Consumer complaint received 2023-08-01
Company: JPMORGAN CHASE & CO.
State: CO
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Closing your account
Sub-issue: Company closed your account

Complaint:
XX/XX/XXXX My wife and I returned home from a vacation in XXXX and were alerted by Chase of possible fraudulent credit card activity in the amount of {$52.00}. I confirmed that this was definitely unauthorized activity. Chase told me to stop using this account and they would issue new cards which we should receive in 5 to 7 business days. 

XX/XX/XXXX I contacted Chase Customer Service to notify them that we still had not received our new credit cards. I was informed that the account had been permanently closed on XX/XX/XXXX, at my request, and so new cards had not been issued. I told the customer service representative that I had done no such thing. Why would I be calling to report that I had not received our new cards if I had permanently closed our account? She told me that the only way Chase could re-open the account was for them to listen to the recordings of the XX/XX/XXXX conversation and the review would take up to 7days. 

XX/XX/XXXX My wife, thinking that none of this made any sense, called Chase Customer Service. She could not understand why Chase would not simply re-open our account and issue new cards, as promised. The first representative was unhelpful so my wife requested to speak to her supervisor. This gentleman indicated that he understood exactly what had happened and he would try to fix the problem. After leaving my wife on hold for a few minutes, he returned to apologize that he had tried everything in his power to re-open the account, but was unable to do so. He connected her with his supervisor who stated that the problem was that our account was a joint account which Chase had not offered for at least 10 years. He stated that according to banking regulations, the only way this account could be re-opened was if they reviewed the recordings from XX/XX/XXXX to determine if the conversation was " ambiguous or unambiguous '' and that it would take up to 7 days. 

XX/XX/XXXX Chase still had not contacted me, so I called them to see if they had made a determination. Over the course of a 49 minute phone call with several representatives it was never quite clear if they could not locate the recording from XX/XX/XXXX, or the recording was unintelligible. Whatever the case, Chase could not produce any evidence that showed that I had told them to permanently close my account. But, none of that mattered. The bottom line was that the account was permanently closed and could not be re-opened under any circumstances. I was told that our only option was to reapply for a new account. At that time, I informed them that if we had to go through an application process, it would not be with Chase. 

On or about XX/XX/XXXX Our monthly Chase statement came in the mail. Upon close examination my wife discovered some odd things. 
1. The account number on the statement was different from the number on our credit cards. This indicates to us that they knew that we had not " permanently closed our account. '' 2. Under Account Messages there was a statement that " transactions designated with an & have been transferred from lost/stolen account. '' All of the charges on the statement were designated with an & except the final charge. This charge was legitimate and we do not wish to dispute it ; however, the lack of the & designation indicates that the new account number had been issued and used for this transaction.

I believe that this demonstrates that I never instructed Chase to permanently close our account. The error was theirs, not mine.

Additionally : Further evidence that Chase representatives had mishandled the original call of XX/XX/XXXX is that during this same call, I requested a copy of my current charges to see if there was any other fraudulent activity. Approximately one week later I received an envelope in the mail with a letter dated XX/XX/XXXX stating that, as per my request, they were enclosing a copy of my billing statement ( s ). Enclosed were copies of my statements from the previous three months, which I had already received and paid, but none of my current charges. Several days later, I received another envelope from Chase. The enclosed letter was identical to the previous letter except that it was dated XX/XX/XXXX. Once again, the envelope included the same copies of statements from the previous three months, but none of my current charges. 

My wife and I have had this Chase Freedom Visa Card since XXXX and have always been card members in good standing. After 35 years and through no fault of our own, our account was permanently closed. Chase has repeatedly claimed that this was done at my request. They lied. I would not. I did not. 

This has been a major inconvenience for us. My wife and I have spent hours on the phone trying to straighten out this mess. We have had to research and then apply for a credit card with a different bank. We had to temporarily unfreeze our credit report in order to complete the application process. And we have been without a Visa card for a month. 

At this point, the balance on our account has been paid in full, and we have no desire to do any more business with Chase. However, we do think that a formal letter of apology is in order. And we want to make sure that our excellent credit rating is not negatively affected by the closure of this account.

Company response to consumer: Closed with non-monetary relief