Consumer complaint received 2018-09-13
Company: JPMORGAN CHASE & CO.
State: AZ
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Other features, terms, or problems
Sub-issue: Problem with cash advances

Complaint:
I have a credit card with Chase Bank. Back on XX/XX/XXXX, I got a cash advance for {$1000.00}. To date, not one penny of my credit card payments that were in excess of the minimum payment were allocated towards this balance with an interest rate of +/- 25 %. Rather, all excess payments were allocated to my purchase balance at 10 %. Reviewing my statements and payments, that cash advance balance should've been cleared by XX/XX/XXXX when I made a payment of {$1200.00}. The minimum payment was {$150.00}. The statement shows a decrease in purchase balance, and an increase in cash advance balance. As of XX/XX/XXXX, I've been to the bank 3 times to address this issue : 1. On XX/XX/XXXX, I talked to the 1st banker, and she was trying to make sense of why this initial {$1000.00} cash advance balance is now over {$4000.00}. She was kind, explained to me how payment allocation works, and advised that I do a balance transfer. 

Later that day, I read up on payment allocation rules and realized she was under the impression that I've only made minimum payments for the last 5 years. So, I printed a few statements that revealed the contents of my first paragraph above, and I went back to clarify. 

2. First banker left for the day, so I sat down with a new banker. I gave him the statement that clearly shows none of my excess payments were allocated towards the higher APR balance. He became very defensive and rude, and told me that none of my payments would even cover the interest of that cash advance balance. I showed him for the 3rd time that on my payment of {$1200.00} ( minimum payment of {$150.00} ), my purchase balance decreased, and my cash advance balance increased. Visibly annoyed by the inconvenience of having to make a few calls, he told me he'll look into it tomorrow. 

3. I didn't hear from him the next day, so I stopped by that afternoon. He told me he hadn't gotten to it yet, and so he picked up the phone and called the credit card department. I told him I simply want to know where the excess of my {$1200.00} payment went. For some reason, the 3 statements I provided wasn't evidence enough to show payment misallocation. " Hard to tell, '' he says, " without seeing more statements. '' When I asked him to pull up the other statements, he became frantic and started raising his voice - implying how ignorant I was for thinking he'd have access to statements 5 years ago - and stating how he doesn't know what I want from them. I reiterated again that I just want to know where my excess payment went, because if it went towards my 10 % purchase interest balance rather than my 25 % cash advance balance - then it's a violation of the CARD Act. " Yeah ... no, '' he snidely remarked. I told him to check again and ask the person on the phone. He became retracted as the person and whatever website he was browsing confirmed my statement. He hangs up the phone and gives me a fax number so I can send a letter to correspondence - telling me it'll take up to 45 days for a response. Then, he recommends a balance transfer because they might not be able to fix this. As I get up to leave, I asked him if my claim about payment allocation rules was correct. " Well, it said it on a website ... '' Really glad this 'expert ' banker learned something today.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation