Consumer complaint received 2020-09-25
Product: Checking or savings account — Checking account
Issue: Closing an account — Can't close your account
Company: JPMORGAN CHASE & CO. (WA)

To Whom it may concern, I am writing this letter in hopes that I gain the attention of a compassionate person that can help me resolve a conflict I have with Chase bank. I will describe my situation below to the best of my ability ; as i am XXXX a number of issues with this company. Please note that I am on a time constraint because I have been dealing with this issue for many months now due to a few ( unfair ) circumstances and in attempts to resolve these issues myself as opposed to reaching out to anyone else ( such as your services ). I will touch on all of the issues as they come about as I continue to explain further details. 

The issue first arose on XX/XX/2020 when I reported to Chase bank that there were some charges made to my account that were fraudulent and that I didn't recognize. These charges included 3 transactions that were not approved by me in addition to 4 charges that I DID recognize and that WERE authorized by me ( but the items were never delivered ) for a grand total of 7 transactions ; each from a different merchant. I called chase bank in attempts to dispute these transactions and I described in detail the entire situation to the customer service agent assigned to my call. I explained to him that 4 of those charges were authorized by me but i had an issue because I never recieved the merchandise ordered and since I had originally placed these orders in  XXXX 2020 and it was now almost the end XXXX, I assumed that the merchants were fraudulent and scamming people for their hard earned money. Before I contacted chase about this issue I did in fact reach out the the companies in attempt to ask for a refund. the contact was made through email as listed by the compani3s website. Each message i sent was returned to me with a notification stating that their inbox was full. I clearly explained this to the gentleman from the claims, in which he confirmed with me that he understood. He then told me that paperwork would be sent to me to document my situation and that i needed to describe each incident that i was disputing and then send it back to the claims department in support of theclaims he was submitting for me. He then reversed the charges and waved the overdraft fees associated with each charge. He told me that an investigation was going to take place and that i should close my account as soon as possible to prevent any additional fraudulent attacks on my account. i agreed and decided to close my account after I recieved the first set of letters regarding the investigation of my account. I completed the paperwork that was requested of me in totality and immediately sent the forms back for their records. 
I was relieved and proceeded to the physical bank located in XXXX, Washington on XX/XX/2020 to close my account. When I arrived I was told that no one was available that day to assist me in closing my account and that I would need to schedule an appointment for a different day. I briefly explained my situation and that I also was set up for " automatic bill payment '' or " auto-pay '' through a few different companies and even though i already previously contacted these companies to switch accounts and remove chase bank from their records they are notorious for charging the old account. i explained to the bank teller that since I just withdrew all funds out of my account bringing it to a balance of XXXX, if any of those transactions would go through, it would make me overdrawn. The bank teller asked if I wanted to have a restriction placed on my account so that no debits or credits could go through and i would be able to close the account on the day i made the appointment. I agreed and said yes. I already spoke with the compaines that were set up for autopay to be directed to my other bank account separate from Chase bank. and it was my impression that a mutual understanding was present and that they would not withdraw funds from the chase account because i provided to them a different method of payment using a completely different bank. The teller at Chase reassured me that no debits or credits would occur with my account being restricted and since it was Friday, i had to make the appointment to the close my account on the following Tuesday because that was my next day off from work and the banks are closed on weekends. 

On Tuesday, XX/XX/2020 at XXXX I went back to chase bank at the specified time to close the account. It was made apparent to me that, just as I assumed, Chase allowed a transaction to take place and there was yet another overdraft fee on my account along with the charge from my automated bill pay. I was extremely upset and explained what happened on the previous Friday. The banker apologized and attempted to reverse the over draft fee, however, their system wouldn't allow it because it said that I already met the limit for " courtesy fee reversals '' on my account for the year. I dont know why this is even fair because I did everything in my power to avoid this from happening and to safeguard my account. If the lady from before would have never  assured me that there would be a restriction on my account, obviously I would have made sure that I had enough funds available to prevent me from overdrawing instead of withdrawing all monies in the account. I was very upset and she said that there wasn't anything she could do to help me and that I would have to either call someone from their customer service number and talk to them about all of this or I had to pay them because in order to close the account I would need it to be at a balance of XXXX. I felt like it was not fair so I told them I would call since no one down there wanted to do their job or be an advocate for one of their clients. I have been banking with chase bank for almost 10 years and this is the type of treatment a " valued '' customer gets from them. 

I went home that day and called their customer service line. I explained my issue in which she stated that i needed to speak with someone from the claims department and she transferred me to the claimes department. I spoke with a man from the claims department explaining all over again what my issue was and he stated that we needed to figure out what happened to the restriction on my account and why it wasn't currently in place. So he transferred me to another agent in their records department and after explaining my story over and over again I finally just gave up and the next day I went down to the bank and deposited the total negative balance paying it with cash in full so that I could just be done with them and close the account. Right after bringing the account balance back to a positive {$18.00} and some change. i went home called them back to close the account and then agent i spoke with said that the deposit was still pending on my account and that I would need to wait 24 hours for it to show that it was posted to my account -even though I paid them at the physical bank and with cash, which funds should have been made available immediately. I attempted to close that account 3 more times over the course of an entire month in which each attempt was unsuccessful because every time I would attempt to close it, Chase bank would be attempting to process auto-pay transactions and charge monthly service fees on top of that -even while they were fully aware and knowing that an account cant be closed if there are charges still pending and my account was supposed to be restricted. i already explained that a restriction was supposed to be on my account so it was unclear to me why they were still allowing these charges -especially when I hadn't used that card in over a month because I had been trying to close that account for weeks now. She offered to transfer my call to someone else in the department to see why the restriction wasn't on my account. That didn't help me at all. I didnt want to know why because that doesn't help my situation whatsoever. I wanted to close the account and be done with it.

