I travel a lot and work very long hours so I tend to pay all of my bills online. For accounts that I infrequently use, like my chase account, i set it up on automatic payments to double the minimum payment amount.
I was contacted by Chase by phone and was told that my account was over the limit and past due. Since I have not used the account I asked to have the last few transactions read to me. The rep started to read off the charges and after the first two were Payment Protection charges that I never authorized he told me that he could not see any other charges. I found this strange since the charges he told of would have neither caused me to go over my limit nor increase my min. Payment to a point where I would be deficient in my monthly automatic payments.
I requested that the last 12 months of statements be emailed or sent to me and the call ended. Once I received the invoices I discovered that the payment protection plan had been charged monthly for 9 months! Increasing every month. I called Chase and told them of the fraud and the answers and attitude that I received was nothing short of strange. I started to figure it out that Payment Protection was actually Chase!
I asked the Rep this and he stated that it was an outside company. I asked for a Supervisor and talked to her and she too stated that it was an outside company that was "In no way affiliated with Chase" As soon as she said that she then TRANSFERRED my call to Payment Protection!
How can you transfer a call to another company with no affiliation? I talked with the Rep at payment protection who actually told me that I authorized the service by phone and gave me a date... Too bad for him that the date he gave me coincided with me being in Thailand. I then started to question him on the connection between Chase and Payment Protection. I interview people for a living so it did not take long to get answers from him that they are a different division of Chase. He even told me that his paychecks were from Chase!
Well, the position I am in now is that they told me that they will investigate the fraud and get back to me in 8 to 12 weeks. I told him that I was requesting that all of the recordings of my phone conversations be saved and that my request be documented. I also requested that I receive, in writing that they have started a fraud investigation and the time frames that we discussed. He agreed and the call ended.
Three weeks later I begin to get collection calls from Chase demanding payments. Each caller has no knowledge of any fraud investigation even though I request that each call be saved and that my profile be updated. I have now revied a demand notice threatening me to either pay my full balance on my card or that they will start legal action against me.
It is frustrating because I know my failure to notice the charges is partly to blame but it does not excuse fraud! I am planning to write a letter to Chase and to the two attorney's that are listed on the letter to explain the fraud, the fact that this same issue is listed all over the internet at many different consumer protection sites and that if they agree to reverse the charges and the subsequent late charges and over the limit charges I will pay off my rightfull balance in full and close the account. Is this the right step?
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