Consumer complaint received 2015-12-03
Company: JPMORGAN CHASE & CO.
State: NY
Product: Bank account or service
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Problems caused by my funds being low

Complaint:
My husband & I have a joint checking account. Our finances have been not so good in the past few years because I am not well and had to stop working. Our credit is so bad that we do not even qualify for any type of loans. Now comes my bank we do not have overdraft protection with them, or a credit card because our credit was so bad we were turned down. On XXXX XXXX my mother passed away, and my illness has been extremely bad this year with several visits to hospital emergency room. During this time my husband tried to releave some stress for me by taking over paying bills. He did make some mistakes because he may have overlooked a charge like a gym membership, but he was unaware that the bank would pay every check, reccuring charge, electronic payments, basicaly anyone who wanted to get money from us could. He just assumed if we had no money or a zero balance that it would be refused, returned then there would have been just a returned fee, and we would have been altered by the person trying to get payment. The bank feels that they have the right to choose who gets paid and what gets returned. They also charge me {$34.00}. for each transacion that they are choosing to pay when the account is overdrawn sometimes by as much as {$1700.00}. Now there is a limit to XXXX of these charges a day, but the bank is smarter then that so after the 3 days charges have been made they hold any other transactions as pennding so they do n't put them through untill the next day which enables them to charge another XXXX more {$34.00} fees. Now my husband thinking his pay, my pension, & XXXX. is going directly to bank it 's got to fix itself. But these charges have now caused a horrible affect. I totaled {$1700.00} in fees this year. We have no money to grocery shop today because my Pension went in bank and the took the whole thing .I went to The Branch on XXXX. Chase Bank I spoke to the Branch Manager XXXX XXXX she claimed that this was all our problem because once you make an electric payment to anyone then they now have access to your account, so we allowed this to happen. She also said why were n't you checking your statements when they came in mail, but I do n't get paper statements I we n't paperless at there urging .She refunded XXXX of the {$34.00} fees and said that was all that could be done. I then called the bank I spoke to a Man his name was XXXX XXXX, And I asked why would the bank exstend these loans to us without consent or request. Also why would they keep doing it when they could see by our history we never had this before in the many years we have been banking with them. He claimed it is up to their judgement whether to pay something when there is insufficent funds in account and that they will continue paying most items because he could tell by looking at my account that we have direct deposit for our income and as long as we do they know they will get paid.I feel this is wrong and that they have stolen my money and made hardship worse for me.

Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief