Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Putting My Mouth Where My Money Is...

The following is a letter sent by me to Chase customer service on Sunday, December 12, 2010...

Dear Chase Bank...
This is not an inquiry so much as an open letter to you and your customer service department. I was a loyal customer of Washington Mutual for 5 years before your company took over. Despite all the troubles that bank may have had on a larger scale, I never had one single complaint or issue or concern with them. Then your company came along...

In the 1 1/2-2 years that I've dealt with Chase, I have been unhappy with the service on numerous occasions. Last year I discovered you were taking $20/month out of my savings account because I did not meet the minimum balance requirement. To give you some background, my main savings account is with one of your competitors who offers a better interest rate and service- I was only keeping a small amount of money in my Chase savings as a formality. I unfortunately did not realize that Chase was taking the monthly fee from me until you had already taken close to $100 of my hard-earned money from me. When I confronted a Customer Service Rep and was told for the first time about your minimum balance fee, I demanded to know why I was not made aware of this policy when you took over Washington Mutual. The representative dismissively informed me that a letter had been sent...to my former address. At that point, I had not been living at that address in over a year and Chase was regularly sending me correspondence to my new address. Conveniently, the notice of a Minimum Balance Fee was sent to an address that had not been used by either myself or your company in a long while. When asked if I could have my money back, I was coldly rebuffed and told "that's not our policy."

Obviously, your institution's policy is to take as much money away from your customers as possible.

Yesterday I received notice that Chase is now going to begin charging me a Monthly Service Fee for my Checking Account, the only account I still hold with Chase. This service can be avoided if I do A or B or C or D. If I don't do those things (one of those options requires paying you money to not take my money), you will take $10 a month of MY MONEY from me.

So, basically you're telling me I have to pay you to hold my money for me?

In this economy, could you be anymore short-sighted and just plain stupid???

After the previous experience I had with your bank, do you honestly believe I will continue to do business with your bank if there's a chance you will take even more of MY MONEY from me?

Absolutely not.

If you do not respond to me in writing with your intent to COMPLETELY WAIVE the Monthly Service Fee from my account, I will pull every cent of my money from your bank with a big smile on my face. I will follow the advice of a friend of mine and begin working with one of your main competitors here in Los Angeles. Additionally, I will post this letter I am currently writing you on every public forum that I can so that the world will know that your banking practices are utterly ridiculous.

I urge to reconsider saving yourself the business and saving me the trouble of having to switch banks by foregoing your absurd proposal to charge for being part of your customer base.

I suspect you will not, but it was worth a shot.


As I expected, I received a stock apology from some mindless CS rep "apologizing" for my experiences with Chase and then trying to upsell my on "all the positive aspects of being a Chase customer!"

So thank you, Chase Bank, for giving me the gift of dumping your money-grubbing ass for Christmas.

1 comment:

Corey Wilkey said...

Wow. That is absurd. You've convinced me. I will never be banking with them.
I remember Washington Mutual too. My parents banked with them, and they loved it. The promptly left after the switch to chase. sounds like it was a good thing they did.