Consumers Continue to Complain About Chase Card Tactics

The Chase credit card unit is a subsidiary of JP Morgan and Chase Co. a leader in financial services that operates in more than 60 countries and one of the leading credit card companies in the nation. According to recent reports, over 100 million Americans currently carry Chase cards.

The Issues
Despite being a leader in a variety of financial services with a mission for customer service and corporate responsibility, Chase continues to find themselves in legal proceedings due to a multitude of consumer’s complaints against them. Chase has seen its fair share of legal trouble relating to discrepancies with credit card fees, rates and overall tactics.  Chase has been charged with breaching its own offers, infringing on the Truth in Lending Act and imposing charges on its customers; to name a few.

Chase cards have traditional offered consumer’s low rates, attractive fees for balance transfers and other perks.  Many customers were drawn to the attractive offers that Chase promised to provide. These same customers that signed on for the card later filed a class action suit claiming that Chase did not honor their offers. Reports could not produce any comments by Chase about the pending complaints or in defense of their position.

The Timeline of Complaints

A few years ago Chase offers some 300,000 of its creditworthy cardholders promotional offer that promised debt consolidation through balanced transfers. The balance transfer rates were promised a fixed low APR that would be apply for the entire life of the consolidated loan.

In November 2008 Chase informed the cardholders who signed on for the promotional rate that effective in January 2009 a flat fee would be charged each month. This charge of $10.00 would mean an increased APR on balances and increased interest rates for those that carried a balance. This change could potentially increase the fees of those card members who signed on under the promotional offer in 2008.

This change in agreement was met with many consumer complaints. Many of the 300,000 consumers involved raised issues relating to this change.  In July of 2009 a class action lawsuit was filed against Chase leading to an investigation by New York Attorney General Mario Cuomo in relation to these and other similar charges.

The investigation led to the decision in late March 2009  that Chase would be ordered to refund the consumers that it had charged fees under what was considered a unilateral change in terms. Instead of paying the refunds, in September Chase filed a motion to the federal court asking that the court throw out the class action lawsuit. The dismissal of the case, as requested by Chase was denied. The next step in the process is a hearing scheduled for sometime in May 2010 which will determine the motion for class certification. May will probably not bring a decision about this case but rather legal proceedings are sure to continue far beyond that date.  This may become worse if customer complaints about Chase continue to surface.

JP Morgan Chase is facing yet another new 2010 lawsuit from a prior credit card customer who claims that his interest rate was raised after his outstanding balance was paid in full.  The consumer reports that Chase informed customers that they can opt-out of increases to interest rates if they decide to close their accounts. This consumer decided to take advantage of that offer and alleged to have paid his balance in full. Regardless of the payment his interest rate was raised.  After attempts to resolve this without success he proceeded with legal action against Chase which is still pending. This lawsuit also seeks class-action status as it was found to have affected many other cardholders.

Awaiting Resolve
As recently as April of 2010, reports from a variety of sources list pages of consumer complaints against Chase. The complaints range from breach of agreement to unauthorized charges, to failure to notify consumers of changes to their credit card agreements. Most commonly consumers indicate that Chase has been unavailable and uncooperative to their attempts to resolve issues through the routine process.  Consumers who have come forward have outlined their attempts to resolve this discrepancy with the customer service department at Chase, most are still without resolve. It seems that the consumer drive class action lawsuits may be the one of the only ways that consumers are able to get their issues resolved.

All of the pending legal cases are awaiting final resolution and whatever the outcome it is sure to make great waves in the future of the credit card industry. The cases mentioned above were filed prior to the new credit card legislation being signed into law. Since the inception of the new legislation, complaints about the tactics of the Chase company have not stopped however none have risen to the legal level as of yet.

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