Consumer complaint received 2023-06-13
Company: JPMORGAN CHASE & CO.
State: MA
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Managing an account
Sub-issue: Funds not handled or disbursed as instructed

Complaint:
Early XX/XX/2022, my wife and I received many generous checks at our wedding from family and friends. We then went on a small 'mini-moon ', so these were not cashed until a couple weeks later ( varying between XXXX XXXX to XX/XX/XXXX ). Some were cashed in each of our personal accounts through XXXX XXXX XXXX , because we hadn't yet opened up a joint checking/savings but were in the process of doing so with JPMorgan Chase. I already had a credit card with Chase and it was sort of neutral ground for us ( both had some so-so experiences with our respective banks ) so I initially opened up the account and it was approved not long before XXXX. The problem was... we had to go into a physical location to add her name to the account since it wouldn't allow me online, and both of us were busy scrambling to get XXXX gifts and spend time with our families before leaving on our actual honeymoon on XX/XX/XXXX. She asked me to just deposit the remainder of the checks ( totaling {$5800.00} ) into the Chase account before leaving for the honeymoon so that we didn't have people waiting a month to see the funds leave their account. I signed all the checks myself while packing up my suitcase, and deposited using mobile deposit. 

Once we got back from XXXX XXXX, I logged into my Chase app to find that the checking account previously showing underneath my credit account had just disappeared entirely. I called the Chase support number, thinking it was just a technical glitch but in fact they had flagged my account as fraudulent and told me that they would be withholding the already-cashed funds until we could verify with every check writer that it was indeed legitimate. They were able to automatically verify many of them, but 7 checks remained unverified for various reasons. 

The 7 checks remaining were easily the worst case scenarios out of the {$5800.00} : 1 ) My wife 's uncle and aunt, in their early 70s and not doing very well for a few health reasons 2 ) My grandmother, in her 80s, lives over an hour away and not very mobile 3 ) My wife 's friend, with a XXXX 4 ) Another wife 's friend, with a XXXX XXXX XXXX AND a XXXX 5 ) Another Uncle of my wife 's, who is on terrible terms with my mother-in-law and not very understanding. Even worse ( for reasons explained below ), his wife signed the check instead of him. 
6 ) My wife 's grandmother, who is XXXX XXXX XXXX and XXXX bound with around the clock XXXX XXXX  7 ) My mother-in-law 's friend, in her 60s What this means is : -I have to call a Chase support line, wait on hold for on average ~20-60 minutes - Once I finally get a support rep in the fraud department, I have to re-explain the lengthy story to them and then they re-tell me in excruciating detail the exact process that has already been laid out for me, many times over. 
- Then while I am on the line, on hold, they arbitrarily call one, or all, of the remaining check writers that have not yet been verified. However, if they don't have their number on file in what I assume to be XXXX, or they have the wrong number, then they just can't call that person at all and force them to come into a physical Chase location to have their ID scanned ( there's not that many locations... ) A few notes about our experience with this as well : - Chase refuses to release ANY of the funds until every single check is verified with the writer of it - Every family member/friend that was called immediately thought that the support rep was a call center scam artist due to their lack of professionalism -I was hung up on ~5-7 times in the middle of reiterating my story to each new support rep, probably because it wasn't an 'easy case ' - When explaining to the regional fraud department head after many escalations that my wife 's grandmother ( on the list ) was XXXX, XXXX XXXX, and obviously without the correct phone number on file so she clearly is unable to come into a physical Chase branch, I received the kind reply of 'do n't know what to tell ya " -An extremely helpful branch manager in our current residing town helped us out on one occasion, but the poor gentleman ended up just as frustrated as we were after talking in circles for 3 hours with his own company 's support team and their inability to understand the situation - We went back a second time for help with the local branch manager, and when he got in touch with the fraud department rep they told him that there wasn't any notes on our case, so even though we had already gone through the process of verifying 6 out of the 7 outstanding verifications needed, someone was able to just accidentally ( or intentionally ) delete every single note attached to our case, thereby almost erasing all proof of our battle with this insane process. 
-One support rep told us we could have the check writers ask their bank to 'rescind the check ', and there was a process in place for this with almost every bank. We asked three of the 7 remaining family members to do this with their bank. Each of them being ~50-75 years old, naturally they took time out of their workday and went into their bank office to ask them to do this. Their representatives said that's never been done and the check has been cashed so there's nothing they can do. The next call I had with the fraud department, they 'clarified ' ( barely ) by saying they had to call the back office instead of going in physically. They all use local town savings banks, there isn't a back office. 
- My wife 's grandmother is an absolute angel powerhouse of a woman and on her one day of feeling even remotely mobile, she had her XXXX drive her to visit us and we scanned her ID at the local Chase and had some pizza after. As good as that sounds, the fraud department kept the bank manager on hold for ~90 minutes while they called the rest of the check writers ( that had already been verified, so they just didn't listen and it was for no reason ) WITH GRANDMA IN A XXXX RIGHT THERE. We said enough is enough and my wife left with her to go get the pizza ~45 minutes in. Still, the fact they were too ignorant to listen to the bank manager ( who won branch of the year ) when he said, after explaining the entire situation yet again to a brand new support rep on the case, 'They are here to scan one ID for one check, please help us with this quickly ' and they proceeded to do nothing we asked until calling every bank AND check writer is astounding. There was one slice of pizza left for me. 


In summary : I have spent well over a full work-week on hold/on the phone with Chase fraud department over depositing checks into a new account which is now being held hostage. This account was intended to be a joint account with my wife and I after getting back from our honeymoon for house funds, baby funds, fun funds, etc, and instead of this we have had to make dozens of unbelievably awkward calls asking people who just gave us extremely generous gifts for our next stage of life to get on hold with arguably the most unqualified, rude, and deliberately unhelpful support representatives I've ever encountered. 

So, now we are down to ONE check that has yet to be verified but it's my mother-in-law 's brother who is on terrible terms with my mother-in-law, AND his wife is the one who signed the check. Neither of their numbers are in Chase 's phone database, so Chase can't contact them over the phone with me on the other line as we did with others, and their bank has refused to rescind the check. So basically Chase wants me to have them do this instead : 1 ) Drive over an hour to the nearest branch 2 ) Explain to some random branch manager why they are there ( even though they hardly understand how complex this situation is themselves ) 3 ) Have the branch manager phone into the fraud department to reiterate the same situation they just explained to said manager, probably wait on hold for 30 minutes 4 ) IF the fraud department hasn't 'lost ' the case notes ( again ) then they will probably explain to branch manager the entire process for these kind of 'fraudulent alerts ' even though that is what has just been explained to the branch manager in the first place and we've gone through in entirety over a dozen times over multiple months 5 ) Then MAYBE, MAYBE, if we're VERY lucky, they will mark the case as complete and release the funds to us.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation