Consumer complaint received 2023-04-04
Company: JPMORGAN CHASE & CO.
State: CT
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Problem caused by your funds being low
Sub-issue: Overdrafts and overdraft fees

Complaint:
Thank you for reviewing. 
I was charged up to 6 overdraft fees per day for 2 weeks by my bank, Chase, with no notifications and wrong information from their representatives. I was unaware that my account was overdrawn until I happened to look, as my card activity did not change and I received no notifications during this time. These charges are excessive as a debit card should only let you take out what is in the account and extend credit for a few transactions. 


There has always been a limit to how much of the banks money is being spent to cover an overdraft and when the customer is notified/cut off. There was no evidence that Chase was trying to alert me to stop this problem during and even after I explicitly asked for a solution. It was clear that they wanted me to keep spending so I could be charged, as if I was using a credit card. The charges are excessive in number and balance and the lack of notification/assistance is predatory. The function of a debit card is to limit the amount of XXXX  XXXX is given to debit card holder. I was given excessive credit I did not agree to. 


It was very difficult to locate the only option you can select to be notified of an overdrawn account. The only way that a Chase customer can be notified that they are overdrawn is by going down a 4 click path to a list of settings in light grey font. Out of the 15 notifications, only one of them says to be notified when account is overdrawn and it is buried in the middle of the options. This is very difficult to find on your own and the other settings are misleading ex : Notify me when my account is over {$.00} Also, when asking multiple times how to stop transactions from coming though, the response was to lock my card which only stopped card payments from coming through, not for the account, which is what I explicitly asked about. 




Total Charges : 29 = {$960.00} Charges Forgiven : 6 = {$200.00} Overdraft Fees paid : 23 = {$760.00} Relative Timeline XX/XX/XXXX {$2500.00} Check bounced after it was accepted into an account and I was charged overdraft fees. I went into the XXXX, CT branch and asked the representative how I could avoid this. She assured me she had put email alerts on my account so I would know if my account is in the negative in the future. 


XX/XX/XXXX - Attempted to deposit a check via mobile and it did not go through ( I take full responsibility for not noticing this failure and agree that I should be charged overdraft fees for the next 48 hours transactions from this failure ) XX/XX/XXXX - First time overdrawn XX/XX/XXXX Realized that my account was overdrawn ( Sunday ) XX/XX/XXXX Went to XXXX, CT branch and spoke with a representative. We reviewed the charges and she gave me back 3 overdraft fees. She called customer service to see if she could give me more where they told her I would have to call them directly. I asked her how to stop the charges coming in and she walked me through how to lock my card from my phone ( which I believed to be the answer to my question but it was not. ) She instructed me to call Customer Service and escalate this to see if I could get back more overdraft charges. She was very nice and seemed that she truly wanted to help. 


XX/XX/XXXX Noticed new overdraft charges. Called customer service and asked them what I needed to do to stop the charges and theyre response was to escalate this to a manager and lock my card. They created a ticket and gave me a ticket number with no follow up. Later, I received 5 letters in the mail that day all at once letting me know I was overdrawn. This was the first notification I got from Chase about my account being overdrawn even though I was getting emails from Chase every few days about unrelated promotions. 


XX/XX/XXXX Noticed even more new overdraft charges and called Customer Service to follow up on Ticket. The ticket they filed was a complaint, not a case, and learned that no one would have followed up with me if I didnt call. Spoke to someone and they gave me 3 more charges back and told me they would not give me more back without representation. I asked them how to stop the charges and they said bring your account to a positive and shutting down your account is the only way. This was the first time someone had given me an honest answer to the question I had desperately asked 3 times. 


Chase was sending me other emails for promotion which shows their priority is notifying their customer of more ways to give them money, not in the best interest of their customers own financial health. I asked multiple times how to avoid further fees and was given bad information 3 out of 4 times which resulted in more fees. There was no limit to when Chase was going to alert me and stop transactions from happening. I connected my card to a third party payment system ( XXXX XXXX ) and now they will alert me every time the card is used with the existing balance.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation