Consumer complaint received 2016-12-08
Product: Credit card — 
Issue: Other — 
Company: JPMORGAN CHASE & CO. (CO)

I am writing to file a dispute against Chase Bank for its practice of deliberately labeling transactions with inaccurate transaction dates. The transaction date should be the date a transaction takes place, and the posting date should be the date the bank posts the transaction to the account. Chase, however, insists on using an original transaction date of any original related activity on an account for the transaction date, which is not at all accurate for identifying the actual date a transaction takes place. It further defaults to transaction date sorting and does not allow me any option to default to the posting date. 
My own example is that I purchased a vehicle whereby a {$1500.00} deposit was taken by XXXX XXXX on XXXX/XXXX/2016 that would be refunded later upon completion of the title work. These XXXX transactions are not related because I had the option of reducing my final payment by the {$1500.00} deposit or by another amount less than that. The transaction date of this {$1500.00} deposit was XXXX/XXXX/2016 and the posting date was XXXX/XXXX/2016. I was told that on XXXX that {$1500.00} had been refunded to my card, however I could not find the refund in my account. I waited until XXXX/XXXX/2016, almost a week after my refund was confirmed as processed by XXXX and still could see no refund. I called Chase and they told me it was refunded on XXXX/XXXX/2016, however that could not be possible as I did not complete the purchase until almost 2 weeks after I made the deposit, and the refund of the deposit was an entirely separate transaction! 
They explained that Chase 's policy was to see if the refund could be linked to a prior transaction and then assign the transaction date of the original transaction to this brand new transaction from the same merchant. What?!? What if the refunded or otherwise related transaction took place 3 months later than the original? What constitutes a " related '' transaction??? 
This is a problem for several reasons. XXXX is that I could not find the transaction because it was not appearing anywhere near the date I was told it was completed. See the email confirmation I received from XXXX showing the refund was initiated on XXXX. It appeared down next to the original payment, which was 2 weeks earlier. I spend a week badgering my car dealer to expedite a refund that had already been sent, causing XXXX separate parties to waste time. 
Another problem is because I had already done a XXXX download just after XXXX/XXXX/16, and because Chase altered the date on the transaction of my refund from XXXX to XXXX, when I initiated another XXXX download on XXXX/XXXX/16 it passed over that refund transaction because it was carrying the incorrect date of XXXX and XXXX was not going to download anything prior to XXXX again to avoid downloading duplicate transactions! Had I not called Chase I would have not been able to reconcile my XXXX account by {$1500.00}, and I would not have known to go back to the original payment which had taken place over 2 weeks earlier. 
Another problem is if I ever had to prove or document anything to the XXXX or the IRS about what I paid for the vehicle and when I paid it, I would not be able to provide accurate or clear documentation because my account sorts the transaction inaccurately when sorted by transaction date, causing it to be impossible to find if the date of the " related '' transaction is no longer known. 
I have provided screen shots demonstrating how this transaction appears next to the original XXXX, and how it changes its location by changing the sorting date. I have also included a copy of my credit card statement showing the inaccurate transaction date used in the statement itself.