I was a Washington Mutual customer until the Feds took over the bank and sold it to JPMorgan Chase. Now I’m not even a JPMorgan Chase Bank customer because they pissed me off by switching me over from free checking to one that requires a $1500 monthly balance to avoid a $12 monthly service fee. Apparently, Chase can legally switch you over to a fee account without your permission. I didn’t even know they we were going to do it until after the fact. When my wife called to complain about the $12, she was told they sent us notification in the October statement. I checked our statements and they are correct. Chase did include a notice on the statement, but I still take issue with this switch for several reasons:
- To me, the notice on the October statement blended in with the rest of the text on the statement and therefore, didn’t catch my attention. I only glanced at the balance because, as the statement pointed out, I have not had any activities on that account in the last six months.
- Chase only included the change notice in the October statement. Nothing was mentioned in the statements for November, December, September, etc.
- Prior to moving us from a free account to one with a $12 monthly fee, Chase should have sent us a separate notification letter. That would have caught my attention.
- When my wife went to close out our accounts, the rep didn’t apologize for switching our account and charging us $12. Instead, he told my wife the bank should have started charging us the fee earlier. And then he started going through our account history to see if he could tack on more fees before we closed out the accounts. WTF?
- Chase could have moved us to Chase Checking, which only has a $6 monthly fee. Instead they moved us to Better Banking Checking, which has a $12 fee. BTW, I used their online tool and it recommended the $6-a-month checking account for our situation. Seems to me Chase did what they did to screw over former WaMu customers because they weren’t making any money off of us.
Needless to say, I don’t plan on banking with Chase ever again. Or refinance our house with them. And I will eventually cancel all our Chase credit cards too. I also plan on placing a curse on them and then filing a complaint with the Oregon Attorney General’s office (are you reading this, John Kroger?). If Chase screwed you over too, you should file a complaint as well. You can use their consumer complaint form or call their consumer hotline (8:30 am to 4:30 pm):
- 503-229-5576 from Portland (toll free)
- 503-378-4320 from Salem
- 1-877-877-9392 elsewhere in Oregon (toll free)
- Email: consumer.hotline@doj.state.or.us
- Fax: (503) 378-5017
Washington residents can file a report with the Washington Attorney General’s office. Ditto for Idaho and California.
