Three years ago I got an ad in the mail for a Sony product. I called to order the product. They pushed me to sign up for a “Sony” credit card by offering me a $100 rebate. I didn’t need the card but I signed up for it. It turned out to be a Chase card, but I thought nothing of it. I paid the card off in one month and filed it away. I got monthly mail offerings from Chase that I also threw away. Then I got the “transfer balance” offer that had a 2.9% interest rate for the life of that balance. I took out a $5,000 transfer and stopped using the card but paid 1.5 times the monthly minimum via my other bank’s auto pay. I’ve never missed a payment or been late.

I do a lot of my shopping via Amazon.com. They pushed customers to get an Amazon credit card with both a $30 deduction and faster free delivery. I eventually signed up for the card. The Amazon credit card that I received in the mail was a Chase card.

I bought my home from Washington Mutual(now Chase). I paid off my 30 year loan in 12 years. I used to get mail from them (as Washington Mutual) every week to sign up for a credit card. I eventually signed up for an offer of 0% interest on all purchases for 2 years (which ends in Feb 2009). The credit line was for $10,000. I got as high as using $5,000 on the card but had been paying twice the minimum payment and had stopped using it 6 months ago.

This September I started seeing late charges on my Sony account with the 2.9% rate. Without notice they increased my minimum monthly payment up to 250% of the normal amount due. Because I pay them through autopay I was sure everything was OK. They sent me an automated email notice saying I was deliniquent on the account, I looked on-line at the statement and it showed everything being normal (my rate did not show an increase, my payments were recorded etc.) I just came through a medical operation and had other things on my mind and assumed the email was a mistake. However, within the next month they had assessed me $150.00 in late fees, cut my credit line in half (taking it down to the current balance I had). Now, by my not knowing about the huge increase in my minimum payment, my auto payments weren’t enough to keep my account from going past the limit, even though I haven’t charged anything to the card in more than a year. Therefore, I’ve been charged more late fees.

Because of my now new “bad” record with them (that I unaware of) they used that as an excuse to cut my credit line on the card with the 0% interest on purchases promotion down from $10,000 to $5,000 which is the amount I currently owe). That was the Washington Mutual Bank card that was bought out by Chase this year.

Chase also took my Amazon card, which I not only paid off in full each month via auto pay, but having not used that card for the past 5 months, I had overpaid the card 3 months in a row while I was undergoing recovery from my surgery. Chase sent me an overpayment check for $179 and a letter saying that they had closed the account because of “high” balances on the card.

I am now getting 4-5 automated phone calls every day from them telling me I need to call them “today”. Right now I’m far too angry and upset to try and hold a conversation with them (I called them 3 weeks ago and thought all had been straightened out). At that time they only told me about the account with the late charges (which they refunded to me) and they told me they had just sent me a check to cover the overpayment on the Amazon account. However, they didn’t have the courtesy to tell me that they also closed that account, and that they had cut my credit lines on the two other accounts down to the point where if I had used either card I would have gone over my credit line and would have probably been charged overdraft fees on each purchase.
This is criminal what they are doing!

Chase has maliciously set about to slash my credit lines, ruin my credit, and to change the terms of my account to try and force me into becoming delinquent and to charge me enormous fees. My credit record is 40 years old and I have only had one report of a late payment in all those years (which has long been off my credit reports). When I purchased a new car 8 years ago the auto financial employee told me my FICA score was 798. She said it was the highest score she had seen in the four years she had worked at Chrysler. That was a 30 month loan which I paid off in 6 months.

Yet Chase bank is trying to throw me out of their bank while at the same time they are running ads on TV and on the internet trying to get new customers. I just don’t understand. Due to hospital bills and the fact that my house taxes and auto insurance is due in December, this is a bad time for me to be dealing with Chase’s tricks. I have over $100,000 in credit cards lines that have a Zero balance, I’m not beholden to Chase.

I’ll talk to them on Monday, I’m willing to payer higher minimum monthly fees but nothing else. They are banking on hitting me with a high interest rate come February on that 0% account. I’ll let them know that a week before the money is due I’ll walk into their bank and pay it all off. I’ll pay them off every account and close my checking account that they inherited from Washington Mutual so that they won’t ever make a penny from me again.

They suck so bad!

See if this link helps (citing 12 C.F.R. 226.13):

http://www.fdic.gov/regulations/laws/rules/6500-1650.html#6500226.13

Try communicating with one or more of the class action firms. Otherwise, I will hope that you achieve your goals. Chase clearly does not want to play fair, given that it wants to charge interest on a finance charge that was inappropriately imposed in the first place — I do think that this issue is conceptually related to the class actions (all of these remarks are just my opinion — not legal advice).

Yet more gibberish to confuse the consumer and nullify any real dispute or claim.

I am not able to give legal advice, but I am not comfortable with your outline. It implies further damages to you will be the result, but not to Chase.

I might suggest that you consider sending letters of dispute to the OCC, the NY Attorney General’s Office, and to Chase Executive Offices. You can also include a payment with the written remarks in a cover letter to the effect that:

“I dispute these charges, but as I do not wish to be damaged further by Chase’s inappropriate actions through its attempts to collect interest on top of finance charges that should never have been imposed in the first place, I submit the enclosed sum to be held by Chase until this issue is settled through a legal or regulatory remedy.”

I am sitting tight until the Thursday meeting with the White House, but if nothing definitive is stated I am going to dispute my entire balance based on an incorrect balance for the new interest calculations. I am also going to press my position that these changes have harmed me in regard to monthly debt/income ratio and use that approach, and the guarantee before Congress that those who are harmed by changes in Chase terms can get the opt out at their original terms.

I of course have no idea how this will pan out and I am completely beside myself at the possibility of further destroying my own credit but I have decided I will not use my 401 (k) and disrupt my future over practices that could well be deemed illegal in a couple of years.

Since I am completely consumed with thoughts of Chase credit cards and the impact these deceptive practices have had on me and everyone who is affected, I may as well use that time filing counter suits to their collection efforts.