After my 3rd attempt of paying over {$300.00} to Chase bank to close my account, I called them AGAIN and they stated that the money I had given them at the ATM deposit was still processing and that I would need to call the next day to close the accout. I was tired and frustrated because they were doing everything in their power to keep me from  closing my account so they could keep charging me over and over and over. Because after I waited until the next day following the last ATM deposit which was on [ XX/XX/2020 ] I noticed that more charges were made on the account that were unauthorized by me and some of the reversals from my original fraud claims dated back on XX/XX/2020 were reapplied to my account resulting in a balance of negative ( - {$260.00} ). 

I called them again at the claims department. I explained my situation and asked why the reversals were reapplied and a gentleman told me that he found that the charges were authorized and that I needed to pay the balance for those transactions. I continued to explain that from the initial disputed transactions, 3 of them were not authorized and 4 of them were authorized by me ; but that I had not received any packages from said transactions. He told me that it was all filed under one claim and that it should have been filed under 2 different claims for packages not received. So he told me that he would have to re-file the claim for  me and that he would need approval so he requested that he put me on a brief hold, in which I agreed, after about 15 minutes on hold a completely different lady answered the phone and she was from a completely different department altogether. she had no idea what was going on in my situation and so he just transferred out my call without helping me and I was going to have to explain my situation all over again to someone completely new who had no idea of anything that was going on and this is a very very long story and extremely complicated. I'm getting really tired of telling it over and over again. I just want this to end. So I asked her if she was even going to be able to help me or if I should just go to the physical bank myself and have someone from their call on my behalf to argue with them because no matter how hard I tried  and no matter who I spoke with over the phone this was not getting resolved. She suggested that I go down to the bank and talk with a banker. So I Call down to my local Chase Bank and asked if I could make an appointment to speak with a banker she asked me what I needed help with. I explained to her my situation over the phone and she said that she would be able to help me but not if it was going to exceed longer than a half an hour because she " could not spend a half an hour waiting on hold to speak with someone down at customer service '', which seemed like a ridiculous reason to me of her trying to get out of helping me, because I know plenty of other businesses with customer service representatives that have spent well over an hour on hold for one of their customers. I have been affected by COVID-19 and my hours at work have been significantly reduced and I can not afford to pay anything on this account nor should I have to because none of this was even directly my fault. 

On XX/XX/2020, XX/XX/2020, XX/XX/2020 and on XX/XX/2020 I recieved letters from Chase bank stating that in conclusion of their investigation ( s ) they found that i was correct in my assumption, that the suspicious activity on my account was indeed fraudulent and that they were taking necessary actions on my behalf to correct it and issuing credits to my account. 

Then I recieved a phone call on Thursday XX/XX/2020 from a customer service representative on behalf of Chase bank wanting to make a deal with me in order to close the account. he offered to wave a few of the fees if i paid {$180.00}. I told him no and that it was unfair because it wasnt my fault that one of their employees filed the fraud claim paperwork incorrectly and that i was being penalized for it. I dont deserve it and I dont have the money the pay even a quarter of the total bill due to shortened hours at my current because of COVID-19 as i am still waiting on unemployment to issue my payments that have been  backed up since XX/XX/2020. 

All of this was explained numerous times to more than 12 different customer service representatives over the course of the previous two and a half months in between XX/XX/2020 and XX/XX/2020 ( which was the date if the last contact made by chase bank ). 

To reiterate on XX/XX/2020 is when the claim ( s ) were to initially be filed SEPARATELY : 3 charges to the account were unauthorized by me and the other 4 charges WERE authorized by me but I had not received the products I originally ordered two months prior for a total of 7 transactions i was attempting to dispute. I first attempted to contact  each vendor separately to inquire about the products not received from the authorized transactions and to report the items as undelivered ; and further, requesting a refund. This was carried out BEFORE I filed the claims with Chase bank ; after several attempts of requesting a refund from the merchants via email, each message i sent was returned to me with a notification stating that their inbox was full. So I assumed the companies were fraudulent and that is why I reported to chase bank in the first place -which was because I had already attempted to contact the merchants before contacting Chase , and since it led me down a dead end, i was now in need of their help. 

XX/XX/2020 - another attempt was made by Chase bank to collect on the debt of my account. Employee name : " XXXX '' XXXX ID # : XXXX at approx. XXXX Again, i explained my entire situation to her from start to finish. She put me on hold to " check on re-filing the fraud claim ''. i was on hold for about 3 minutes and then she hung up the phone on me altogether without even saying another word prior to ending the call. This issue is still unresolved. This is the 4th employee that has hung up on me after hearing me explain my situation and they all do it to me after THEY called ME to collect on the debt. No one is wanting to advocate for me or try to fix this situation. I need help. I feel victimized, bullied, and helpless.

Below is a list of all the transactions I am disputing. i will also provide  bank statements and letters i received by chase bank in an attachment to this submission. 

Unauthorized Charges : date : merchant : amount : XX/XX/2020. XXXX. XXXX XX/XX/2020. XXXX. XXXX XX/XX/2020. XXXX  XXXX. XXXX Authorized Charges : date : merchant : amount : XX/XX/2020. XXXX XXXX. XXXX XX/XX/2020. XXXX. XXXX XX/XX/2020. XXXX. XXXX XX/XX/2020. XXXX. XXXX I am requesting advocacy in attempts to finally put this issue to rest and so that Chase will no longer torment my life.

I can be contacted by email, by regular mail, or by phone and i will provide this information at the time of your request. Thank you for your time and attention to this matter. 

Sincerely, XXXX XXXX XXXX