Company information:
California
United States
First, I will give you a brief history of my experience with CHASE AUTO FINANCE, but I am sure you are already aware since all of the calls into the company is recorded. I am a military member; my monthly pay is dispersed out bi-monthly on the 1st and the 15th of every month. December 2008, my pay was shortened by $1, 000. After I recognized this issue, I resolved it by contacting my finance office, however it was a legitimate deduction, which was my housing allotment took effect mid-month of December. After speaking with my First Sergeant, regarding this issue and talking to Finance, I was granted a partial payment of $1, 000 to help balance off the offset the reduced mid-month payment, unfortunately the payment was taken back out of my pay 2 weeks later, which still affected my monthly earnings. So therefore, I went and borrowed money to cover my delinquent December payment. After making the payments to resolve my delinquent account with your company, I spoke to a customer service representative and they offered a rewrite, which according to the representative was at a 100% approval rate, but I was only eligible for the rewrite after I made the February 2009 payment. After making the February payment, I contacted the company as previously agreed, to initiate the rewrite process. After giving the representative all of my information, I was told the rewrite process would only take 5-10 business days. I asked specifically what I should regarding payment if the rewrite took longer than 5-10 business days; the representative mentioned the process should not take longer. So after 10 business days passed, I called customer service every other day requesting status of the rewrite, all responses ended in, “Ma’am, your rewrite is still up for review, we will contact you once it is approved.” I responded asking if it would be approved and the representative mentioned yes ma’am, these rewrites are getting approved because of the country’s current economical status. The next month’s payment was quickly approaching, but the rewrite had not been approved nor disapproved. I contacted Chase again to find out the status of the rewrite, again the response was the same as always, “Ma’am, your rewrite is still up for review, and we will contact you once it is approved.” I mentioned to the representative my payment was coming due and the advice given to me was to wait on the approval of the rewrite before I made a payment. I also asked if I could send in partial payments cause if somehow the rewrite was not approved, I didn’t want to get behind in payments. The representative told me I could not make partial payments because Chase does not accept partial loan payments and that I should just be patient and wait for the status of the rewrite, because the rewrite is similar to a refinance, meaning I would receive new contract terms to include a new payment date, lower monthly payments, and yearly terms. So I agreed to wait for the rewrite. After calling back to find out the status of the rewrite, because I never received a phone call from Chase, nearly 35 days later, the rewrite was returned disapproved. Not only was I behind in payments but I was also charged outrageous late fees. After calling and talking to a representative to find out why the rewrite was disapproved, I got the run around from many customer service representatives only to find out that “my account” doesn’t have a rewrite option. I was baffled and I asked the representative what do you mean, my account was not eligible for a rewrite? I couldn’t believe this information because when I was initially approved for the loan by Mr. Jason, he also told me after making 18 payments; I would be able to apply for a rewrite on the loan because of the excessive payment amount. The representative replied, “Because your account was a high risk account, we don’t offer rewrites on these accounts. So ma’am, you shouldn’t have been offered a rewrite. Of course my thoughts were, “where was this vital information 35 days ago?” After being accused of lying on the rewrite of my account, the representative again assured me that I was given wrong information and that I needed to make a payment and pay off all late fees incurred by the rewrite. How is this possible? I am in the wrong because of an incompetent representative? So after paying extra on my monthly payments and making payment arrangements on my account every month, the representative told me to continue making payments until June 09 and then I would be eligible for a deferment. During the July-August 09 timeframe, the deferment was disapproved also, so at this time, I was backed against the wall, because I know it wasn’t feasible for me to come up with an extra $2, 000 to pay the late fees off and make the reoccurring monthly payment. So then I called Chase Representative, Marissa, spoke to her about the previous history with the company. We agreed on payment arrangements of $1, 000 over a 4-month period or $900 over a 5-month period. I told Marissa, I would try to make the extra payments but if I couldn’t I would at least make the payment of $835, she said okay, but if I could pay extra, I should and let her or any representative know the payment confirmation and payment amount. I was told once I made the payment via money gram, to call her with the confirmation number as receipt of confirming payment. She also told me to call Chase Auto Finance, the beginning of every month to find out who was my account representative to verify the payment arrangements. As agreed I kept my end of the bargain and called in the beginning of August and made a payment arrangement for the end of August. Well beginning on 19 August 09, I received numerous phone calls from customer service representatives, which I was told this would happen until the payment was made, well on 24 August 09, I began receiving double the calls, including calls from Ms. Wendy Cullen. Ms. Cullen introduced herself as taking over my account because she had previous experience with military accounts and members. After speaking to her and back briefing her on the account history, she again told me that it was unfortunate the Chase representative offered me a rewrite, as my account was not eligible for rewrites. After talking for over an hour, we came up with a plan to get my account back into good standings and to pay off the late fees, but I also mentioned to her that I didn’t feel it was right for me to have to suffer and pay the late fees because of an incompetent representative. She agreed it was wrong, but she had no control over it. She asked me to verify the August payment arrangement, and I told her I had already spoken to Marissa about the payment. Ms. Cullen said the payment was annotated in the system, but she needed me to confirm it. She asked what date was I making the payment on and I replied, depending on how my pay fell it would either be on Friday, 28 August 09 or on Monday, 31 August 09. She replied, saying she would update the system to reflect the payment being received on Monday, 31 August 09, to be on the safe side because if I make the payment arrangement I need to ensure the funds are paid on the arrangement date, and to call in with the payment confirmation receipt number. I agreed to those terms; Ms. Cullen also mentioned once the payments and late fees were caught up we would do an allotment/direct deposit on the account. I was like what? I was told Chase didn’t accept allotments/direct deposits; she assured me she would be able to assist me in setting up this feature on my account. I told her I was so frustrated with Chase’s customer service representatives because I had been asking to set up an allotment/direct deposit since I purchased the vehicle but every representative told me, the bank did not offer allotments/direct deposits on loans. I found this hard to believe, but after speaking to numerous representatives and receiving the same response from all of them, I began to believe it to be true. Again, I was given more incorrect information from a Chase representative. On 28 August 09, I received more phone calls, from a very aggressive representative named Mr. Toufan, telling me I needed to make my August payment immediately and that I was in default on the loan. I replied to him saying that I had already spoken to Ms. Wendy Cullen and made payment arrangements. Mr. Toufan then insisted I was lying because I said I was going to make the payment on Friday, 28 August 09 and he needed the payment confirmation, I told him I was not lying and that the payment would be made depending on how my pay fell it would either be on Friday, 28 August 09 or on Monday, 31 August 09. I was very confused and distraught by his attitude because I had just spoken to Ms. Cullen previously and set up the payment arrangements.
