, rather then try and fight that mistake.

  • By Marta, January 5, 2013 @ 6:19 pm

    Just got my letter today, so I called to ask why; neither the rep. nor the supervisor would tell me why. I am convinced that the reason is that they are getting rid of all the free checking accounts, which were opened when it was Washington Mutual. Why would they not tell us the reason? Something is fishy, they are willing to pay people $125.00 to open an account with them and yet they close perfectly o.k. accounts.

  • By Tiffany, May 7, 2014 @ 10:36 am

    Same situation just happened to me. I made a deposit this morning and when I went to use my online billing to pay my medical insurance it was declined naturally I called the bank and they have me the spill of “for reasons unknown to us you account has been closed.” We will send you a check for finalization and that’s it!!! Never again will I deal with chase and anyone who does I will warn them what they can do for NO specific reason!!! I hope they go under for not dealing with cash clientele!!!

  • By Thy To, September 23, 2014 @ 10:02 am

    I recieved a letter from Chase saying that they will close my checking account within 14 days of this letter. I was shocked and suprised and thought that this was a joke. I called the number on the letter asking why that is the case, and guess what their reason was? The reason was because they could! I’m SHOCKED! They said the have the right to kick me out without telling me any reason whatsoever. I told them I’m never late on my payments, never had any fees, never once had any negative bad thing on my account and now they’re closing my account just because? The manager all he could said was ” there’s nothing I can say”

    I was frious. After a week later, I recieved another letter saying that they have closed my credit cards. The reason they have close my credit cards was because my checking account was close! I was even more livid! I spent a total about a month calling, putting on hold, trying to figure out why. After a while, I just felt like Chase was a waste of time. What a pieces of $hit bank. Here I thought other bank was bad, but Chase was just the lowest. I was a loyal customer to them, and now they do this to me! I had to submit a claim on the Credit Protection Bureau for them to call me back. It took a few days, but someone called me back. They still couldn’t give me an answer. The only answer they gave me was because they could.

    I took my business else where afterward. I did call the Executive Credit Service back again, and still today, they can’t give me a reason.

  • By joeythetonerguy, November 20, 2014 @ 4:55 pm

    after two years of a great relationship chase sent me a letter from thier compliance dept and would not give me a reason why my accounts were being closed thank God i have a back up account at another bank. no matter how many chase employees i spoke to no one will give me a reason i am self employed with no bank account i would be unemployed arrrrrrrrggggg

  • By Joy Mala, August 24, 2015 @ 8:19 am

    So sorry to read all this. I have been a Chase customer for many years and even had my mortgage with them. We decided to buy another house and thought to go with Chase. They preapproved us for the amount and we got the paper going. I live with my elderly parents, husband and a 14 month old baby. Everything went as planned and one of the condition was to sell our current resident. We had to sign the selling documents a day prior to signing the purchasing documents. We went and sold over our primary resident and getting ready the next morning to go to the Escrow to sign the purchase. Escrow calls the morning of and says we are unable to get hold of Chase and no documents are in. We call Chase and they have more conditions. They had us close our credit cards that had no balance except for miles and points. It was clear that they wanted us to close the rival banks. They never asked us to close their credit cards. We had no choice as we had sold our house and were going to become homeless with our at that time 11-month old child. I was scared because I did not know where we I will keep them. After closing the cards, there were more conditions, one after another and closing dates got pushed out. First it was May 1st, then May 5th, and so on. On May 15th, my family became homeless. We lived in hotels one after another from town to town due to a concert and there were no space more than a week. My 11-month old and 67-year old parents were homeless with my husband and I. Chase never contacted us after that even though we contacted them hour after hour, crying and begging. Our wonderful real estate agent put us in touch with a God sent mortgage broker who got us approved and in the house in just 10-days as promised. I will never forgive Chase customer service people for treating us like this and for putting my family on the street for 2.5 weeks until we signed the papers with another bank. At least they should have the guts to say no we cannot do this loan. To date no one from Chase called or wrote to us saying they cannot do this loan. We are living happily in the same house we wanted to buy with Chase after spending $1000’s in hotels and food to keep my family off of the street. Now I know how people end up homeless…

  • By latisha, April 20, 2016 @ 5:31 pm

    I am so surprised to read these comments, i wish i had seen them BEFORE i decided to open up an account with chase. i am LIVID!!! I have been a customer with chase for over 10 years (checking ) and i have had high school and college checking accounts tied to my account. Last week, my younger son attempted to use his debit card that i had recently (same day ) sent a transfer to for 50.00, he went into a chase branch and attempted to use the card at the cash station, it said declined, he called me i came to the bank to find out what was going on, the teller seemed surprised as she did not understand, it was showing her that his account was RESTRICTED and my account was fine, she gave him the money over the counter and said she would check into the issue with my sons card and give me a call back on monday. That same evening i tried to use MY debit card at a local grocery store, the transaction was declined and i just brushed it off and decided to call the bank the next morning on saturday, when i called customer service i spoke to an ignorant unprofessional person who says “chase has decided to sever the relationship….” some old shit, i was looking at my phone like, excuse me??? i hung up called the branch back, she told me that MY account was fine and to ask the customer service person to take the restriction off of MY account ( i could not access online banking, atm) after several attempts i asked her to give me info to a sunday branch, she was very nice and gave me the info, i went to the branch on the next day ( sunday), livid….again he could not tell me what was going on, he seemed just as surprised as the other branch lady, he attempted to call to find out what was going on, he finally told me that MY account was not closed and he would issue me a new debit card and would check on the other stuff and call me back monday… here we are WED the following week and i still haven’t heard anything, i still cant access my online banking, so i just called customer service again, spoke with a supervisor with no more info than i had at first….IT IS MAKING MY BLOOD BOIL that no one can tell me WHY my son’s account was closed, i wanted to speak to a MANAGER, i screamed discrimination (since there is NO OTHER POSSIBLE REASON FOR MY ACCOUNT TO BE CLOSED INVOLUNTARILY) so they transferred me to the EXECUTIVE office and again all canned responses i filed a “case” with them and they said they will have a specialist look into it. I am exhausted with CHASE…..i am PISSED right now. I just cant BELIEVE Chase would treat their customers like this. I would be satisfied with their decision if they could at least tell me why, since they have no reason to do this, there has not been any fraud, overdrafts or nothing, i mean the bank should be able to tell me WHY they are closing the account, especially if its for MY protection, but i guess its some shady shit going on with chase

