I should start by saying that, for the most part, I don’t like banks. They are even more despicable for the 30 some odd percent interest they charge on their credit cards. Greed is not good. Let me tell you a story. Before my wife and I went to Switzerland to visit my son last month, I set up payments on all my bills and credit cards in advance. While in Switzerland, I got an alarming email, supposedly from Chase Bank about some problem with my credit card and a phone number to call immediately. This credit card was provided to me by Amazon. I didn’t ask for it. Instead, I called the Chase number I had and asked if that phone number was legitimate and is there anything wrong with my account. The phone number was not legitimate and my account was ok, but there was too much information about my account in the email I got. That worried me. Curiously, I called the illegitimate Chase number and the response was “Chase.” I called the real Chase back and told them about it and asked them to call it. They seemed completely uninterested. In any case, I called my bank and discussed it with them. We decided together that in order to protect myself, my account would be blocked until we returned to the US and could decide that to do.
When we returned to the US, there was an email and a letter from Chase saying that my payment was declined and there was a list of things I had to do to reinstate my account. I wrote them a letter explaining the situation in detail and told them why the payment was declined and that I had unblocked the account. They said they would not resubmit the payment. I had to send another payment and fill in the forms and get a letter from my bank sent to them verifying that all was ok. In addition, I had to send them a voided check to clear my account. I called them explained the situation and and said the account was now unblocked and referred to my letter which no one at Chase had read. Sorry, they couldn’t accept the payment unless I satisfied the list of things they required. They would not accept my word nor my payment from that account. Did I have another account I could use? After 10 minutes of withholding four letter words, I asked to speak to a supervisor who was nice enough, but rules are rules. My wife heard me screaming and said to use her account which I reluctantly did. Before I hung up, I said the next payment will be from MY account and I will not provide the stuff they insisted upon. If they didn’t accept my word and the payment, it will be their loss and there wouldn’t be any additional payments. I confirmed this in a letter, again, avoiding the four letter words I would have preferred to use. In any case, I will no longer have anything to do with Chase Bank. They will be added to my list of banks that have given me grief in one way or another.
