I Don’t Want To Work For Chase’s Fraud Department

As long as I live I never again want to hear, “I understand Mr. Fox.” “I understand” doesn’t mean I’ll help you.

The phone rang as I was trying to watch the UCONN-Syracuse game. The caller ID read “TOLL FREE CALL.” I considered letting it go to voicemail, but fought the urge and answered.

Mistake!

On the other end of the line was a computerized voice. It had some suspicious credit card purchases for me to check. We’re just back from New York City. Charge questions seemed plausible.

I didn’t get to see the second half of the UCONN game. Did I miss anything?

The suspicious purchases were out-of-state phone sales from Home Depot and Target. One was for around $10 the other over $900. They weren’t mine. They had been denied by Chase.

And so began an hour plus of painful conversations with Chase’s polite, but totally unhelpful staff in the Philippines!

As long as I live I never again want to hear, “I understand Mr. Fox.”

“I understand” doesn’t mean I’ll help you. In fact it’s used specifically so the person on the line doesn’t have to admit they’re not going to help you! I know from experience they’re not going to help me.

Actually, I understand.

This is the fourth time we’re going through this! 1-2-3-4. I am not as pleasant or forgiving as I was in numbers one through three.

Because my credit card number is known by someone scurrilous Chase wants the account shut down. Once it’s shut they’ll issue a new card. That’s what Chase wants.

Here’s what I want. Chase issues me a new card and I’ll shut the old account as soon as I have it.

What I want is against the rules. These aren’t laws or regulations. Chase makes these rules! They were not devised with my convenience being a consideration.

The problem is Helaine and I now have to go through our list of monthly automatic charges. Each company has to be called or written. We have hours of work ahead of us.

Beyond that we have to go a day (or more) without my only credit card which in 21st Century America is a large, not small, hassle.

This is really Chase’s problem. By law they are responsible for the charges. Why are they sharing their hassle it with me? Why do I have to work for their fraud department?

I’m about to scream. It will be loud enough to be heard in the Philippines!

18 thoughts on “I Don’t Want To Work For Chase’s Fraud Department”

  1. Credit card companies need to be willing to help the consumer. Sounds like chase is making it very difficult to do that. My advice – tell them you have another company ready to give you a card to replace Chase’s as we speak. That may change their tune – very fast.

  2. Been going through a pile of BS trying to re-do our mortgage payments since they took over WaMu. Absolute freaking idiots! They won’t even send a monthly statement or make it easy to contact them. Plus they change the person who is supposed to be your caseworker every 15 days and it takes them about 30 days to get from one step to the next. As far as I am concerned with all this BS over bail outs we shouldn’t owe them a dime. Our tax money was used to bail them out and what did they do with it? Give the screw- ups major bonuses. Any other job you would be fired for such screw-ups.

  3. At one time I applied for an upgraded credit card from my bank… so they canceled my card and sent me the new one… while I was out of the country! Imagine my surprise when I tried to pay for dinner in Aruba! Thankfully we had prepaid the hotel. I would apply for a card with a different bank before threatening to leave Chase. If I could avoid it, I would never do business with Chase again. I have a Chase story on my blog, see the “It pays to check your statements” entry from October.

  4. Rather than stick with Chase, since you have to go through all those notifications anyway, why not just switch Visa (or whatever) cards to another provider?

    I’ve actually had excellent working relationships with mine.

  5. Having sent Cap One both an email and hard copy via certified mail prior to heading for the UK in 2009 I didn’t expect a problem……silly me, they froze the account in no time flat just as soon as I first used it overseas which obligated me to spend 22 minutes on the phone with them via my global-phone loaner from Verizon at what I expected to be some horrific per-minute charge.

    “Oh yes, I see the notes here” I finally heard, “So sorry for any inconvenience sir”.

    Verizon was far more sporting – having unknowingly and briefly picked up a signal from mainland Europe while in Lindisfarne my roaming charges bounced over $1400!

    Before I ever saw the bill I received a call from Verizon asking if I had traveled beyond the UK during the trip, when I replied no and my passport would verify that, they waived the entire bill.

    Now if only I could find a credit card company with even a tenth the customer focus of Verizon.

    Fat chance eh?

  6. FYI…I got rid of my Chase card last year…too much crap!!!

    Replaced it with my union M/C excellent so far 🙂

  7. Find another provider and get a second card. Could be worse. I tried to open a checking account in my hometown bank a few years ago and learned that my SS # had been used to open an account in Missouri. Had to deal with the fraud departments of two banks.

  8. It’s a really good idea to have a backup card, from a different bank and a different kind of care (i.e. if your current card is Visa, get a Mastercard). Use it once or twice a year, just to keep it active. Consider it an insurance policy. It doesn’t eliminate the problem of the automatic charges, but it’s a start.

  9. It seems like they need to start requiring a PIN for credit cards. A unique element that in not easily acquired or generated by a computer. It has been proven over and over that most protection/encryption/algorithm are breakable. And all this information is only protected by the weakest link, usually us humans.

    Then again, changing how credit cards are processed would be an expensive investment for banks…

  10. I find the easiest place to do banking is my Credit union. I’ve had it with banks over the years. I changed when my bank decided to charge me because my account went below $700. I went to a credit union and they only require you to have $5 in the checking account. I wonder when they are going to put turn styles in the lobby and charge to enter the bank. Then, I heard Bank of America was considering charging $9 to see a teller. I don’t know if they followed through with it. Give me a credit union any day.

  11. I think you’re going to find hassles with every credit card company. I can tell you horror stories from when I had Cap One. Over nine years ago, I missed a payment because my brother died and I was out of state. They called my house and my friend, who was house sitting, told them I was out of state AND WHY. They not only called every day that I was gone, they were calling 2-3 times PER day! For ONE missed payment! I paid them off and dropped them. Then a few years ago, HSBC sold my account to another bank that I had never heard of. There were no changes (interest and credit limit stayed the same) but I wasn’t happy about it. I had NEVER missed a payment and usually paid the bill off or at least made higher payments than the minimum required. That’s when I switched to Chase’s Southwest Visa. I’ve had it for almost three years without a problem. Last year, I got Chase’s Amazon Visa and haven’t had a problem with them either.

    The key to dealing with those out of the country is to insist you want to speak to someone IN this country. I had to do that once with my SW Visa. I honestly can’t remember what the reason was now but I know I was satisfied with the outcome.

  12. I have had my American Express card since 1979; my father’s father died while my parents were on vacation in Brussels, and since AmEx has no credit limit, it was the only way they could get home the next day (first class on Lufthansa was all that was available). Not only did I get both e-mail and telephone call from them when my card number was stolen last year (and used to buy electronics in Germany) but I had a new card by FedEx within 18 hours and they offered to call any company with whom I had the original card number registered.

    I don’t set up those automatic payments for the very reason Geoff noted, but I have never had a bad experience with the company in 30+ years and more fabulous customer service experiences than I could count. For me, the annual fee is well worth it.

  13. American Express has it advantages but keep in mind, you may want a back up Visa, M/C or Discover for those places who do NOT take AmEx.

  14. Just had Chase call to say someone used our debit card # to try to purchase $900 worth of sporting equipment from England. Charges were denied. Of course they were; because there was only $20 in the account so of course chase denied it. If we had $600 in the acct. it would have gone through. The person tried numerous times to get the purchase to go through to no avail. Now Chase says they cannot find out where the charges started from, who is responsible, or how they got ahold of our acct number (by the way we only use ATMs inside of Chase banks). We don’t use ATM’s in 7-11s or at gas stations. They are choosing to sign off on the investigation because it is not worth their time. We are calling them later today to speak to a manager and if no investigation will be done; then the police department will be involved and investigate. Thankfully, we are in the middle of switching to a credit union when this happended so we had no money in the account. We are letting Chase know that either they do a further investigation or we will contact the police department and let them know what is going on.

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