Consumer complaint received 2016-10-20
Company: JPMORGAN CHASE & CO.
State: KY
Product: Bank account or service
Sub-product: Other bank product/service
Issue: Making/receiving payments, sending money

Complaint:
We asked Chase Bank to forgive us and retract a late payment report made recently by Chase Bank to the major credit reporting services. This has badly damaged our credit. 
Since XX/XX/XXXX, my wife and I have had XXXX mortgages with Chase and we opened the home equity line of credit in XX/XX/XXXX. Prior to XX/XX/XXXX, we have never missed a payment and certainly did not intentionally miss the one reported. 
To ensure we do n't miss payments, we have been making payments automatically for years. The auto amount we had set for the home equity line was {$700.00} ( the minimum was about {$550.00} ). We do n't review mail on a timely basis - we do n't need to since our bills are paid automatically. 
XX/XX/XXXX, we received a notice that the line of credit terms would be changing XX/XX/XXXX and the amount would be increasing based on estimation. Chase reps have told us that there were other letters, the latest about 3 months in advance, but we did not receive it. We would have expected even more recent notices. 
Chase continued to accept our regular {$700.00} payment in XX/XX/XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, and XX/XX/XXXX. They did not notify us that additional amounts were owed or that we were late and in jeopardy of collection efforts. They kept taking our {$700.00} payment and life continued as normal. 
In the meantime, my wife 's mother fell XXXX ill, was admitted to the hospital on XX/XX/XXXX and stayed for a month. So it was n't until XX/XX/XXXX that my wife noticed during a check of our credit report ( that we have been trying so hard to improve ), that the payment amount on our home equity line was greater than our auto payment amount. 
My wife then went online to make the payment change ; however, Chase.com did n't allow the auto payment amount to be changed, so she cancelled the auto payment and opened a new account. The account had to be verified, taking a few more days, and then when she attempted to make the payment, she was unable to pay the outstanding balance. Instead, we were required to pay the outstanding balance plus the next payment that was n't due for about 20 some days, which made for an unaffordable $ XXXX+ payment. 
Yet, after canceling the auto payment in XX/XX/XXXX, it still went through that month - unexpectedly, which could have caused financial problems if we had mailed the payment, because it took a call to Chase to cancel the auto payments. 
It was during that call to Chase on XX/XX/XXXX that payment was made. The call was made after receiving our first notice from Chase. The document was dated XX/XX/XXXX and we received it over the XXXX holiday. This was our first notification the payment was late, but even then there was no warning or mention that you would be reporting us to the credit bureaus. 
We did not find out that Chase had given us a negative report to the credit bureaus until XX/XX/XXXX, when we checked our credit report. Because of this, our credit rating dropped more than XXXX points! And because of this, we may lose our home because the payments are too high for us to afford ( and they are not a fixed amount so we can no longer pay automatically ). This is unfair. 
When I disputed the incident with Chase 's branch manager in XXXX, KY, your personnel claimed that they called us, but the telephone numbers they used were old numbers and no longer in use. 
Granted, we were late. But I submitted that it was not entirely our fault and I asked them to please forgive this error and remove the late payment report so that we may refinance our home at a competitive rate.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation