Reply #25: I had Chase too ..... [View All]

[gleaner]

We had WAMU at first, which was a reasonably good bank. We were in their overdraft protection program which did not require a line of credit. When Chase took over I had a feeling things would change for the worse. My husband and I closed all of our credit card accounts, paid off in full. We still had the overdraft protection, there was no way to opt out and it was helpful on occasion.

We did a refi of our mortgage with WAMU. We had good credit, so we got a 5.5% fixed rate back when interest rates were averaging 6% or above. Then my husband got sick to the point of death and had to be hospitalized for 14 weeks. During that time WAMU became Chase. Also during that time our house lost most of its value and our equity disappeared. In essence we are renting from Chase Manhattan and calling it a mortgage. My federal pension was reduced by $182 which is what happens when you initially retire on disability (I have MS) and later turn retirement age. I am 62. I guess when you get old they think the disability doesn't matter as much.

My husband came home, still very ill and with a whole new galaxy of medications to keep him alive. Our food costs soared because of inflation and because he has to follow a special diet. We fell behind on our bills and finally we missed one mortgage payment to Chase after never missing a payment before. They gave us two days to pay. We scraped together enough money to make our payment but they wouldn't accept it then. They said we had to pay the next payment as well. We decided to use the overdraft protection which allowed us to write over $1000, but they had turned it off. We called them and begged for a payment holiday which was allowable under our original contract. They refused and tried to bully us into applying for a line of credit at about 30% interest. We explained that we had not been able to make payments to my husband's doctors for the amounts his health insurance would not cover. We wouldn't qualify for any credit. We begged them to help us and they would not.

I called my sister who is 72. She closed out her IRA account that she was depending on and gave us enough money to catch up on the mortgage and our other bills. I don't know what we would have done without her help, and I hated like Hell having to ask her and perhaps take away money she might need. She sent the money by wire transfer so that it would get to Chase by their impromptu deadline and they charged us $15 for the transaction. We brought the mortgage up to date and put in for relief under Obama's stimulus plan which Chase had never suggested to us even though they were supposed to. When the stimulus first became public and we checked it we were not eligible because my pension had not been cut. That put us over the edge. We didn't know it but Chase did. They just didn't feel like sharing. They have lied to us and acted in bad faith at every turn.

Two days after we had squared the mortgage, we found a credit union and we have moved our direct deposits there and opened a share draft account. When and if it is feasible we will ask them to refi our existing mortgage, if we ever get any equity back. We haven't told Chase yet. We don't feel like sharing either. They will figure it out on December 1 when all of the direct deposits except the VA check will not go on. The VA check will be out of there in January. And you can bet that any renegotiation of the existing mortgage will be carefully vetted. There are lawyers circling like sharks just waiting for stuff like this.

What you posted doesn't surprise me at all. Please get out of Chase. Go to a small bank or a credit union with your bank accounts and if you can, close the account they are threatening you with and get some guidance about negotiating a payment agreement you can live with. Chase has lied to all of us. They released a story to the media earlier this year about how they were going to "help" all of their customers by letting them opt into an overdraft program if they wanted it effective January 1 and renegotiate all of their credit card agreements to benefit new and existing customers. Obviously they chose not to wait. I have to thank Congress too. I can't tell you how bad the stress of this has been for my husband, for my Multiple Sclerosis and for my sister.

The final insult was that after the mortgage was paid in full, they sent a letter dated earlier threatening to foreclose and telling us that we needed to let them know if we were ill or our income had been reduced or we needed financial counseling. We had been telling them that all along. They took notes on their computers as we spoke. I could hear them typing. Obviously they lie more easily than they breathe. Too bad we can't all get together and put them out of business, but then the world is for the rich, the banks are for the rich and we are just the fools who keep them running whether we want to or not.