Consumer complaint received 2020-04-16
Company: JPMORGAN CHASE & CO.
State: NY
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Managing an account
Sub-issue: Problem accessing account

Complaint:
My correspondence with Chase. Parts 1 and 2 PART 1 From : REDACTED Sent : XXXX XX/XX/2020 XXXX To : XXXX XXXX Cc : XXXX XXXX ; XXXX XXXX ; XXXX XXXX Subject : The Challenges of Joining Chase ( ps I need access to my money! ) XXXX I wanted to write and share my experience of joining Chase as a new customer over the last few days. I understand the challenges of operating in the current period having just helped completely pivot a small business to keep it on track. Ive also previously run large call centers ( XXXX with 5 second call answer standards not banks with 90min call answer standards ) so trust me when I say I know that you can do way better, even in the current circumstances. You have significant resources available to you, judging by your XXXX results, and should clearly be investing more of these to provide better services for your customers. 

I opened an account with Chase on Sunday evening, tempted by the offer of a cash reward for doing so. All went well and relatively smoothly, I even managed to navigate the ridiculously complex withdrawal limits at my current bank to transfer sufficient funds to a new checking and savings accounts over the next 20 days to meet all of the hoops required to claim my cash bonus! Today, I transferred {$2500.00} into my account to begin the process and to check everything was working before my first direct deposit from my employer arrives on Friday and disaster struck ... 

Upon attempting to login I was informed that my account was locked due to suspicious activity. I dutifully called the number provided and found myself in a queue. Understandable if a little frustrating, but its tough to complain that the bank wants to keep my money secure. 

Fast forward 4 hours and Ive had a fun evening of hold music and been told several hundred times ( literally, you do the math on the same message every 90 second for four hours ) how important I am by a recorded message, but Ive made no progress. You still have my {$2500.00} and I still have no access to it. My employer has already issued my paycheck to my new account and I have a further deposit in progress that cant be cancelled. That means by Friday if I havent made it through the impenetrable maze youll have $ XXXX of my cash and Ill have no access to this or any ability to pay my bills. That may not be significant to you, having seen the recent bonuses Chase is dishing out to senior execs for performance but to me it is and I actually have a job where I do perform and ensure we provide customer service, but I digress. Back to the story. 

After waiting over an hour to speak to your fraud department they needed to send me to another department to have my ID verified. Frustrating, as this seems like a basic function and poor system design, but fine. A mere 90 minutes later, salvation! The phone is answered, except Ive been transferred to the wrong department. Despite my protests and explaining the problem Im told that they can only transfer me back to the original department, not to the department I need. Reluctantly, accepting my fate, I rejoin the hold music and reminders every 90 seconds of how important I am, though by now I must confess Im really not feeling all that important. 

A further 90 minutes or so later and Im cut off after a brief message telling me to start again if I still need to speak to someone. At XXXX, 4 hours in, worn down, but undeterred with those pesky bills Ill need to pay with the money you are holding hostage, I begin again. Im a little surprised to find a recorded message telling me that the call center closed at XXXX, by my reckoning, a mere 10mins or  so after I was put back in the queue to speak to the person I had started with hours before. So yet more process design failure, though by this point Im expecting this as a standard. 

You may wonder why Im emailing you this saga, not a complaints department or basically anyone of the thousands of other people who should be dealing with the nuisance that is having customers who want to give you money. Well the plot thickens and you guessed it, more awful user and poor process design. It appears that to make a complaint my options are to phone ( hilarious! ) or to login and send a message - yes you guessed - login to the account Im locked out of .... Sheer genius that suggestion. 

As youll see there are a catalogue of user journey errors here which any vaguely competent customer experience or call center team should be able to prevent in designing pathways for customers ( and before you protest, no most of these flaws have absolutely nothing to do with COVID, they are just poor design ). 

I look forward to a response from someone able to address these issues with your customer service processes and who can also provide me access to my money. Having seen how siloed functions are in your call centers it may well be that youre the most junior person at the bank with the power to do two such complex tasks. 

Whilst having my paycheck immediately isnt life or death,  choosing between paying rent or feeding the kids for me, for many of your customers right now it will be. So please please sort this mess out. If youre unable to do so I would be very happy to approach media outlets and politicians who will be able to help you more clearly see the issues for your customers who dont get multi-million dollar bonuses for performance PART 2 From : REDACTED Sent : XXXX XX/XX/2020 XXXX To : XXXX XXXX XXXX ; XXXX XXXX Cc XXXX XXXX XXXX ; XXXX XXXX ; XXXX XXXX ; XXXX XXXX ; XXXX XXXX ; XXXX XXXX Subject : Re : The Challenges of Joining Chase PARTS 2, 3 & 4 ( ps I STILL need access to my money! ) XXXX Me again. I'm sure you've been waiting with bated breath to hear how I'm getting on. Well today we had rounds two, three and four. No progress yet but I still need access to my money so I'm going to soldier on and will, of course, keep you updated. As I've not received so much as a redirection or out of office in response to my previous message I've gone right ahead and shared details of the saga so far with the CFPB but I don't want you or those copied to miss out on a summary of the awful service you are currently providing ( you'll note the pretend attempt at a response some way down this update - but my effort in rewriting to reflect this call is on par with the effort put into resolving the issue, hint, not even close yet ). 

