Consumer complaint received 2020-01-11
Product: Mortgage — Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process — 
Company: JPMORGAN CHASE & CO. (MD)

I pay my mortgage monthly using the automated phone payment service that I have linked to my bank account. 

For the month of XXXX, I paid my mortgage on XXXX. 

I noticed on XXXX that mortgage had come out of my checking account twice, once completely covered and the other putting my account in the negative by a few hundred dollars. I immediately called Chase Financial services who own my mortgage. 

The representative that I spoke with on XXXX was helpful. She noticed that the two charges were identical ( {$870.00} ) and both went through within seconds of each other. She apologized for the error, said there must have been a glitch in the payment process, agreed to fix the issue and let me know that it could take a couple business days for the money to reflect properly in my account. 

I am a reasonable person that works in technology, so understand that sometimes computers don't do what we want. I was inconvenienced by having my account go in the negative for a few days, but was assured by Chase that they would cover any overdrafts that were a result of the issue. I was given a case number and informed I should provide that to XXXX  XXXX XXXX ( my checking account ) so that they could coordinate with Chase. I promptly did just that. 

At some point on XXXX the second {$870.00} charge was refunded back into my account. The result was 1 overdraft fee that I was assured would be covered by Chase. To me at this point everything should have been done. 

On XX/XX/ I received a call that my account had been overdrawn and my wife was unable to get groceries for our family. I pulled up my banking information and immediately noticed that chase had charged my account AGAIN in the amount of {$870.00}. 

I contacted Chase immediately and was told that they weren't sure what was going on but would get someone to take a look. After a few minutes on hold a representative came on the line to explain that this charge was Chase trying to collect my second mortgage payment that I made on XXXX. When I requested that the representative read what had happened on my phone call on XXXX, they responded that what their records show is that I made 2 mortgage payments on XXXX. They said that this charge today was them trying to recollect the money that they weren't able to collect when the 2nd charge didn't go through on XXXX ( because I don't generally keep an extra {$870.00} in my checking account ). 

This logically did not make sense. I took the time to explain the situation again, that their automated service charged me twice and that I did not in fact make two mortgage payments within seconds of each other. The specialist stuck with their story that I made two mortgage payments and said they would process a refund for the this XX/XX/ charge. When I asked if there was anything I could do I was told to call the bank to report an unauthorized debit on my account and that they would be able to reverse it. So I tried that. 

XXXX  XXXX XXXX, when provided with the verbiage and information from Chase, told me that only Chase can fix the problem by reversing the charge. At this point I wasn't going to waste any more time dealing with individual bank representatives and decided to get both XXXX  XXXX XXXX and Chase on the line simultaneously. 

After a lifetime I was able to get both representatives on the line. I had spoken with each in turn to explain the situation and was hoping through communication that we could come to a resolution. 

The Chase representative was not having any amount of that. Through 2 hours of futility I dealt with a purposefully ignorant specialist that spent more time repeating herself saying that I had made two mortgage payments than trying to do anything to help the situation. She went as far as to accuse me in multiple ways of being at fault. I am told that the call was recorded and want the call, and all calls from Chase, reviewed. I went out of my way to try to keep an open and understanding mind and focus on resolution. 

Chase was never able to supply a reason for why I was being recharged for XX/XX/. There was a lot of back and forth where the representative tried to say one thing but either myself or my XXXX   XXXX XXXX representative was able to correct them. The Chase party was counterproductive and accomplished nothing but to lay blame for this issue on me the entire phone call. 

The result is that my account is still in the negative and that it likely will remain in the negative until early to mid next week. Insult to injury is that Chase wouldn't even confirm at that time that any additional overdraft fees that were caused by their error would be covered. 

The most telling and horrifying part was at the end of the call when I asked to speak with a customer relations specialist and the Chase representative refused to recognize the concept, stating that they had nothing like that. How does a company not have a customer relations department? Insult to injury, their response was, " so you want to speak with a manager to see if they will help you? '' After repeating that all I wanted to do was relay my experience to a customer advocate, relations, or whatever Chase calls their satisfaction department, I was told that doesn't exist and put on hold to talk to a manager. After spending 2+ hours on the phone, and holding an additional ( I don't know honestly, 10+ minutes? ) I hung up. 

No, I wanted to relay my experience with Chase Bank and with this particular representative. I did not think anyone from Chase could help me as their representative told me there was nothing that could be done. I was only interested in relaying that when your company recognizes a mistake on XXXX, you take action to rectify the situation and NOT allow it to happen immediately again - but when it does maybe have some tact and focus any amount of effort on a solution instead of damage control and trying to blame the customer.