  • By AJ, August 2, 2016 @ 9:21 pm

    I cant believe this. I just was declined at ATM for only $20.00 plus fee $2.50.

    There ample money in account. The money was declined and i logged on to my chase account online on my phone well i tried to and strange message with two ootions to call chase as well as reading that account access was terminated.

    I called the number and went through 4 people until finally someone sent me a verification text to my cell which i read to them. Then they told me my relationshop was terminated with the bank.

    What the f***. Im good client with no ussues the rep gave me no reason and told me that there was nothing i could do and they would send me whatever amount of money was left in my account within 7 to 10 days.

    This is absurd, and with all my money locked up there i cant get gas, buy food, i do not know what i will do.

    If anyone can help or offer any suggestions please email me ajcrossexecutive@gmail.com

  • By Gena Flynn, June 21, 2017 @ 8:53 am

    I have banked with WAMU before Chase took over. I had a few issue with Chase, but nothing that was fixed. Last Friday, I logged onto my account to check my direct deposit I wasn’t able to access my account. I called and was told to call the fraud department. So I did. A jerk of a man told me all my accounts had been closed and the have terminated the relationship. I asked for a reason, non was given because of privacy issues. What? it is my account. I can’t get my money…This is such a fricken mess. From reading the comments above this must be a common issue.

  • By Stephen T, June 30, 2017 @ 9:45 am

    We have been long time personal and corporate customers of Chase until our corporate account was randomly closed today just before July 4th weekend. No letter received other than a new debit card for the account 15 days before, the usual marketing peddling credit products we don’t need, no calls other and no reason given. Account was always in good standing without ANY suspicious activity at all. Full paper trail to all vendors and customers with a high average balance. Maybe they can tell our employees why they don’t get a salary until the week after and cover my time and money to re open elsewhere. I hope we IPO one day and we get to block them from buying shares lol. #chasesucks

  • By Immanual Kontokanis, August 21, 2017 @ 2:24 pm

    I too was a victim of this crap by Chase. I had been a loyal partner with Chase for close to 2 decades being originally a Home Savings, Great Western and the like customer that was acquired by Chase. I am a disabled veteran that served two deployments and later started a staffing business that recruited and employed veterans transitioning out of the military. I had personal and business accounts with Chase and for 3 years I would transfer funds from my business account to a HR Payroll service for payroll of my employees. Typically in the range of $100K-$250K weekly. In September of 2013, without any notice, I went to my local branch to do the typical weekly transfer and learned my accounts (including personal) had been closed and my funds frozen. No explanation or understanding but created a huge financial burden from not being able to make payroll timely due to frozen funds, as well as many returned checks due to the freeze. They also did the same to my personal accounts which also caused problems for me as it was the same week i was closing escrow on my home and couldn’t access my funds to cover the closing costs and almost lost the deal.

    I later received the generic letters stating they were closing the accounts in 10 days but even though the dates would have allowed my transactions that week, the letter wouldn’t have made a difference as the accounts were closed and frozen before that 10 day window. I later learned that an analyst from their fraud department had concerns on the large transfers I made weekly for payroll and decided to close the account without actually investigating or even asking what the purpose was for. Ironically, each transfer had notes of invoices and the purpose for the transfers clearly indicating “PAYROLL” but they had other ideas.

    Now 4 years later, I inquired on a whim to see if I would have a different result in the reply and all I got was a lame letter from their Executive Office stating the fact they could close my accounts at anytime for any reason and provided pages of account terms I already had. Such BS!

    CHASE got BILLIONS IN BAIL OUT MONEY using our TAX DOLLARS and they treat good hardworking honest people like this? SCUMBAGS! I hope they FAIL as they should have years ago. DON’T BANK WITH CHASE or they will screw you like they did me and hundreds of others without notice or cause…

  • By Jacqueline stevenson, September 19, 2017 @ 5:08 pm

    Just had the same thing happen to me and had been a customer for 25+ years and was told they don’t have to give an explanation or send a previous notice out to let you know that your account will be closed I have never heard of such in my lifetime I feel this should be brought out on the news channel 2 4 and 7 their investigators really need to look into this cuz this is an unfair practice and as far as getting your money back if you find out soon enough they can give it to you at the bank because I went to the bank and I left with my money in hand so you don’t have to wait for a check

  • By Star O, October 26, 2017 @ 11:20 am

    Damn…
    After reading this website I realized, that I’m not alone.
    This just happened to me yesterday, went to buy something for $10 and got declined!! Wha?!
    I go to check my bank account online, access denied! After speaking to them for 45 minutes on the phone there was no reason, just that they would send me a letter in the mail with the check in 7-10 business days! As you can imagine I was furious, so I made them give me my money at a branch!
    This is in their terms and conditions apparently, they can terminate at anytime for no reason without prior notice! the teller kept saying that this is the case for every bank.
    Sure, but you, Chase, are the ones taking full advantage and creating huge problems for people.
    I think we should start a class action suit or something.
    If anyone wants to do this with me, let me know.

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