Consumer complaint received 2020-09-10
Company: JPMORGAN CHASE & CO.
State: CO
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Savings account
Issue: Managing an account
Sub-issue: Deposits and withdrawals

Complaint:
All transfers are getting flagged and/or account blocked. I opened checking/savings combo account recently and the savings account requires that certian amount of funds be deposited within 20 days to meet some requirements. So, I linked 2 external bank accounts, to which chase sent trial deposits for verification and then upon verification, I scheduled funds transfer from external bank to chase savings, last week. I got a call shortly after that and the voicemail ( which not clear where is was coming from but looked up the number online in search engine and then upon logging into chase I saw the trasfer I had scheduled was pending verification ). After calling in I was on hold for about 30 minutes before the woman answered and then she asked me my name, dob, etc., and then put me on hold and then said she was going to send me a text to my phone to verify and the said it did not work and put me on hold for a few more minutes and then said she was going to ask a series of questions from my public profile to verify and that took a few minutes and then she asked me if I was the signer on the external account linked, she got in to my account and now said that she was going to call the other bank on the same line and ask them to verify if I was the signer on the account, which took another 20 minutes of hold and then the other bank wanted to vefiry my identity by asking me some more questions and after that chase banker asked the other bank to confirm if I was the signer and " if I had the funds in my account '' ( didn't know chase would credit funds if there were not enough funds in the other account ) after that she cleared the transfer. I told her that it was unusual and she said they just want to verify that the account belongs to me, etc., and that it should be ok. In all it took about 45 minutes. I waited for the transferred amount to clear and to show in my account and this week on Wednesday, I initiated another transfer from the 2nd linked account and well to meet the deposit requirements, and it was deja vu all over again. So, while I did call them and after the verification questions and after spending about 20 minutes, when the rep said that she wanted to call the other bank to make sure I was the signer and if I have the funds, and asked me if I knew their phone number XXXX knew that this was going to take much longer and as it was already late in the day and as I thought that the other bank probably closed, I just asked her to cancel the transfer. Besides, I did not like that I have to share all my personal and other banks details on the phone with person possibly located in XXXX or XXXX as it seemed like I was talking to someone in a overseas call center. After that I went online to search about this new chase verfication methods of calling customers bank for online transfer verification, I wanted to search online to know from other users and found that transfer limits should be below $ XXXX and so I tried a lower amount of $ XXXX and it was the same situation but only this time my access to online account was also blocked from the fraud department. I called again and asked to speak with a supervisor to see if I can get the right answer and get to the bottom of the issue, before trying again and was told that I have to go through verification first and then I got disconnected. After talking to yet another rep again and going through the whole process of verification, the rep told me that it is better to go to the branch and write a check or try sending funds into my chase account from external account. I found online that they have also blocked user accounts who sent in funds from external bank to their chase account and the users had to go to a branch to get the account unlocked. This is like writing a check and then I getting a call from the bank telling them that that they want to call other bank while I am on the line and verify that I am the signer and I have the funds in my account and do this for every transaction. These are even not substantially large amounts and no other bank, even a small bank does this once an external account is linked and verified with trial deposits and they send a code by text or email to confirm the transfer but some do put a hold on funds so the funds can not be withdrawn - understandable but what is not understandable is calling ther other bank on the phone to verify if there are sufficient funds in the account. If there are no funds in the other account then the transaction gets declined ( one would think ) and whether a check transaction or online and once the funds are in, then all banks including chase put a hold for 2 weeks. So, what is this extra process of having to call in the fraud department, verify identity, and them calling the other bank? Ok, that too is understandable for one transaction but not for every transaction or every bank that I link? I want to know do I have to go to a branch and write a check or if I send funds from an external bank are they going to block it again.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation