Consumer complaint received 2024-08-05
Product: Credit card — General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Problem when making payments — Problem during payment process
Company: JPMORGAN CHASE & CO. (MN)

My {$7000.00} credit card payment was due on XX/XX/XXXX. Due to my own error, the Chase account that is set up to auto-pay did not have sufficient funds and the autopayment on XX/XX/XXXX was returned. I transferred money in from a separate account and made the {$7000.00} payment on XX/XX/XXXX, fully understanding that the payment would not prevent the {$170.00} interest charge due to my late payment. 

However, the {$7000.00} payment was inexplicably applied to the remaining principal of a Pay Over Time plan from the XXXX XXXX bill from my wedding in XXXX of XXXX. On my XX/XX/XXXX statement, my interest saving balance was {$7000.00} and the pay over time plan has a remaining principal of {$9100.00} with 13 remaining payments. Then on the XX/XX/XXXX statement ( the day I made the payment of {$7000.00} ), my interest saving balance was {$9000.00}, comprised of the {$1600.00} in purchases made between XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX, a {$95.00} annual membership fee, the ( legitimate ) {$170.00} interest charge, and the {$7000.00} that was errantly carried over. On the XX/XX/XXXX statement, you can even see the XX/XX/XXXX payment that I made. 

However, the Pay Over Time plan balance was reduced to XXXX, which is {$9100.00} minus {$7000.00}. In short, my card had an outstanding balance of {$7000.00}, so I paid them {$7000.00} and Chase inexplicably applied that to the Pay Over Time plan rather than the card balance, which is the crux of my problem. 

I have called into Chase several times over the past two months about this issue. I will summarize my interactions here but I also just requested that they send me the recordings of all of those calls. I was told that they will send them in 7-10 business days and would love to provide those to the CFPB if it would assist in your investigation ( assuming Chase isn't just lying to me again ).

The first two people I talked to ( one of XX/XX/XXXX and one on XXXX ) were incredibly unhelpful. The woman I talked to on XXXX was incredibly condescending and would cut me off to refer me to their remedial courses on what interest is and how credit cards work. I had her transfer me to a new person. That woman was actually helpful and we were able to identify the issues explained above and she acknowledged that this was Chase 's error and was likely due to the system thinking that the account was paid off on XX/XX/XXXX due to the returned payment, so they just applied it to the pay over time like they would any other payment beyond the card 's balance. She told me the situation would be resolved within 14 business days.

Since 14 business days would put me past the XX/XX/XXXX deadline for the next payment ( which was now {$9000.00} which I did not have in my account since I just paid them the {$7000.00} and most people do not have an extra XXXX just lying around ), I called again on XX/XX/XXXX. I asked to speak to a supervisor and the man I talked to seemed quite helpful. He reaffirmed that this was a Chase error but said that the request from the woman I talked to on XXXX was not sent to the correct team and, rather than forwarding it on, no one had done anything with it in the past two weeks. He told me he had sent it to the correct team to resolve and, since this was Chase 's error and I didn't have the liquidity to just pay them an extra XXXX XXXXXXXX, to just make the minimum payment on my card on XX/XX/XXXX and the interest would be refunded while this was being resolved. 

As you may expect, I just received a letter today ( XXXX ) that Chase determined they did nothing wrong and nothing can be done. I called in today and the woman that I talked to, XXXX, was incredibly defensive and just kept saying that the reason my payment was applied to the pay over time plan rather than the balance was because of my returned payment, basically trying to say this was all my fault and accepting zero responsibility on Chase 's part even though the previous two people were able to quickly identify and confirm the issue, in addition to the obviousness of the problem. She further said that, because the appeal was denied, they would also not be refunding my {$270.00} interest payment from only making the minimum payment at the direction of a Chase employee.