Round 2 - a call with the local branch where I was promised they would speak to the right department and call me right back. Well it's 4 hours on, the branch is closed and no news Round 3 - I thought I'd try your social media support. Very apologetic for the delays but added zero value Round 4 - the dreaded call center loop again and again and again ... 

Today I was treated to just 33 minutes of being told on repeat how much you appreciate my business and value the opportunity to serve me before finding a human being. A helpful call center agent, given the direct number should I be cut off for any reason and transferred to the correct department, at least that's what I was promised. A little over 15 minutes after joining the musical interlude provided between departments I was requested to input my account number, odd but who am I to argue with the machine. I'm guessing that an error occurred here in yet another of your wonderfully designed systems but we'll probably never know. Having dutifully found and re-entered all of my details, pressed #, reentered them all again, pressed # again I had the audacity to attempt to press whichever number option would direct me back to a human being. Alas, I asked too much as was promptly cut off. 

Thankfully, with the trusty direct number to hand I was undeterred and decided to get straight back in there. I wouldn't want to hit the XXXX deadline again, after all I only 4 hours left until that deadline and you have to set aside sufficient time for these calls. Except the direct number was not a direct number, it was the number for another automated filter right back at the start of the journey and another 40 something minutes on hold. 

Mid hold music, some good news, potentially. A call on my other line from your office to confirm that yesterday 's email had been received. The plan to solve my problem and give me access to my money ... to 'look into it '. No plan, no timeframe, a lackluster apology from an employee who had clearly spent his whole day making these calls, with no news, plan or information, just a poor attempt to make us feel like something was being done. 

Back to the call I placed on hold and thankfully I'm still in the queue - 57 minutes since calling and it's answered. The direct number to the right department, you guessed it, was not the right department. A promise to connect me to the right department this time, 4 confirmations from me that it was in fact the right department as the call operative clearly didn't understand my problem the first 3 times. Assurance that it would definitely be the right department as it was noted on my file - so probably the wrong department as everything noted on my file so far was the wrong department but no other options. I ask for the department name and direct number so I can compare notes and maybe skip a step when it inevitably goes wrong. It's an internal number so I can't have it and the department name isn't clear but with no other way forward I take my chances. The anticipation, the potential, but no, I'm disconnected seconds after being put on hold. 

We're now at 90 minutes today and I'm back to the start. The cheery message, as well as reminding me how appreciated my patience is, informs me that the queue is less than fifteen minutes long. I vaguely recall hearing this same promise during one of the many hour plus waits yesterday. 

15 minutes sails by ... barely surprised 30 mins ... still not mildly shocked 59 minutes, an answer, to be told again that I'm in the wrong place. I'm told I need the department the department I had the direct dial number for earlier this evening, that I now know wasn't the right department. The call center member of staff is adamant that there is no other possible way of fixing this problem but to talk to the department I had been cut off by 90 minutes before. Yet again I'm certain this is wrong, yes I did already speak to them, yes I did press option 4, but with no other option I have to join the loop again. I hang up, I dial the 'direct ' number, choose option 4, listen to the delightful woman tell me how valued I am and hold for over an hour. By this point, over 4 hours after I started my second day of telephone, it's XXXX. The hold music keeps playing, the kind lady continues to confirm that despite 8 hours on the phone with you over 2 days I am indeed important, but I know that everyone has signed off for the night so I join them. 

If you've made it this far, well done, you have a small fraction of the patience I've displayed the past few days. Like me, you're not at the end though. Another installment follows tomorrow. I look forward to my 4 hour loop to nowhere almost as much as I'm sure you look forward to the next update and the CFPB will be looking forward to their update ... 

If as well as enjoying the story you're wondering what you can do. Some suggestions : Please, please, please change your recorded message. I'm not valued or important and over 400 repetitions of this haven't changed my mind, another 200 tomorrow aren't going to help. Please have her tell me how profusely sorry you are or better yet record a message saying this yourself, if of course you are remotely sorry or even interested. 
Please hire someone who understand call center design and user experience. You'll have fewer frustrated customers and much better staff morale and retention - they are exhausted and frustrated with this as I am. This stuff isn't easy to fix but having unpicked call center systems and processes in a complete mess at times of crisis in tax payer funded services it can be done and with your resources it can definitely be done and shouldn't have taken five weeks. I'd normally have sent a bill for this much advice, this is gratis if you get your act together. If you need more, I can make myself available, just call the call center and they'll put you right through to me, they all know me now. 
You can give me access to my account, or frankly at this point just give me my money If you're giving me access to my account, then you can waive the hoops for the sign on bonus that lured me into this trap in the first place. You may recall the careful planning needed to get through the hoops at the best of times from my first dispatch. Well that's now near impossible to achieve with the roadblocks you've added to the process You can stop opening new accounts until you have competent systems and processes. Sure it'll be a hit on revenue, you'll have to forego a bonus, but you'll stop XXXX  over people who can ill afford to be without their money right now I look forward to the next call from your office and hope that this one arrives with a resolution, not an exhausted staffer who has no answers

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation