A Washington state couple with tens of thousands of dollars in their Chase checking, savings and retirement accounts recently came home to find a letter from the bank telling them that, oh, by the way, your accounts are now frozen.

“It says here, ‘We are writing to notify you that we are closing your deposit accounts in accordance with your Chase deposit agreement terms and conditions,'” the husband tells King 5 TV about the letter notifying the couple that their account would be closed within 10 business days, with absolutely no explanation whatsoever.

A call to the phone number on the letter was even less helpful. “They just told us, ‘We’re closing your account,’ and they said that they could not give us a reason why,” says the husband.

The couple went down to the branch the next business day. “Our accounts were already frozen and they had already bounced all of our outstanding checks,” says the wife. “Even though there was sufficient funds to cover everything…

“They also seemed confused. The manager said they usually only see this sort of thing in cases of check fraud, which they knew that we weren’t committing any check fraud.”

Meanwhile all the checks the couple had written were bouncing like crazy. And they also had no access to the money in their account, meaning they couldn’t pay other bills, including the medical bills for the wife, who had just completed treatments for her Stage 2 breast cancer.

Without explanation, the bank eventually unfroze their accounts. All Chase would say to King 5 is, “We apologized… for the confusing communication. At her request, we’ve reviewed her account, re-opened it [them] and will reimburse her for any fees she incurred.”

The couple, who say they have no intention of ever having another Chase account again, tell King 5 that Chase promised not to report the bounced checks or closed accounts to credit agencies but that their request to get this promise in writing from the bank has gone unanswered.

Chase mistake leaves couple scrambling [King5.com]

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