In the last few days, we’ve received a couple of e-mails from readers who were getting strange explanations from Chase about why automated payments had been deducted twice from their accounts. But before we could figure out what was going on, the bank has issued a “my bad” to affected customers, and thrown in $25 in “we’re sorry” cash.

For example, there is Brian, a Consumerist reader and Chase customer who uses the bank’s QuickPay system to pay his rent every month.

His $900 payment was originally deducted as scheduled on Nov. 15. Yay. But wait — the bank deducted it a second time the very next day.

“I called Chase customer service, and a few transfers later someone finally explained that there was an issue with the QuickPay system and that I wasn’t the only one experiencing the issue, writes Brian. “They promised to have the money back in my account by the end of the business day. A few hours later, I checked my account online and saw two pending deposits into the account, one for the duplicate QuickPay transfer, and one for the overdraft fee, totalling $912. I shortly thereafter received an email from Chase recognizing the problem that had occurred, and stating it had been corrected. Problem solved; or so I thought.”

Apparently, this morning those pending deposits disappeared completely. And there was a third debit for $900 and yet another overdraft fee!

“I called Chase again (a little more infuriated this time),” says Brian. “This time, no transfer. The customer service rep knew of the problem and said that Chase is working on the issue, but had no timetable for solving the problem.”

About six hours later, Brian and several other Chase customers received the following e-mail from Chase:

From: Chase@emailreply.chase.com
Subject: WHOOPS – WE’RE SORRY!

Whoops – We’re Sorry!

People make mistakes. Unfortunately, we made one twice.

Over the weekend, we made a number of improvements to Chase QuickPay. Following that upgrade we accidently [sic] sent your same Chase QuickPay payment twice. Last night, we attempted to reverse the duplicate payment, but we messed up and instead sent a third payment.

Today, we think we have finally straightened things out, but we realize we likely confused you and inconvenienced you over the past several days.

We are very sorry. I personally am very sorry. We greatly appreciate your business and value our relationship. Of course, all fees associated with this problem will be refunded.

The improvements we made to chase.com and Chase QuickPay over the weekend were intended to make your life easier, not more challenging. Clearly, we’re not off to a great start but we hope these improvements will pay off in the long run. As a small token for the troubles we caused you, we just deposited $25 into your account. Feel free to save it, spend it, or email it to a friend.

Sincerely

Ryan McInerney
CEO Consumer Banking

While some readers who had yet to notice a problem with their account were pleasantly surprised by the e-mail, others like Brian who have been trying for days to get this resolved aren’t so impressed.

“The email comes across as pretty desperate to retain me as a customer,” he says. “J.P. seems to be losing it. I think I’m gonna go talk to Chuck.”

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