Consumer complaint received 2024-10-16
Product: Checking or savings account — Checking account
Issue: Opening an account — Unable to open an account
Company: JPMORGAN CHASE & CO. (IN)

On the XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX, I along with my mother went to a Chase Bank Agency ( located at XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX, IN XXXX ) in order to open a joint checking account ( for me and my mother ). My mother an elderly individual who is originally from XXXX and are unable to communicate in English. Due to have been married to my father ( US citizen ), she receive a small social security payment every month ( about US {$98.00} ). I am the one who take care of her social security benefits and the one who sponsored her green card. 


We spent about one hour at the aforementioned Chase agency in order to perform a simple and trivial task ( open a checking account ). Once there, we provided all the necessary documents, etc. At some point, the manager indicated that we should go another room in order to talk with a translator via the phone for further verification ; which sounded perfectly fine for me. 


In the other room and with the translator on the line, the manager asked the translator to ask my mother the reason why she was opening a joint checking account, since my mother is a talkative person, she started talking about the reasons why she would ; one of which is that she travels to XXXX on vacation and that she can not communicate in English ( what are true reasons, as well ). The translator ( who seemed to speak XXXX from XXXX, which is somehow different from the one spoken in XXXX ) asked about the government agency Social Security in XXXX  but there is no equivalent name for any government agency in XXXX that would translate literally to XXXX in a literal translation. The literal translation would be XXXX XXXX for what most ordinary people in XXXX would infer, must be some type of a government program to help the destitute. That would be roughly equivalent to translate the name of the XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX to English XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX, in other words XXXX if one would ask an ordinary American if he/she has a XXXX, he/she would look at you as if you are someone from XXXX, even though he/she may actually own a XXXX. But one thing my mother said to the translator is that her son ( me, in this case ) takes care of everything for her in the US ( I hope that they records of the phone call with the translator ). If the bank manager and the other personnel who work at that location have a problem understanding what the word everything means and if the could provide proper translation services, the whole affair could be avoided and averted. After spending about one hour at this Chase agency, we simply were denied opening a checking account. 


One of the most absurd and surreal part of the whole ordeal is that at the end the manager stated with positivism and propriety that they were making the right decision. Perhaps, they should hire or contract people who make proper translations or could set up the proper context, ones who understand the difference in nomenclatures and idiosyncrasies regarding the names of different types of government organizations that exist in different countries and to which extent those organizations with completely different names are similar and which role they play, etc ; so that they could provide something approximating a proper translation of government organizations names rather than a literal translation of a name which can be meaningless in many contexts, and therefore a source of confusion. All in all, given that they willing to engage in translations ( which is perfectly fine ), they should do so in a proper way and thus the managers or staff engaging in any type of interpretation of those translations should have a minimum background in linguists and languages and on the particular subject matter in question. 


It is extremely troubling that one would deal with such a noxious and obnoxious situation on occasion of trying to do something as trivial and simple as opening a checking account. There must be a cost for financial institutions who put individuals in such a horrible denigrating and derogatory ordeal.