Consumer complaint received 2025-01-06 00:00:00
Product: Checking or savings account — Checking account
Issue: Managing an account — Funds not handled or disbursed as instructed
Company: JPMORGAN CHASE & CO.
State: CA

Complaint narrative:
XXXX XXXX, XXXX : I receive a message from a vendor that I do business with monthly, that my checks for 2 months ( returned to them on XX/XX/XXXX, and XX/XX/XXXX, check nos. XXXX and XXXX, respectively ) had been returned to them. 
-The checks were returned as " Unable to locate account '' -I have written a check to this company, ( XXXX XXXX XXXX ) for more than 12 months, from the same checkbook series and had never had an issue with the checks being cashed. 
-I didn't receive any notice from my bank, Chase , that there were any issues. I only found out from this vendor showing me proof of returned checks that I had written. 
-I had a valid checking account with sufficient funds at the time these checks were deposited by the vendor. In fact, my account has been in good standing with never an overdraft in the past XXXX years that I have had this account ( starting way back with Washington Mutual , before they were acquired by Chase ). 
-I went to my local Chase bank branch and spoke with XXXX XXXX a Relationship Banker. He did some background research and agreed that this was a bank error, as he saw that my account was valid and had sufficient funds at the time the checks were deposited. He noted that the checks should've been cashed without issue and saw no reason why they were returned as " unable to locate account '' -XXXX also noted that there was no indication in the bank system that the checks had ever been attempted to be processed or cashed to my account, hence the reason I never received any correspondence from Chase regarding this incident. 
XXXX checked to make sure that the checks were legible and clear for the machine to read. The checks were absolutely clear and legible, with every number and letter being clearly visible. 
-I asked XXXX for a reimbursement of {$50.00} ( {$25.00} each ) that my vendor 's bank charged them for the returned checks, which they then passed onto me. 
XXXX called his higher level resource, Chase 's Corporate Back Office for Disputes , to try to clear this up for me and get me the reimbursement that he agreed I should be entitled to. He spoke to someone named XXXX XXXX. 
-This phone call was very frustrating, because XXXX was not comprehending what the issue was. As this was a complex issue that required visually seeing a copy of the returned check to make sense, XXXX asked no less than twice for him to send XXXX a copy of the check so that he could see that Chase Bank returned checks as " unable to locate account '', although my account was clearly locatable and valid at the time. XXXX declined each time to receive a copy of the image so he can see for himself what is going on. 
-Again, there is no indication on my account that these checks were ever attempted to process to my account, so there's no information available on my account. You'd have to see copies of the checks that were returned to the vendor 's bank, which shows that Chase failed to cash or attempt to cash checks from a valid account with sufficient funds. 
XXXX sat with XXXX for over an hour and saw that XXXX was suggesting completely irrational suggestions as a result of his lack of understanding of the issue ( One of the ideas he suggested : I put a stop payment on the checks which had already been returned to the vendor 's bank, at a cost of {$35.00} each to me, total {$70.00}, so Retail Dept can look at them and research, and MAYBE I'd be able to get my money back. Toinvestigate checks written out for {$15.00} and {$31.00} ). 
-Finally, XXXX looked at me and told me this was going nowhere to which I agreed. He ended the call with XXXX and suggested that I write an email to Chase instead through the app under " Secure Messages '', and try to get this escalated. This is what I did. Please see attached for pictures of my communication through the app. 
-In essence, I am told " sorry of the inconvenience, it's so weird this happened because we can see that your account was valid and had sufficient funds at the time of the deposits and should have been cashed with no problem. It looks like there was an error on our end, but unfortunately, there is nothing we can do to reimburse you. We'll share this with higher ups so something like this doesn't happen again. 
-No accountability for botching up the handling of my checking account, which led to financial consequences to me through the bank 's error.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation