If you have any Chase credit cards, call to make sure they haven’t been canceled out from under you with no notice. Huh? Are credit card companies allowed to do that? Don’t be silly. Of course they are.
Joey wrote in with this tale of annoyance and woe:
Last Friday, when I stopped at a gas station and tried to pay for gas with my Chase Freedom credit card, the machine told me it was declined. I thought it was a problem with the machine so I went inside and tried to use the card with the person working. The card was denied again. Frustrated, I called Chase Card Services to figure out what was going on.
The rep told me my card had been cancelled. Not only my Freedom card, but also my 3 other Chase credit cards (I use them for different rewards). I told him it was outrageous that I hadn’t received any early notification, and all he could say was that I would be getting something in the mail soon. I asked why my cards were canceled, and his response was that I had too many loans out so Chase considered me a risk. For the record, I do have loans that I’m paying off – my student loans and the loan on a recently purchased house. However, I’ve always paid the balance on my Chase credit cards in full every month and rarely ever am I late (the last time was at least 6 months ago). Nothing in my history with them would cause them to think I would not pay my bills. The rep couldn’t do anything for me so I asked to speak to a supervisor. I was told they were busy and that one would call me back. No one has since.
This angered me to no end and ruined my weekend. Not only did 4 out of the 5 credit cards I have get cancelled (I still have an Amex), the rep told me that since my credit cards were cancelled, I wouldn’t be able to take advantage of the rewards I had accumulated on the card. I currently have over $100 in rewards from Chase that I’ve been saving to get the $250 check for $200 reward dollars program they had. So now they expect me to pay the remainder of my bill, but they’re screwing me out of money I could potentially get from them.
Today, my parents told me all their Chase cards had been canceled as well, and their credit history is probably better than mine. I assume there are many other people out there that have been affected as well. What the #*&@ is going on with Chase!?!?! Do they really have the right to do this!? Can I at least force them to let me use my rewards?
Fight back, Consumerist-style. If escalating things in the normal customer service channels doesn’t work, we have some ideas about who to call or e-mail. Be polite, professional, and firm.
Have you experienced similar cancellations at the hands of Chase? Have you fought back? Share your story in the comments.
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I’ve had this $8000 card for 2 years, first with wamu, now chase. this card, and all of my other cards have been perfect. no late payments, never over-limit, not dormant, I dont understand. when I called them, they wouldn’t give me a specific reason. they actually told me one of the reasons was the length of time I had the account. WHAT? that makes no sense. they were rude, and I even got hung up on by 2 different supervisors. and to add insult to injury, they doubled my interest rate 2 days before they cancelled it, again with no notification. (I found out it was cancelled when it was all of a sudden declined at the store. EMBARASSING!) I’m contemplating a lawsuit, and going to my attorney general, as well as BBB, FTC, and the local media. I am NOT taking this sitting down, like they expect me to.
I have two credit cards with Chase and to my surprise I found out yesterday that they were cancelled by Chase during their internal review. I was never late with them, always paying more than minimum and keeping only less than 20-30% of the balance occassionally or paid it off completely during the last 2 years. These accounts are maintained in very satisfactory way and I am really surpirised why they got cancelled.
I dont know how they are getting away with this. I was also suprised that as a consumer we can not really sue the Bank because we signed up for the arbitration deals. This is certainly a ripoff and scant disregard to the consumer rights.
This is why I haven’t used a commercial bank or any of their credit cards in a dozen years or so. I’ve been quite happy with my credit union and their 12% steady interest rate. Membership regulations have relaxed a bit in the past few years. Perhaps if more people switched from banks to CUs, then Chase et. al would get a clue.
My wife was getting her car repaired. When she went to pay for it with her chase credit card they said her acct was closed.
She called chase and they said yes it was closed because they saw a negative on her credit report. Heres the rub…she was
intially with washington mutual but only had a checking acct. 5yrs ago she filed for bankruptcy. She then open up a secured
card with a $300 limit and kept paying on time & using it. She then received a offer from washington mutual to open a unsecured
credit card, which she accepted. That was 4yrs ago,she always payed on time no problems, but it was a high interest card. About
2yrs later she received a offer for a lower interest card, which she accepted and closed the high interest card. Again always payed
her card on time, no late payments or anything. Then Washinton mutual as you know went out of business & was taken over by chase.
Everyone at chase assured us there was no reason to close her accts..checking or credit card, everything would stay the same.
So she elected not to close her accts and continued paying her credit cards and maintaining her checking acct perfectly.
That’s when out of nowhere chase closed her acct.to this day she has never received a notice from chase of the card being closed.
We are about to contact their dispute dept monday 7-20-09. When we contacted cust.ser. they said the acct was cosed because of a
negative on her card, and nothing else could be done… not fair She is in fear of losing all of her good credit history, a drop in
her fico score and the need of having and using her credit card. Then seems highly illegal and horrible ethics with damaging results
for her credit & history.Her credit limit is $2400 & her balance is $1800. She has never been late and although i was out of work, which
now i’m back to work. We had intended to decrease the balance by $1000 next month. I will be be filing a dispute in her behalf.
#1 she never received a notice, letter email or anything that this action was about to take place. And was guaranteed when chase took ove wamu,
that all was safe,no need to change. They’ve had plently of time to review her status back when they took over wamu, and for the last
4yrs she has litterly showed her credit worthiness.
She is of japanese descent & her english is no where near the level to handle this without my assistance. We are in Studio City Ca not TX.
But because we saw your advice concerning simular matters on http://www.creditmagic.org/card/chase.html. We thought we would search
for perfessional advice before contacting a attorney…which is costly. Your advice would be greatly appreciated or any refferal in
the los angeles area that can further help or advise us is needed greatly.
I know we need to hurry before all is lost and the credit agencies issue bad marks on her report.Can they do this? without warning?
All The Best
Irate Consumer
Got a letter from Chase on Saturday (as well as a letter from Majestic Visa), both cards closed… the Chase card says its because of high balances… that’s funny on June 30th I paid off all my high balance cards, including the Chase card (ex-Wamu card).
I just got off the phone with cstmr service and got the run around. Not pressed about the Majestic card because its balance wasn’t that high, but this Chase card had a decent limit on it… still it wasn’t my only high limit card so I’m thinking screw it… note to self, never do business with Chase again.
I got double whammy from Chase (wamu) today, I had my pets at the vets while having a new a/c compressor unit installed. (live in FL) very ness.. I was floored when my card was declined for a 145. charge, even worse, it’s waht I was going to use for the a/c. I got home and called Chase while the a/c tech was finishing… OMG, they had closed my account without warning, I logged onto the account and there was nothing to indicate it was closed, The foreign phone rep said I would get a letter that was sent the 14th.
What a lousy bunch. Never late, never over, and paid more than the minimum. not enough anymore.
Chase closed my account, which was in good standing, because I was paying off other credit card services and paying more than the minimal amout due. I told the Chase rep that made no sense…treating people in a negtative was for being financially responsible. Wasn’t the bail out money from the federal government supposed to keep credit flowing, Chase got their fair share of this bail out money.
Just found out Chase canceled my two cards- pretty much the same story Joey
@Trois de Jesus: as an added note, I suspect the reason Chase is doing this is because when they cancel your account, it lowers your fico, thereby allowing them or anybody else to charge you higher interest rates should you apply for credit in the future. And we all know, the interest is where they make their money.
Same here, my purchase at a Lowe’s was declined. I burned 15 minutes cell time on hold trying to find out then hung up. A week later my card and my wifes card were cancelled. We got a letter in the mail…too many loans. I have always paid on time and pay extra. I am a contractor and had to use my card more than usual last Oct till this April when work slowed down.
I’m not going to try to get the cards back, I’ll just pay them off and go on. The whole financial world is going to be messed up soon, this is only the beginning. Loving the LORD is the main thing.
My Chase (Wamu – before that Providian) card has just had the available credit cut in half. I’ve had the account since 98 – balance has been $0 for 2 years. This month I used it & then paid it off three days later and I just logged in to pay off the card again after a $60 charge from this weekend – only to see that my available credit has been cut in half! (from 9k to 4k)
I rarely use this account, so it won’t result in a cashflow issue, but this will cut my credit score as it’ll shift my overall balance of available credit to credit used.
Chase just did this to me, except I was out of state trying to get gas.
The unbelievable thing is that I had a $0 balance, got charged the annual membership fee, did NOT used the card one time after, and now they won’t refund the annual membership fee. It was 110 days from fee to cancel.
:/
I’d never had a charge declined before, it was surreal. But don’t expect much from Chase in the way of customer service. We had a home loan,got into a situation where we had to do a lease purchase because we couldn’t outright sell the house with one of those “sell your house in 7 days” people. We notified Chase in writing, gave our new address in a diff city. But the new “owner” kept changing the address to his PO Box so we wouldn’t get statements (online not avail) and we had to keep calling Chase. We had a password put on the account to protect it, never helped. All the guy needed was our name,DOB and address it seemed. After 2 years of it, we finally got the new “owner” to pay off the loan, but Chase never stopped letting him change our info. They are pathetic!!!!!