Consumer complaint received 2019-01-08
Company: JPMORGAN CHASE & CO.
State: MN
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Problem with a purchase shown on your statement
Sub-issue: Credit card company isn't resolving a dispute about a purchase on your statement

Complaint:
On XX/XX/XXXX I received a text alert for my Chase Freedom card in the amount of {$650.00} that I hadn't authorized or purchased. I called Chase immediately to report this as fraud ; they removed the charge. I wasn't aware what the purchase was for until 3 days later when I was looking at my XXXX  purchase history and found " hidden '' purchases as an option ( until now I didn't even know this was an option on XXXX ). I found a " hidden '' purchase for a XXXX/XXXX purchase for three auto air compressors that were being shipped to my home address attached to my XXXX account. The hacker had successfully used my XXXX account, but were not able to change the delivery address. Since I had already reported this to Chase and the charge had been removed from my online statement, I thought it was settled so I contacted the XXXX seller, XXXX, and explained the situation ; asking them if they could send me a shipping label to send the order back to them once it was received at my home ( I didn't want to be accepting stolen goods ). The XXXX contact admitted in their first reply to me that they had seen an increase in fraudulent orders and accommodated the shipping label request to have the items returned to them. The seller received their items back within a week of the original fraudulent order and well within their noted 30 day return policy timeframe. The following month ( XX/XX/XXXX ) I noticed that the {$680.00} was showing up again on my online activity on the Chase website. I contacted Chase again and they said they had confirmed the order had been delivered to my home so they would not agree to covering it as fraud. I explained to them that I had documentation proving I returned the items when I learned they were shipping the items to me since the hacker was not able to successfully change the shipping address attached to my XXXX account on the XXXX order. The re-opened the investigation and I sent them all the message exchanges between me and the XXXX seller, XXXX. 

I was notified XX/XX/XXXX that Chase had once again closed the investigation and refused to cover it as a fraudulent purchase. They also reported this as a dispute to the three credit agencies. I called the contact 's name listed on their letter they sent to learn why they refused this as fraud. I left a voicemail and in the meantime I contacted Chase Support via XXXX. They DM 'd me and reviewed some details, but refused to provide assistance since this had already been looked at by the investigation unit and charged back to the account by Chase. 

I contacted the XXXX  seller XX/XX/XXXX and explained the credit card company was not going to cover this fraudulent order and so I requested my funds be returned since they received the items within their XXXX  return policy. They refused to return the funds stating it's been beyond 30 days of the order and claimed they no longer have the ability. They asked if I had contacted XXXX. I told them I was going to report it to both XXXX and XXXX, but htat they should do the right thing and negotiate a refund since they got their merchandise back while they accepted stolen funds, even while admitting they had seen increased fraudulent activity. I contacted XXXX XX/XX/XXXX. XXXX refused to open an investigation because I reported the issue to Chase first and they claim once the credit card is notified, they are no longer responsible for fraudulent orders. I also called XXXX  XX/XX/XXXX and they refused to assist because 60 days had already passed and I didn't report it to them immediately ; also since XXXX was refusing to assist, they said they were no longer obligated to help. They set me up with a dual-certification sign-in option for my account to protect from future fraudulent orders on my account. XXXX  advised me to try to work with the seller directly. I have not gotten a response from the XXXX seller since XX/XX/XXXX after I sent them two messages that day via the XXXX message service. 

I received a callback from Chase XX/XX/XXXX and spoke to XXXX in Chase 's investigation unit. She said although they believed me that this was not an authorized purchase and that it was outside my normal purchase history, they were unable to find a window in their policy that would allow them to cover it as fraud because it had been delivered to my home. She advised me to try to work with the dispute department claiming they would be able to work with the XXXX seller on my behalf to recoup the funds, so she transferred me to the dispute department. At the time, I didn't realize this was just a de-escalation transfer and that dispute department would offer no assistance in all actuality. I spoke to two different people, an agent and a supervisor ( I can not recall their names, XXXX and XXXX if I had a guess ). They refused to re-open the dispute case since Chase had already investigated it and charged the {$650.00} back to the account. They said that since this was no longer charged on the account from XXXX seller and actually Chase, that this prohibited their ability to contact the seller on my behalf. They only offered me a mailing address to request an escalation of the issue to request further support. This hand-off between the investigation unit and the dispute department seems to be a shady business practice since the investigation unit should already know that the dispute department can not help a customer if the bank were the ones re-applying the charges, and not the seller/store. The right hand does not know what the left hand is doing ; or at least are willfully ignorant to their own inter-departmental policies. 

Now, I am left owing {$650.00} to Chase and they are refusing to work with the seller on my behalf to recoup the stolen funds from the XXXX seller who has accepted the stolen funds and the returned merchandise after they admitted to increased fraudulent order activity. 

I've learned a valuable lesson to not contact the credit card company first, and rather contact XXXX first and report the seller to XXXX  immediately, but my first instinct was to contact the bank once I received the transaction alert. People should be aware of this process as it seems like an easy-out for XXXX to take any responsibility from covering fraud and XXXX  to assist with poor seller business practices.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation