Consumer complaint received 2018-03-09
Company: JPMORGAN CHASE & CO.
State: CA
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Managing an account
Sub-issue: Deposits and withdrawals

Complaint:
I closed out a 401k account and had the company mail me checks. I deposited the checks into my JP Morgan Chase checking account through their mobile application on Sunday morning. On Tuesday, I learned that my account was 'restricted ' when my card was declined at lunch -- the bank didn't bother to call and discuss the restriction, they just let me find out when my card was declined. This is a common practice with this bank, and it is humiliating. 

When I called, I was routed to a call center overseas and spoke with several people about this, but it took quite literally hours to get enough information from each person ( at least four different  people ) to piece together what happened and what I needed to do. To be clear, it took hours because each person was doing the bare minimum to understand the situation and giving me the answer that most closely resembled the issue response in their auto-generated response system. Whenever possible, the folks on the phone will speak as quickly as possible in finance jargon in an attempt to intimidate the customer. It is an incredibly unpleasant experience to go through when you're already in a fragile emotional state. 

As I've learned, the issuer of the check changed the format of their checks. Understandably, this raised some red flags at JP Morgan Chase. Chase wanted to verify that this institution wrote the check. They first tried to reach the issuers banking institution, XXXX XXXX XXXX -- apparently, XXXX XXXX XXXX will not release any information about their customers, including the issuer of the checks in question. Their next step is to reach the issuer of the check in question. To do this, JP Morgan Chase has a top-secret software system that they use to find 'registered ' phone numbers -- to be clear, on the phone they use the word 'registered ' as if talking about an official business registry. However, what 'registered ' really means is 'registered with their top-secret software system. I'm not sure how a company or institution becomes registered with this system, and JP Morgan Chase would not give me any answers about how : it's top secret. The institution that issued the checks, XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX ( a rebrand of XXXX ), is a publicly traded Fortune 500 company with billions of dollars in revenue -- they have a 'registered ' phone number. For some reason, JP Morgan Chase doesn't have their number in their internal system and, in order to 'verify ' the checks, the phone number needs to be 'registered ' in their internal system. In other words, verification was not an option. 

The next step, so says JP Morgan Chase, is to put a 'stop ' on the checks. After 2 hours on the phone with them, I called XXXX XXXX again to have this done, and they graciously helped with this. I called XXXX the next day after the financial markets closed ( when the 'stop ' would be processed ) to make sure that went through okay. This is when I learned that JP Morgan Chase had already cashed the checks two days prior to this request ( a detail that the representatives from JP Morgan Chase had left out during our two hours on the phone the day prior ). Because JP Morgan Chase had cashed the checks, XXXX XXXX was unable to process a stop. 

After another hour on the phone with JP Morgan Chase, I was told to have XXXX recall the checks. I spent 30 minutes on the phone with XXXX trying to explain that I wanted the check recalled -- not stopped -- but recalled. They were confused, and didn't know how to proceed. I played ping pong with JP Morgan Chase and XXXX with conflicting information for the next two days before someone at JP Morgan Chase asked me to have XXXX 's financial institution recall the checks. XXXX, who, at this point, has no business relationship with me because JP Morgan Chase cashed the checks in question, could not immediately comply. 

In the mean time, I had to listen to folks at JP Morgan Chase threaten to, not only close my checking account, but also keep the funds in an account indefinitely until they are able to verify the funds, which would mean finding a phone number in their system that doesn't exist. 

I called XXXX this morning to see if they could process this request, but they denied it. I can't say I blame them -- the issue was with my bank, not with them. After what appeared to by my last option was exhausted with XXXX, I called JP Morgan Chase this morning to try to find a resolution to the situation one last time. I escalated the call twice ( and spoke with a total of three people ) before I could talk to someone that genuinely seemed interested in helping -- everyone else gave me the same response over and over again, and several times insulted my intelligence because I would not accept their answer. I had to wait on the line for at least an hour before this gentleman was able to help, and his help was quite simple : he used a search engine to find a phone number for XXXX and then called to verify with me on the phone. It is important to note that I asked several JP Morgan Chase Associates why they couldn't verify the checks this way -- they had a tendency to ignore my questions and repeat their auto generated responses. The matter was resolved in minutes this way, but the process took the entire week. 

In the meantime, my landlord is charging me {$100.00} for late rent and for a bounced check. My credit cards are charging interest on a balance that would have been paid off. I had no gasoline in my car and had to ride my bike 1 hour each way to work on roads that aren't friendly to cyclists. I had to stay at work until XXXX XXXX every night this week because of the 2.5 hour lunches I was taking to be on the phone. I was a nervous and anxious wreck the entire week. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat ( literally -- I had very little food in my fridge ), and I couldn't think straight at work -- I was XXXX. Because of the XXXX XXXX this financial institution put me under, I had to take the entire day off of work today. 

Throughout the entire process, the folks at JP Morgan Chase were treating me like a criminal. They talked down to me, they made comments like " I'm sorry that you can't understand, '' they threatened to close my account, and they threatened to keep my money in limbo indefinitely. They made it clear that they weren't there to help me, and that the situation needed to be resolved by me. It was truly the worst customer service experience of my life, and it was all because the folks at JP Morgan Chase couldn't find the phone number of a Fortune 500 Company. Or, perhaps more accurately, because I had to spend hours on the phone for the better part of the week before I could get someone on the line to try.

Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief