Yesterday I heard from reader and traveler Pat that Chase had decided to terminate their Banking relationship, without recourse, based upon her activity relating to Manufactured Spending to earn airline points and miles. This was particularly focused on the large number and value of Cash Deposits that occurred at her account. Today we spoke about the experience and wanted to share some of the points that were raised from this so that you, as a reader can keep an eye on your own activity and also be aware of some potential risks that come with this hobby in order to make informed decisions.
Primary Bank Problems
Firstly, Chase was the primary bank account for Pat, so that meant when it was shut down she needs to take the following steps to avoid serious issues to her credit and finances:
1. Migrate all monthly Auto Pay orders for other credit cards and bills. Missing a single one of these will cause a credit score hit as a delinquent payment, something that is very important not only to protect your score for future applications, but also many people take considerable pride in paying in full, and on time. I have found that many institutions will actually forgive the first mistake, and if you do let one slip you should call up the provider, apologize and explain that you changed banks and hopefully they will keep that strike from hitting your credit report.
2. Consider inbound payments. Obvious inbound payments would be things such as your salary, but less obvious ones would include annual payments such as what account you opt to receive your annual income tax refund to – again, if you forget to change you will not lose that refund, but it will be delayed and cause more hassles down the road.
3. Lack of immediate access to Statements. You will need to download your bank statements from the account for record keeping, I am doing this myself now for my business bank accounts and not having an online record on demand means you need to have your accounts downloaded in PDF or Hard Copy in order to be able to reference things in the future.
Recommended Course Of Action from Primary Bank Problems
With hindsight we can see that using your primary bank to facilitate manufactured spending causes a lot more hassle than using an unattached account. However, if you do set up a bank account for the sole purpose of manufactured spending then it has less of a ‘buffer’ of real transactions to keep it under the radar, so the chances increase that it will be flagged sooner. If you opt for a secondary bank to avoid the problems associated with your primary account I would do so in the knowledge that when your account is flagged it is possible that you could have the funds in the bank frozen until the situation is sorted out. Though this may not happen, don’t play this game unless you can afford to survive with frozen funds.
Manufactured Spend Details and Timelines
This is just one example, so we clearly do not have a benchmark for the most common question, “how much is too much?” but lets include the numbers here for your reference. When we broke them down on the call we were both a little surprised at the amounts. These numbers reflect the amount of Cash Deposits that were made through loading points onto cards and then withdrawing from ATMs or getting Cash Back.
- May 2012 started with 9 American Express Prepaid cards (3 per family member) maxed out at $2,500 per month = $22,500 Cash Deposited
- Later added 3 Visa Buxx Cards (1 per family member) maxed out at $2,000 per month = $6,000 Cash Deposited
- Nov 2012 3 Target American Express Cards (1 per family member) maxed out at $5,000 per month = $15,000
- Total average monthly cash Deposits $43,500
- Additionally there was a period where there was $2,500 per day on My Vanilla cards x 20 days per month for a further $50,000
These are serious numbers, and I think they do put Pat in the top tier of manufactured spenders, but operating below this level does not mean that you will avoid account inspection and cancellation, indeed I would imagine it happens at a much lower number.
Flags to be aware of
The activity started in earnest in May 2012, and in August of 2013 Pat received a call from Chase exploring her account activity. She answered the questions, avoiding talk of manufactured spending and due to genuine business account movements between Chase and other accounts was able to explain away most of the questions. Her activity continued, she slowed down her activity at this stage, but still received several further calls. The letter informing her of the account cancellation was dated September 11th.
After the first call it would be prudent to ensure you have a back up account established should you need to shift your banking over there, since slowing things down did not resolve the problem.
Answers from the Branch Manager
Pat spoke with the manager of the local branch, and had already explained to her that the activity on her account was for earning points and miles and everything seemed well. However there was a period of time when this manager left and the branch was run by an Assistant, which may,or may not have been when the account was flagged.
The following points were told to Pat which are very useful:
- Cash transactions are being more aggressively flagged than checks. Money Orders (another way to release funds from prepaid cards) are processed as a Check by Chase, and perhaps by other banks. As such it is the opinion of the Branch Manager that if similar numbers were made by Money Order Deposit it might have been less risky.
- The Branch Manager has a son who is Branch Manager at Bank of America. He has told her that they recently have been told to be more vigilant when it comes to suspected Money Laundering, especially with cash transactions, which means that whilst this happened at Chase, it could happen anywhere.
- The Branch Manager informed her that transactions were tracked by SSN. Therefore if you deposit cash in several different banks they will add up these transactions at a central facility and it will still trigger the alert.
You are being shut down by Risk and Compliance
If you account is flagged as suspicious it is the decision of the banks compliance department to shut you down. If they allow you to continue to operate they themselves will be the target of Federal investigations, so if they think you are a risk they will close you down. I had not heard of the central reporting via SSN prior to today, but it is an easy thing to track and makes a lot of sense to me. As such if true, you should be aware that any and all of your accounts throughout separate banks could have been alerted to your activity, and they may all make the decision if you are too high risk for potential investigation or not.
Two Triggers to be aware of
SARs Suspicious Activity Reports can be produced by any institution at any time. There is no minimum transaction require to create a SAR. In doing so the Bank Teller can decide that your habits are suspicious and it will alert Compliance that your account should be flagged.
Additionally to which, certain size of transaction, regardless of suspicion will trigger alerts. Transactions of $10,000 trigger this. Furthermore it is not unique to banks, as this is the amount you need to declare when moving money through border checkpoints, and also other areas where money moves, such as Casinos will also trigger the reporting at this level (and can also issue SARs based on discretion).
If it happens to you
See above for the steps to protect your primary account and credit scores, furthermore it would be prudent to move any other points from your Chase Ultimate Rewards Credit Card balances to third parties, such as United. Pat was informed that this would not affect her Credit Card relationships, but it is better to be safe than sorry and lock in those points to prevent the chance that they could be confiscated.
Chase provided 30 days notice via letter, so open all of your mail. I frequently trash mail without a glance, and doing so in this case would result in the first I hear of this being when my cards start being rejected on Autopay. Furthermore, if this happens when you are traveling sorting out the mess from overseas will be a real pain. At the very least make sure you have a second bank account somewhere set up in advance that you could migrate your auto-pays to should you be out of the Country.
Interesting… I wonder if they apply the same level of scrutiny to cash transactions going into a business account instead of a consumer account?
That’s a great question, I just opened up a new Business Account and they are much more inclined to accept lots of cash and lots of transactions – could be an interesting work around.
Just be prepared to document the source of all of those deposits to an IRS agent. Better hope they understand the circular path of your own money.
Fear of an evil IRS agent should not stop us from doing perfectly legal and acceptable transactions, nor should fear of the banks shutting us down. Though you are correct in that both should factor into your risk analysis and if you are not comfortable with the possibility then the game isn’t for you.
“The Branch Manager informed her that transactions were tracked by SSN. Therefore if you deposit cash in several different banks they will add up these transactions at a central facility and it will still trigger the alert.”
First I’ve heard of this as well, unless by several banks he means several branches of the same bank. Maybe someone in AML will chime in. I would also expect her Chase credit cards to be closed shortly.
A first for me, but not really that hard to imagine happening, since we have everything else in this country tracked, and in fairness there are probably a number of people who aren’t using credit cards for travel when it comes to such large deposits.
While Big Brother certainly can track deposits by SSN across various banks, I suspect that Pat indeed meant across branches.
Why BB was being cashed out and not liquidated via billpay is boggling.
And he was hugely lucky not to have his credit cards closed as well – every other report I’ve heard says one inevitably leads to the other (which only makes sense – why continue a relationship with someone you suspect of “unusual activities”?
What no-fee ATM was he using? I’ve only heard of a couple with very small daily limits.
I didnt see anywhere that BB was being cashed out. It was AX PP that was being cashed out.
Yes, there was no BB in this example. Regarding the no fee ATM it has now ended, but I believe it was just one of those lucky finds, I am not sure which it was. Oh and BTW Pat is not only a she, she is the (or was) the Queen of Manufactured Spending.
She took immediate steps to txf out her Ultimate Rewards to United in the event that they did come after her cards. The reason why it was not automatic is that the credit card department has a degree of separation from the banking department, but I believe everyone involved is very concerned about that logical next step which hopefully doesn’t happen.
Pat,
This is so sad. I’m so sorry to hear what you’re going through. I hope you get it sorted out without much trouble. Thank you so much for sharing—it’s a good reality check for us all. I hope you’ll continue to share developments with us and how your routines evolve from here.
—Rachael
Lesson is, don’t use cash. It’s so easy to turn GCs into money orders, I do that only. About $50-60k/mo without any issues, and everything is documented and scanned.
That does seem to be one of the lessons we could take from this, but it would be reckless to assume that MO work where cash did not to the extent that you haven’t set up a contingency bank account ready to roll into a new Primary should they clamp down.
Over on FT it has been reported the US Bank and Wells Fargo have been aggressive with account closures on MO deposits.
If you have a USB account and deposit MOs watch your mail for postmarks in Overland Park, KS; that means you have 30 days to empty your accounts. 😉
I don’t quite get why all this manufactured spending translated into such large amounts of cash rather than MO’s, transfers from BB to bank accounts or gift/debit cards. Did it come from buying various cards on credit cards (with fees) to get points and miles and then paying a lot of ATM fees to withdraw the funds in cash? I would have felt this was not worth it because of the ATM fees on top of the fees to purchase. Can you explain this a little more clearly?
The problems I have run into involving employees suspicious about MS activities have been related to purchases of gift cards and not only Amex, MasterCard or Visa ones. At a certain level, which varies a lot from store to store, the employees seem to feel this is akin to money laundering even though no cash is ever involved. Yet there are some stores (OD and KMart) which will not sell these products for other than cash. I’ve asked my local banker why this is and he has no idea; his bank is concerned about cash only.
Pat is lucky in one sense, that Chase did not shut down her credit cards, only her bank account. But there appears to be more to this than we know. My biggest fear would be getting my cards shut down by Chase. There are thousands of banks but only a few card issuers who make it worth doing what we do.
Hi Sofi, Pat did mention that for some considerable time she found a no fee ATM which made the withdrawals viable.
I also just received notice that my Chase bank account was being closed, my crime was that I and my wife are self employed, we deposit our income which is mostly cash into our checking account. I have had this bank account for about 30 yrs, it originally was a Bank One account, I never had any problems with Chase, they refused to discuss this issue with be even though I offered to show them my Federal income tax forms etc.
Eric,
I’m sorry to hear that, it’s a horrible headache to add onto running a business.
Please obtain statements for as far back as you can, at least 3 years and longer if possible in order to have them to hand in the event of an IRS audit; not necessarily related at all, just so you have access to data in the event that it should happen.
And now for the rest of the story, I closed my account a few days before it was scheduled to be closed by Chase, they were going to give me a check immediately but I asked to have it transferred to my other account which I held with my daughter, they had no problem with this, a couple of weeks later I was unable to use my debit card on this account, when I called Chase they told me that they restricted my account and they were closing it soon, they also told me that they had send me a letter on this, I told the service agent to tell me when such a letter was sent as I had never received one and they just let me transfer money from my other account which was being closed, after a few minutes the agent told me that I was right and a letter was not send but they were sending one that day. A couple of weeks later I received a letter telling me that my credit card accounts with Chase were being closed, my daughter as well had her Chase credit card accounts closed.
I now have two new bank accounts, one with an online bank the other a regional bank in my area, my daughter has a new account with another bank, I now pay my bills with money orders and avoid frequent deposits and or depositing large amounts of cash even though the income of my wife and I is completely legal, I feel like a criminal having to watch what I do so as not to attract attention.
I have always had many credit card accounts so closing my Chase credit cards did not affect me but this whole thing has enlightened me and I will never feel the same about my personal bank or any bank again.
The same thing happened to me in March 2014. I had my account since 1991 with a Chase predecessor — opened it as a new employee. I don’t MS or anything of the sort and have no idea why they closed my account. Dang, I’m a bonded banker at another institution, for Pete’s sake! Dull everyday family money management. My attitude is completely changed after this account ordeal.
Same thing happened to me. The problem is that I was foolish enough to believe the branch manager when he told me that my credit accounts would be OK, so now I have ~200K UR points locked in, and Chase refuses to give in. Could you possibly suggest anything? I’m seriously thinking of a legal option
Hey Alex, I am sorry to hear that, I would certainly recommend transferring out immediately to cover yourself, but now that it is locked up I don’t know what to say.
If your points are worth it to you to go down the legal route then do so, but it is going to be costly I imagine. I would recommend writing letters to HQ and calling multiple times first in order to try to convince them to release the points to you without the cost of legal. But I really don’t know which is better.
I have recently got the same letter. I have no idea why chase decided to close my account. I had no manufactured spendings. I made two $5K cash deposits into my account last year. That’s all. My wife has a direct deposit going to chase. It was such a pain moving all the bill payment arrangements elsewhere. Chase refused to give me a reason. I escalated to BBB and got a call from the headquaters that they reviewed my case and the decision is final. They also refused to give me any reason. It’s a mistery and a very unpleasant experience for me.
Hi Alex,
Thanks for sharing your story, it helps us build up an understanding of what is happening. I am sorry this happened to you too, and hope you got the new accounts set up quickly – don’t forget the annual transfers like Tax Refund as well as the monthly ones that are more obvious to spot.
Cheers,
Matt
My wife and I just my wife has direct deposit.
I don’t make any cash deposits, only checks and we do not engage in any manufactured spending games or illegal activities.
We do not have a lot of money in our accounts since we recently used our savings account to pay off our home so that we could afford a car payment about 5 months ago.
We do have Hilton Honors AMEX cards we get points on, but we pay our utilities and do our everyday living with our credit cards and pay them off with our chase account about 3 to 4 times a month to keep the balance reasonable. Nothing out of the ordinary. I called the number on the letter from chase operating loss prevention and they stated “We have chosen to exercise our right to terminate our relationship.” and “The decision is final. We are under no obligation to give a reason” I was then threatened by the very unprofessional and rude supervisor on the line in loss prevention who then said that “If you continue to pursue this any further, it will bring on a wealth of hearthache and grief for both you and your wife. WTF?
When I went to chase to remove my funds, the teller told me that she received the same letter and had to endure grueling hours of finanical review with her employer (CHASE) just to keep her job. She also did nothing wrong and she still has her job.
When I went to a smaller more regional bank, I talked the bank manager about this situation to make sure I don’t find myself in this same situation agian and the bank manager said that he used to work at chase and he reviewed my statements from chase and saw nothing that even looked suspicious. They welcomed me to their bank with open arms and appoligized for the way chase is treating customers. They said that they get new customers from Chase also in the same situation everyday.
I have banked with chase for over 33 years starting when it was Great Western, WAMU and now Greedy Chase Bank and this is how they treat me.
I never reported any unknown transactions, never had any overwithdrawls or bad checks.
Both our credit scores are still 905+
I just can’t seem to make sense of this at all and after the agent threatened me, I don’t know what to think.
What do they know that I don’t and shoud I be concerned?
tEO NIGHTS AGO THEY DID THE SAME THING TO ME THEY CANCELLED MY ACCOUNT AND TERMINATED MY RELATIONSHIP WITH THEM WITH NO REASON …OTHER THEN I AM USING ACCOUNT INCORRECTLY. I AM AN INDEPENDENT CONTRACTOR AND I RECEIVE DEPOSITS IN CASH SO I AM ASSUMING THAT THIS IS WHY…CAN’T THE BANK GIVE YOU WARNING OR GIVE YOU THE ABILITY TO EXPLAIN WHAT IS GOING ON? IS THERE A GROUND FOR LAWSUIT HERE…HOW EMBARRASSING TO BE SITTING AT A FANCY RESTAURANT EATING DINNER AND DRINKING WINE…AND WHEN THE BILL COMES YOUR CARD IS BLOCKED ND YOU CAN NOT DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT. I HAD A TOTAL STRANGER PAY MY BILL WHEN I HAVE MONEY IN THE BANK.. COULD THEY HAVE NOT CALLED ME AND ASKED ME SECURITY QUESTIONS ABOUT WHAT IS GOING ON….. I NEVER KNEW THAT THIS CAN CAUSE A PROBLEM. SOMETHING MUST BE DONE….THIS IS ABSURD AND RIDICULOUS….PEOPLE LIKE ME THAT ARE IN A RECOVERY PROGRAM TRYING TO GET THERE LIVES BACK TOGETHER MAKE THINGS RIGHT …DO THE RIGHT THING AND THEN SOMETHING LIKE THIS HAPPENS CAN TRIGGER OUR RECOVER. IF ANYONE CAN TELL ME IF WE CAN PUT TOGETHER A CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT TOGETHER AGAINST CHASE FOR DEPRIVATION. CAN YOU IMAGINE BEING OUT OF THE COUNTRY WITH ONLY ONE CARD DEBIT AND IT GETS BLOCKED WHILE SITTING IN A RESTAURANT…YOU CANNOT PAY YOUR BILL AND NO WAY TO REACH YOUR MONEY AND NO ONE TO BAIL YOU OUT….YOU GO STRAIGHT TO JAIL…… WHAT THE HELL DO YOU DO THEN? THE RIGHT THING TO DO IS TO CALL THE CLIENT ASK THEM TO COME INTO THE BRANCH OR EXPLAIN TO THEM THAT THEY ARE DOING THINGS INCORRECTLY SO THAT WE CAN FIX IT. I HAVE A RIGHT TO KNOW WHY IT WAS CLOSED ? BU NO ONE WILL TELL ME WHY….ANSWER FROM THE BANK S WE DECIDED TO TERMINATE OR RELATIONSHIP…I WAS ALSO TOLD IN THE WORST WAY YOU CAN NEVER BANK WITH US AGAIN……WHY SHOULD I TAKE THAT KIND OF TREATMENT…..PLEASE SOMEONE TELL ME IF THERE ARE ANY GROUNDS HERE…..
Michelle, please email me (alex s ramani at gmail dot com). Im thinking of pursuing a lawsuit, and believe we have grounds
Just did Please tell me what we can do ……I want to make a point more then anything that something needs to be done.
HI Alex, I would love to join the class action lawsuit. This is BS and absurd!! I called into the bank to get my account balance and was told he was unable to pulled up my info from my debit card .. i gave him my ss# and he told me that my relationship with Chase is terminated… Who the hell conduct business like this stupid bank!!!!!
I’d sign up for a class action lawsuit.
I had to reschedule my entire week to sort this out and that means loss pay due to CHASE making rash decisions.
Same thing just happened to me, Chase closed my account two weeks and sent me a cashiers check for my money. The cashier’s check has not arrived and is lost, according to the bank they sent it and have nothing to do. No explanation no nothing. All I remember is that they warned me; that I should transfer my money from the checking account to the savings account. They make you feel like you are a criminal. If we are doing something wrong, why not just explain so we can change. All my income comes from selling cattle two times a year and can prove that it is legitimate.
Hi John,
Sorry to hear that happened to you too, it sounds like they are becoming seriously overzealous.
I called the number on the letter from chase operating loss prevention and they stated “We have chosen to exercise our right to terminate our relationship.” and “The decision is final. We are under no obligation to give a reason” I was then threatened by the very unprofessional and rude supervisor on the line in loss prevention who then said that “If you continue to pursue this any further, it will bring on a wealth of heartache and grief for both you and your wife.”
But he refused to elaborate, is this a form of black mail to keep quiet?
His threat is really eating at me and I really feel like I need to stand up and not take this abuse.
I have done nothing wrong or illegal.
I don’t even use my Chase Visa for anything except when someone won’t accept AMEX which only happens a few times a month and I don’t knowingly even participate in the Chase Visa Card points.
Chase, closed my business account for no reason at all. They told me that loss prevention closed the account. My employees could not be paid that week because I tied up all my monies in one Chase account I am joining a group of individuals who will will be sending complaints to the US attorney to do something about this I have already contact a friend of my family who’s a White House staffer and it has came to the attention to many members of congress. So don’t think your complaints are not being see online. I was surprise that I was told other bank are doing this and it is done by a computer software program and not by anyone within the bank. I was also told that Chase and Wells Fargo bank does this to several business owners daily. Please don’t let them getaway with this, let us all join together and bring these big banks down. Please do not open any business or personal accounts with these bank. Go to a little bank where if there’s a problem you can get clear answers.
Would like to join with those complaints. Please forward the information.
Thanks
Chase just closed my Credit Card for what I thought was no reason. After reading the posts here I see, similar spending habits. I have close to 400,000 reward points in my account and they have only told me there is nothing they can do for me. It is simply unfair to take my reward points. They want to close my account, go ahead. I earned my points based on my business charges. I charge everything I possible can in order to get points. The manager in the branch suggested I pay the credit card balances in cash, because I complain about the fees they charge me for depositing Cash. This way I would avoid the fees. I use the points for great vacations. Can they just take the points? Is there anything I can do?
Ken,
My advice would to be to not accept this decision. I cannot guarantee the result if you fight them for the points, but if you do not I think it will be certain that they are lost. It is therefore a no lose situation for you to challenge this action and ask for the points to be reimbursed.
Kevin, please email me (alex s ramani at gmail dot com). Im thinking of pursuing a lawsuit, and believe we have grounds
Sorry I mean Ken ><
I am curious about the $10,000 rule. If you convert $10,000 worth of UR points to a statement credit (1,000,000 points) in a single month, will that trigger the same account review?
The 10K rule is an international rule on money movement for criminal purposes, as such I would guess that it wouldn’t trigger the same review, though it may flag up somewhere. I would certainly start burning if in that position, I wouldn’t want to lose that many points!
I deposit well over the 10K regularly, They have my CTR on file and just send it in all the time. That is not the problem, at least I don’t think it should be. Any suggestions for Quality wording for my next e-mail to them. I don’t want to sound arrogant, I just want my points.
Hi Ken,
I’ve been meaning to work on something like this for some time, I will see if I can put something together for this.
Ken – I lost ~200K points, and have had no luck with them. I’ll likely be forming a lawsuit. Email me if you like (a l e x s r a m a n i ) at g m a i l
Yeah, Im torn between my desire to avoid raising red flags by burning points too fast and my desire to not lose all my points due to Chase arbitrary account closure policies. I wouldn’t sell them via a third party website because that is a violation of the account rules and triggers closure. I could move them to other Frequent Flyer partner rewards programs, but those expire, and it’s hard to use that many points in a given year (no one has that many vacation days).
You really should start draining- points won’t expire if you have account activity so you can keep them alive by making small future transactions.
I would do a mix of transfers and statement credits monthly over a few months, and if anything flags move faster.
I have 4 kids. We went to Aruba for spring break. Flew first class with points and stayed at Marriott. Had the governors suite. all paid with points. Then for Xmas went to puerto rico on points. Again first class plus 2 Suites. We also went to Dominican Rebublic for a weekend and Las Vegas. Used over 4 Million points. I was just about to Book Aruba for next Xmas. Thats when i saw my points were gone. I still have other cards with lots of points. I am going to transfer them all tonight to United and Marriott. I am going to fight for those points. They took away airfare for the 6 of us to go to Aruba. I am not happy. My business does not make much profit, but the points I earn is the profit.
Yeah that’s exactly what I dont want to have happen. 😉
I just transfered all my UR points to UA. Good to get those wake up calls, sorry that Pat got hosed. 100,000 per months was maybe a tad bit too aggressive though.
With Contour acting up too, it is getting more complicated. Thank god we can still fuel dump tickets left and right 🙂
Yeah, it sucks, but at least we can take something from it by sharing the experience and helping others mitigate the impact.
It’s a constant battle being Beta testers for these new products 🙂
Sorry, what’s Contour? And just curious what does ‘still fuel dump tickets left and right’ mean?
Thanks.
OK, so this whole scenario played out with me in april 2013. First I got the exact letter posted above that my checking account was being closed. That’s pretty weird since it had $60k in cash and no transactions at all for months.
I knew this was credit card related, and I got the standard responses from the Executive poffice that my charging patterns were not consistent with what was expected. In all those charges there were MANY 1000’s of legitimate charges.
The funniest one is cancelling my app for a HELOC, with 2 different explanations in 2 different letters.
I pointed this out and they apologized for saying the “incorrect reason” the first time–I guess because they have some legal liability for federal housing loans.
As to those manufacturing spending, the T&C of your agreements say you won’t earn points for these. I have spoken to attorneys who say “just go get accounts elsewhere” because there is an argument –a weakone-that violating the T&C could be deemed a crime.
As to lifting your points, well there is a principle in law called “good faith and fair dealing” and I don’t care what the agreement says; this is a contract of adhesion (accept it or don’t get the card) so the burden falls on Chase.
Frankly, United’s devaluation makes the whole thing suck. I can find Star alliance awards through other sources and I will certainly never support any legislation Chase wants.
I think you’re absolutely right about the “good faith and fair dealing” principle. In fact this is being tried right now in a similar case: http://www.therecorder.com/id=1202509768273/Ginsberg-v.-Northwest,-Inc.?slreturn=20140109184948
I wanted to test whether the ban was permanent so I applied for a credit card a year later. Rejected.
I called Loss Prevention and was told it’s a permanent ban.
Really, I am surprised nobody has mentioned the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau .
Frankly, I just don’t care about Chase. So I got a bunch of points they perhaps were not supposed to give me? My income and net worth justified any level of spending I wanted . What is really funny is they didn’t give themselves the chance to earn a profit on the credit cards, and cut off $60,000 in interest-free deposits.
Now comes along AMEX willing selling their gift cards through Alaska Air and paying 3x Alaska points and 1.5 MR’s with the Everyday card.
So, I used those to pay taxes and ended up getting points at about .535 cents per point.
It’s pretty difficult to use an AMEX gift card–well nigh impossible–to get much cash, but I have converted some to Visa gift cards to pay real estate taxes and fund a little bit of Bluebird…..but merely to pay real bills that couldn’t otherwise be paid with a credit card.
So, let’s see if my $47,000 in AMEX gift card purchases raise a financial review. It’s more likely the $50,000 I spent on vacations in 3 months would do that. I haven’t even spent a good bit of the gift cards.
Has anyone heard of AMEX doing anything other than a financial review?
I got tired of dealing with Vanilla reloads, which cost .8 cents, $500 Visa gift cards, etc, and just started buying miles at 1.5 cents (or less).
I do admit my retaliation against Chase is feeble: Everytime they send a credit card offer I seal up the return envelope and send it back. I think they are out a full $7 this year, but it has given me a lot more than $7 in pleasure.
Hi..I just received a letter from Chase telling me that I have to close my account before certain period of time.. and I don’t know the reason why. Even when I called the bank specialist, they didn’t even tell me the reason. After reading some of your stories here, I guess because I deposited lots of cash for my 2 bank accounts (of course..I’m working as a server in a restaurant. .I got tips from customer.. I’m working legally and paid my taxes.. so, is it a crime to deposit ur own cash money to ur bank? It’s so weird..
Chase Bank, closed my business accounts. Please do not open a business checking account with Chase. If your company deposit a third party checks, deposit check drafts or depend on ACH transactions please choose another bank. Chase will close your account with no warning. We make large deposits every day and was surprise that Chase closed our account. Chase is only interested in investment accounts mortgages . We also recommend that you not open a merchant account with this bank. Their merchant arm is call Chase-Paymentech. Please take warning, they have left thousands of merchant very unhappy. This bank will close your account on the day of payroll with no warning. The bank is no longer a good bank for businesses. Please, please do not make the mistake in believing this bank cares about you or your business. If you have an account with them close it or you will be very surprise.
Just had the displeasure of receiving two letters from Chase Operating Loss Prevention each saying that “A review of our records indicates that we are unable to retain your above referenced account(s)…”. Both refer to small business accounts that have been open for nearly 6 years. Both accounts have positive balances and no overdraft history and I retain an excellent credit score as of my most recent credit report.
Of course I get this letter on a Saturday evening so there’s not much I can do right now in terms of going to a branch office to find out what’s happening with the account. So, I directed my efforts to searching the internet to see who else might have received this. Turns out that I’m not alone as evident by others experience on here and that Chase isn’t the only bank doing this (HSBC has also done this). All this makes me wonder what is wrong with the large banks in this country when small business financial lifelines are being targeted for closure.
Too big to fail? Not next time? Maybe to o big to FAIL, but not to big to disassemble and mete out to smaller banks who know their customers.
Look, there are people on this blog who legitimately deserved to have their accounts closed as they were not profitable….and they were not profitable because of manufactured spending. On the other hand , banks receive a charter REQUIRING them to serve the community in which they operate . Chase is not Joe’s Bar and grill. While I might miss getting drunk and eating there , they don’t have an obligation to the community in the same way as a bank. Realistically, you are not going to sue. You are goin to write a few letters and find another bank….preferably a small one. If you cannot find one , get together with business people in the community and start one. Where there is a need for banking services , the OCC or the NCUA will assist.
There are credit unions with only a few members that still have insurance from NCUA.
What is happening in this country? Read this, how far will this go?
The Morality Police in Your Checking Account: Chase Bank Shuts Down Accounts of Adult Entertainers
In the latest example of a troubling trend in which companies play the role of law enforcement and moral police, Chase Bank has shut down the personal bank accounts of hundreds of adult entertainers.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/04/moral-police-your-checking-account-chase-bank-shuts-down-accounts-adult
Operation Chokepoint, this is the first time I have heard of this. Is chase closing accounts just to satisfy the government?
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-budget/204174-operation-choke-point-harmful-to-flow-of-commerce
http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/mar/23/operation-choke-point-payday-lenders-issa-banks
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/29/porn-stars-high-risk-bank-accounts
Here is your complaint forum:
http://www.consumerfinance.gov/complaint/#credit-card
Does it appear to be related to cash and MO’s only at Chase? We do all our main banking there but deposit our MS MO’s and cash to other banks. Of course we have tons of Chase CC’s and use them to MS all the time. I see other bloggers/users in forums saying they get millions of points from Chase each year and we are lucky to hit 300-400k UR points. That being said, trying to learn what keeps us off Chase radar as they’ve been good to us and are very convenient.
It appears cash (and also MO) related yes- the Banking side seems to be where most issues stem from.
Good to know Matt but yet scary at same time. Even though I don’t use it for MS, we often get cash from selling several things on Craigslist or MO’s from doing the same thing. I guess we can’t live scared and if we’re doing the right things we’ll just have to not worry about it.
hi
got a letter today chase will be closing my checking/savings accounts as well – nothing about credit cards – are my credit cards at risk too? don’t want to lose points, i just got approved for chase ink card last month…
Yes, based on others I would highly recommend transferring your points out.
Did pat ever have her Chase CC closed due to checking account closure? Chase recently closed my checking/savings and am worried about my Chase United card point balance.
Assume that your cards are next and take appropriate measures.
I believe that she later had some adverse action towards the cards too.
This just happen to me. I was blocked put of my online acct. I contacted loss prevention and they advised that they decided to close my accounts with no reason. I spoke with loss prevention yvonne which was very rude telling me it was nothing she can due and the decision was final. I was told the only way I can get my money is by a check that would be issued out by the bank. I explained to the rep that I had bills coming out with direct deposit but she still says ma’am nothing we can do and it’s final. Is there any other way we can get our money out besides waiting on a chevk? I would like to join the class action law suit against Chase.
JP Morgan Chase is the most horrific heartless bank out there.
They closed my mothers account without notice and reason. She is close to 90 and a holocaust survivor
Her social security and German pension checks were returned to their respective sources causing a great deal of effort to retrieve them. All of her auto pays were bounced and it was only because she had some spare cash at home that she did not go hungry. This was done with 2 days warning and additionally her accounts were frozen. She is also legally blind.
Nazi Germany behaved much the same way.
Chase is ruthless and will stay away from them for the rest of my life. Mind you my mother was an account holder with them for close to gift years.
A lot of good that did.
They are despicable !!!!!
Seriously – consider going to the press for this. Theyre dispicable and the press will love your story and make Chase look disgusting