Consumer complaint received 2020-08-30
Company: JPMORGAN CHASE & CO.
State: CA
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports
Sub-product: Credit reporting
Issue: Problem with a credit reporting company's investigation into an existing problem
Sub-issue: Their investigation did not fix an error on your report

Complaint:
Chase card services has wrongly notified the credit bureaus of late payments by me, which put a major negative blemish on my credit score ( dropped 118 points ), and I am told that it will be on my record for 7 years. This is all due to a fraudulent purchase that was done with my credit card. I have called them several times, and every single person I spoke to understood my situation, and agreed with me, but when they reached out to their credit fraud department, they would just say, to bad, so sad, nothing we can do about it. 

This started with someone getting my credit card info, even though I still had possession of my card. On XX/XX/XXXX, The criminals purchased {$2400.00} worth of stuff that I noticed on my next statement about 3 weeks later. I called Chase immediately, and got the card cancelled, and they sent me a new card, and began the fraud investigation. I didnt think anything of it after that. I thought it was settled. 

A month goes by, and I got my new statement, and to my surprise, {$910.00} is carried over from the fraudulent charges to my new account. I called Chase again, and asked what was going on, and they told me, that because the particular items that were purchased in that amount were sent directly to my address, that I was responsible to pay it. I had no idea what they were talking about, and I told them that I never purchased anything in that amount, and in fact, I wasnt even using that credit card at the time, and had a XXXX balance. So they reopened the case and looked into it. 

The next month, I got my statement again, and not only was the charge still on it, but it accrued late charges, and interest as well, and had a big minimum payment due. I called Chase, and told them that this was a fraudulent purchase, and that I am not going to pay it. 
It was at this point, I took a more active role in finding out what had happened, and I called the business that was on my original monthly statement with the fraud charge on it, to find out who they were, and to see if I could find out what item was supposedly sent to me. Thankfully, they were very helpful, and told me exactly what was sent to me. After talking with my wife about it, we realized that indeed, 4 qty medical stethoscopes '' were sent to us. I remember my wife telling me about it, but we didnt really think twice about it at the time. Covid just started, and this wasnt a big deal as far as we were concerned. My wife said she would probably just donate them to any doctors that may need them during this covid crisis. 
The delivery of these stethoscopes was really weird. we had no use for them, and certainly didnt order them, and we didnt know why we got them. Frankly, I forgot all about it at the time, but now it was making a little sense, so I called Chase again. I spoke to XXXX, who told me to just return the items to the manufacturer for credit, and then email XXXX with evidence that I did, and to include the original account information that was stolen with this information, and it would be all taken cared of. 



Considering that my wife may have donated the items already, I was a little concerned that I may not even have them anymore, but, we did still have them, and I did successfully get the company to allow me to send them back the for credit, and indeed sent all the information requested to the email address that I was given by XXXX, only to get that email bounced back to me, saying it was invalid.. I had no XXXX, no phone number to get a hold of him ( he would not give one ), and no working email to use, but, I had a credit coming from the return, so this should be all over. So I thought. 

During this time between what above just happened, and my next statement, I did use the credit card at a local grocery store because they would not take my XXXX XXXX card, so I was forced to use the chase visa card instead. These consisted of groceries on XX/XX/XXXX for {$31.00} and XX/XX/XXXX for {$21.00} from this same place. These were my only true charges on this credit card since I got the new card. 

Weeks go by, and I get my next statement on XX/XX/XXXX if I recall correctly. 
I saw no credit to my account, even though the manufacturer said that they did credit it already on XX/XX/XXXX, and yet my bill was still for {$1000.00}, with a minimum payment due of {$140.00}. Not only that, but I got a notification from my XXXX XXXX app that my credit had changed, and when I looked at it, it dropped 118 points. 
So, I called Chase again, and told them what was up, and they told me that the credit from the company did indeed go through, but it didnt make my current statement. They told me that I still had a balance and asked if I would like to take care of it right then and there, so I said sure. They charged me {$100.00}. But in my head, I was thinking that I only spent about {$50.00} total on this credit card at the grocery store, so how could my bill be {$100.00}, So I addressed that with them and I wanted to confirm that they would take care of my credit bureau drop as well, but they said that there was nothing they could do about it, and it would stain me for 7 years. 
Obviously I was livid. 
I spoke to multiple people from Chase at that point, and they generally agreed with me that I shouldnt have to pay late fees, and interest on the fraudulent charge, and they refunded me all the late fees that were attached to it. I was also told that their policy was that they only notify the credit bureaus after 2 statement periods of delinquency. I told them that I wasnt going to pay on a fraudulent charge, and I was happy to pay my two grocery store charges which were {$94.00} less than the Minimum payment that my statement was asking me to pay. 

I got different stories from different people on why I was being reported to the credit bureau, but after digging deeper, I was able to counter their own reasoning, because they told me that they have forgiven the fraudulent charge and late fees, and that their policy was to not contact the credit bureau until after two cycles of non payment, yet they contacted the credit bureaus already, and would not fix it. Initially, they agreed with me, that I shouldnt be responsible for paying on a fraudulent charge, but then turned on a dime and said that I should have. 
I broke it down again on how unreasonable that was, and they agreed once again that I should not have had to pay on that fraudulent charge, but that I missed the payment on the grocery charge that I made, so they reported me, and there was nothing that they could do about it. 


After looking closer at the information, I figured out that my oldest real charge to that credit card was on XX/XX/XXXX for {$31.00} for the groceries that Chase spoke about. The due date for this charge was XX/XX/XXXX. 
As I already described earlier, When I got that new statement, the fraudulent charge was still showing with interest and late fees, and they were asking for a minimum payment of {$140.00}, on a balance of {$1000.00}. Once again, there was no way I was paying for a fraudulent charge. I called them again on XX/XX/XXXX ( 9 days late for the payment of that grocery bill ), and I explained once again what had happened, and they acted as though they were sorry, and asked me to make that smaller payment for the grocery bill, and I did so on the spot. I thought I was in the clear, but, once again, I asked them to remove the mark on my credit report, and they said no, because I didnt make that minimum payment of {$140.00}, even though I owed only {$50.00} max.on Earth 1. I did pay this grocery bill charge, and it was 9 days late, for the good reason as described above. Considering that they told me that their policy was to only notify the credit bureau after two missed payment cycles, the nine days that my grocery bill payment was actually late didnt really comport with what they were telling me, and I could tell that they were just lying to me, and trying get me off the phone. They transferred me to their credit fraud division once again, and they just said, we already told you, we cant do anything about it. 

I canceled the card on the spot. Fully paid off of course. They obviously used the fraudulent charge, and lack of payment towards it as their premise to contact the credit bureau. Even though they agreed that I shouldnt have to pay towards a fraudulent charge. Then they changed their story to the late grocery payment, which was paid in full 9 days late. Not even close to the two billing cycle policy they told me about, and the 9 days late was understandable since they were asking me for a minimum payment 3x what I owed.

They got mean in the end, and it became, to bad, so sad, nothing we can do. Now I am writing this letter. I dont deserve to take a hit to my perfect credit of XXXX that I earned for a reason, only to have it knocked down because of fraudulent activity, and complete lack of empathy on the part of Chase card services. 

Please help. 

Sincerely, XXXX XXXX

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation