I’ve been a Chase customer for nearly 8 years, counting the time I was with Bank One before they were acquired by Chase.   I started with just a basic checking account, and over the years, I have opened a savings account, credit card account, and switched my car loan to them, keeping everything under one roof.  Last month, I spoke with them about a home loan, and assuming they had a competitive deal, they would have been collecting my mortgage payments by the end of the year.  All seemed well – I figured myself as a poster child for good customers, and had previously been happy banking with them.

That all changed recently, when Chase decided to reward my loyalty increasing  the APR on my credit card by over 80%, unless I decline the change of terms and close the account by November 1st.  Isn’t that wonderful?

They are doing this because the current administration has passed some new legislation that is scheduled to go into effect on December 1, that among other things, prevents the banks from charging you a higher APR on existing balances when they raise your rates.  The solution then, is for them to jack up rates before the legislation goes into effect.  I contacted Chase to let them know that if they insisted on raising my APR, that they were risking losing my business, including my upcoming mortgage.  The customer service drones didn’t care, simply restating my options.

So, fast forward another week or so, and I found a house I wanted.  I made an offer, got a counter, and things were looking good – until I couldn’t get in touch with my loan officer at Chase.  The sellers, as part of the counter-offer, requested a pre-approval letter that had the address on it for the house I was buying.  Why this matters, when I already had a blanket pre-approval letter is beyond me, but hey, it’s what they were asking for.  We contacted the loan officer around 12:30 on Thursday afternoon, and didn’t hear anything back.  By Friday, I was trying to get her on the phone, my agent was trying to reach her, and even the seller’s agent was trying to reach her.  No dice.

Once 24 hours had passed without any signs of life from the loan officer, I was getting pretty pissed off.  I called the branch, and found out she was out of the office until Monday.  My agent pressed further, and got her supervisor on the phone.  He told us she was on vacation all week – which is fine, everyone deserves a vacation once in awhile, but the least you could do is A) Setup an auto-response on your email, B) Give some indication that you are out on your voicemail, and when you will be back, and C) Either have someone monitoring your phone/email in your absence, or give customers the information of someone else they can speak to.  In any case, the supervisor got in touch with her, and she finally called my agent back on Friday night.

That should have been the end of the story, however, the loan officer wasn’t the least bit concerned about my plight.  My agent explained the situation to her, told her what we needed, and as of Saturday morning, we still didn’t have the new pre-approval letter.  We couldn’t get in touch with her, couldn’t get in touch with her supervisor, and were told by the seller’s agent that they had received another offer on the home, and that they were considering it, because we technically hadn’t held up to the counter offer, since we didn’t provide the pre-approval letter in the timeframe specified.

We are essentially dead in the water at this point – my agent called around, and found a local bank that could work with us to get me the pre-approval letter we needed.  We’re hoping that if we can get this letter in, the sellers will still honor our contract, and we’ll move forward – but things are very much up in the air.  The sellers could easily walk away and accept the other offer they received, and I’ll have lost the house, due to the incompetence of the employees of Chase.

Regardless of how this plays out, Chase has lost this guy as a customer.  It’s going to be a hassle to change banks, especially when I have nearly every bill of mine setup for auto-payment, but there’s no chance in hell that I’m going to keep doing business with Chase.  If this is the type of service I can expect when i actually need them to do something for me, I’m better off elsewhere.