Quick diary here as I'm on a deadline. I just came back from Chase where they reverted, with apologies, an incorrect (but hardly innocent) $10 finance charge they applied to an account I closed last month. There were no late checks or anything -- it was entirely Chase's doing.
As I was clearly in the right they made no fuss, but I'm SURE every other customer who closes an account is hit with the same fee, and many probably don't have the time or stomach to argue. So that's a pretty nice little racket. I wonder what can be done about it.
A few more details below the fold.
Since 2008 I'd had a no-fee checking account on Chase, "inherited" from Washington Mutual (where I opened it 20 years ago).
Some time in 2010 Chase started charging a $10 monthly fee unless you kept a good chunk of money on the account -- $1500 minimum to be precise (or had direct deposit, or had an average balance of $5k in checking plus savings). I was hit with the fee once and since then I started watching my balance like a hawk.
But it doesn't make sense to keep this much money tied up, and I'd been meaning to transfer the money to a credit union. I finally did so on April 3, several weeks after writing the last check and stopping automatic withdrawals.
Even then, alerted by something I read here on Daily Kos, I asked to the person who handled the closing what would happen if a stray charge came in after the closing -- would they reopen the account and start charging fees again? The clerk had to call a central office to find out the answer. He said that if no charges were actually pending (and were posted in the next 48 hours), the account would be really, truly closed.
So I withdrew the balance and left, and assumed that was that.
Today I got a statement with no mention of the account closure. It shows a $10 negative balance. At first I thought that in spite of all my care there had been outstanding charges when I closed the account. But no, it was just their own software, carefully programmed to look at the minimum and average balance over a whole month, rather than over the period during which the account was open! So they were charging me $10 for not keeping the minimum balance on an already closed account.
Needless to say I was annoyed and went to the branch to complain in person (I know from experience that the time wasted is less than trying to do it by phone). I half-expected some cockamamie justification. But after punching numbers for a good 5 minutes, the lady said she'd reversed the charge, the balance was 0 and the account was closed of today.
I said, it got closed on April 3 and I heard the same thing then -- how can I be sure now? I also said, in a rather loud voice, I bet I was not the only person to whom this had happened. She mumbled another apology and said she'd talk to whoever, so it wouldn't happen to anyone else. (Ha. As if.)
I asked for a printout showing the zero balance and a letter stating that the account was closed (actually I had gotten one about the account closure the first time around, and it was worthless, but I hadn't brought it with me so I didn't bring this up). She said she wasn't able to give me either paper -- the fee reversal wouldn't show until tomorrow anyway.
In the end she wrote this on the statement I had brought in with me: "As of 4/30/12 fee was reversed and account will be closed. Next statement will be sent to you as of last paper [sic] to show 0 balance. [Signature]."
Well, let's hope this works. It probably will in my case. But there are lots of people for whom $10 is a big deal and who will end up paying anyway, because they can't take time from work, or are not assertive, etc.
Silvio Levy