On 31 August 09, while I was going to make the loan payment of $1, 000 as agreed, unfortunately, the payment didn’t go through, after checking my account, I only had $850 in my account, so I deducted $848 from my account to make the regular payment. I called into Chase to provide Ms. Cullen with the payment amount and the confirmation number. When I called Ms. Cullen on Ms. Brenda Lester’s telephone line, Ms. Cullen was not available so Ms. Lester transferred me to Patrick, Chase Senior Analyst. I informed Mr. Patrick that I made the payment and gave him the confirmation number and the payment amount of $835 as oppose to $1, 000. Mr. Patrick then became very irate and started to yell and attempted to utilize scare tactics to get the payment difference. He made idle threats insisting that I better come up with the difference within 5 days, by borrowing the money from a family member, cash advance, yard sale, etc. He didn’t care how I came up with the difference I just needed to pay the payment difference. If I was not able to come up with the money within 5 days, then I should clean out the vehicle and do a voluntary repossession, because he was tired of playing games. I told him I didn’t have the money, due to loss of household income, he was not sympathetic and he mentioned he could care less about the household income, as my loan was approved based off my income only and not my household. I replied to him that I didn’t understand where this aggressive demeanor was steaming from as I had previously spoken to Ms. Cullen and Marissa, representatives of his company and we had already made payment arrangements on my account and I was just calling in to give the confirmation number as agreed. He commented saying just clean out the vehicle and we will pick it up since you can’t make the payment. I replied to him that it’s very unfortunate that I have been making payment arrangements and payments as agreed for the last 8 months and this one time I don’t make the full payment of $1, 000, but I made the monthly payment of $835 and I am getting disrespected over some late fees that were assessed to my account during a rewrite process that I wasn’t eligible for? He ended the call with more negative comments and I just hung up the telephone. I was very upset and decided to call back, after calling back and leaving messages, finally I received a call back from Ms. Cullen, who then had an aggressive attitude towards me also. I was taken by surprise seeing as though we had just spoken a few days ago and came to somewhat of a resolution of getting my account back into good standings. She became very irate about the fact that I didn’t make the full payment of $1, 000 and only made a regular payment of $835, I responded to her by reiterating the fact that I did make a regular payment as agreed. I was unable to make the extra on the payment because my spouse and daughter were in an accident and we had to pay a $500 deductible. I also mentioned to her about the previous arrangements regarding paying extra on my account to lower the incurred late fees that I would pay extra if I had the extra money to pay on the account. She agreed those were the terms, but again it was out of her control and that Mr. Patrick was the Senior Analyst and whatever he says is the final word. Ms. Cullen advised me to sit down with my spouse and make a budget and then call her back on Saturday, 5 September 09 with a game plan on how to resolve the account with firm payment arrangement amounts and dates. I agreed and called back on Saturday but didn’t receive a response. I called and left numerous messages, still no response. Finally after looking over my account and account history, I felt I have had enough of the harassing phone calls, incompetent representatives, incorrect information, and the amount of late fees incurred because of the nonexistent rewrite, and the fact that Chase was not willing to assist by either omitting the late fees or even offering a deferment on the loan, I had no other choice but to make the decision of the voluntary repossession. I don’t understand how Chase representatives can offer many options of conducting yard sales, borrowing money from elsewhere, etc., but yet and still denied rewrite and deferment on my account with a reason stating that I would never get caught up, when in all actuality I was only behind on my payments because of an incompetent representative who offered a rewrite which took 35 days rewrite review and incurred late fees. Please explain why my credits score, reputation, and pride has to suffer because of the lack of training of your bank’s customer service representatives. So please tell me where is the integrity in JP Morgan Chase’s Commitment to their customers? ...is "As we move forward, we believe that shareholders will benefit as we do the right thing by our customers and the communities we serve... More
- We are a healthy, well-capitalized bank.
- We are still lending and standing by our customers.
- We are a responsible and accountable player in promoting economic recovery.” (http://thewayforward.jpmorganchase.com/online/the-way-forward/community-support.htm)
In conclusion, please provide a written response to this letter within 30 days of receipt. The response should include answers to the aforementioned requests of the removal of any and all late fees incurred by the 35-day rewrite process and any negative account statements reported to the credit bureaus, resulting from the 35-day rewrite. One could only hope that JP Morgan Chase will learn from my misfortune and provide future customers with fair business relationships, thus ensuring this unfortunate event doesn’t reoccur in the future to other potential consumers, especially fellow soldiers. After reflecting on my relationship adn experiences with this company, I feel JP Morgan Chase’s customer commitment is only utilized when it’s convenient for the betterment of their company, not the customer. I am hoping the recognition of the aforementioned issues and verbally abusive relationship I experienced with the cut throat and nonchalant attitudes of JP Morgan Chase Bank’s employees will be addressed and rectified in a timely manner.
In conclusion, having to give up my vehicle was already a painful and hard decision, but receiving harassing phone calls constantly all day from customer service representatives inquiring if the vehicle was still in my possession is a bit much. I mean really when will the harassment and verbal abuse with your company end?
