Consumer complaint received 2023-09-07
Company: JPMORGAN CHASE & CO.
State: NY
Product: Credit card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Fees or interest
Sub-issue: Charged too much interest

Complaint:
I recently spoke with several representatives at Chase about both a personal credit card and a business credit card I had taken out with them and were currently under a debt consolidation agreement. I detailed that in the summer of 2019 I was becoming concerned about my growing debt ; on both cards I was being charged about $ XXXX {$300.00} each in interest payments. The best advice I was given was to just hang tight and keep making payments. I turned XXXX that summer, and I was trying to pick myself up by the bootstraps and start a new company, but that was proving much harder than anticipated, and I was very upfront very early on that I needed help, and that I was in too deep. 

When the pandemic happened, I had no way of carrying on business. The banks at that time were deferring payments, but they were still collecting interest. In the aftermath, I was able to convince some kind representatives to reverse some of the interest charged during the pandemic as I entered into debt management ; through a third-party agency for my personal card and through the bank itself for the business card. 

The most recent calls I made for help were made purely out of desperation. I was taught to pay my bills on time, to build a relationship with a bank, to trust that they had my interest in mind. I learned that in the case of Chase, that is a fairytale from another time. I detailed to several representatives, sometimes choking back tears and sometimes crying outright, that I've had to put myself in positions and do things for money that made me unsafe, just so that I could pay back what is now a balance made up of XXXX  of dollars of interest. I explained that I had called for help several times in 2019, but not one person recommended debt consolidation as a remedy. In one recent call a customer service representative said she was so sorry to hear my story, and that she would make sure that it would get taken care of. She transferred me to another representative to take care of it, but that representative said I'd been misinformed and that she would not be reassessing interest. In another call, at my wit 's end, I asked an account supervisor if it was the bank 's position to profit from the misfortune of customers, to squeeze every dollar out of them they could? They responded " Yes. Honestly, it is. '' The situation was escalated in another call, and I received back a short letter last week saying that the interest had been charged correctly and that there was no further action being taken on the account. The bank 's line seems to be that there's nothing to be done because it was all charged so long ago, but when I asked for help years ago there was no remedy offered. I could never win. I am now in my XXXX, one of countless people desperately trying to make ends meet, working gig after gig after gig to make up rent that soars higher by the year, and trying to pay back the interest charged on food from five years ago. There is a cruelty that was admitted to by that last representative : This is what the bank 's position is. The house always wins.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation