Sorry I haven’t posted lately, but I’ve been on hold with Chase Bank pretty much the entire time. If you have any options at all about where your mortgage is, let me give you this advice: DON’T GET A MORTGAGE WITH CHASE BANK. If you want to know why, please read on. If you hate rants, it’s probably best not to read any more. And yes, I know this has nothing to do with games or game stores. I will post another blog today with that info, I promise. 
We got a loan with a local bank (Far West), who immediately sold it to Washington Mutual. Fine, whatever, they’re kind of local too, and we could still go into the bank to make the payments, eliminating worry about mailing times, etc. We could even do electronic bill pay through the internet or through our own bank’s site. For 4 years we were fine with them.
Then they got bought by Chase, and the problems started immediately. At first, they were merely annoying: we could no longer go into a local branch to pay our mortgage because “the mortgage section is completely separate”, whatever that means. Electronically paying through our bank’s electronic bill pay didn’t work any longer; our bank had to send a check because Chase doesn’t accept electronic payments. We could no longer pay online either, because their web site doesn’t recognize our mortgage as a real account without also having some sort of checking or savings with their bank too. So now we’re forced to send a check through the mail every single month.
Guess what! When they get around to sending me a monthly bill (which is by no means a given with this company; they routinely don’t send me anything at all), it has a PO Box as an address. If you call the automated system to get an address for payment when you don’t get your monthly statement, they give you a different address. And if you ask to talk to a real person, you get yet a third payment address. Anywhere you send a payment can take anywhere from 1 to 3 1/2 weeks to process, so if you want to truly avoid late payments, you really have to pay nearly a whole month ahead, which is insane.
So I’m paying my mortgage every month when suddenly I get a notice of foreclosure. WTF? They claim I’m NOT paying every month, and when I look at the list of payments, I see they have not credited me for October 2009. Now, this is a problem for me on several different levels. First of all, if they truly thought I was missing a payment, why the {bleep} didn’t they call me or send me something mentioning it? Secondly, who the {bleep} forecloses over one missing payment without giving any opportunity to catch up? Holy cow.
After taking time to calm down, I called Chase to ask where I could send proof of payment. 20 minutes later I finally got to speak to a person and got the fax number. I then called my own (vastly superior) credit union to ask them to fax the proof of payment, which they promptly did. This was February 22nd. I waited a while to hear back from Chase, then called them about a week later. I was told to be patient because investigations take up to 30 days. Whatever. If they want something from me, I don’t get to wait 30 days, I have to send it that day.
I called again on March 15th, which was 4 WEEKS after I sent the original investigation request. Apparently I’m now in a special foreclosure department that closes at 5:00 pm Eastern, 3:00 pm my time. I called at 2:55 pm my time. The person who answered the phone said that I would have to talk to customer service to find out the status of the investigation. He transferred me. The person who answered there said since I was a previous Washington Mutual customer he couldn’t help me. He transferred me. The person who answered there said I had to talk to a special foreclosure department. She tried to transfer me, but came back a few minutes later to tell me she was getting a message that the department closed at 5 pm. This was the original department I had talked to first. It took nearly an hour of holding and talking to get back to this point. Apparently, the first guy wanted to go home more than he wanted to answer a very simple question. Understandably unhappy at this point, I asked to talk to a supervisor. She said one would call me back. Nope.
Next day: I call again. The person who answers tells me an investigation was opened on March 15th, and that it will take 30 days… I ask what about the 4 weeks since they’ve had my information. She said that doesn’t count. Then she told me to stop bothering them and hung up on me. So I called back. Asked for a supervisor. Explained the whole thing again. Got hung up on again. Called back. Crying. Was put on hold without warning and transferred into some random person’s voice mail. Left a message requesting a call back in the hopes it was a supervisor. I still don’t know because I didn’t get called back. Again.
I called again this morning, and the person who answered said that it must have been resolved since I only owe for March. I spent 5 minutes trying to convince her that I should owe for April at this point before she interrupted me and asked when the investigation was opened. I told her I requested it in February but it was only officially opened last week. She said it will take 30 days and stop calling…
Worst. Customer. Service. On. The. Planet.
Guess what? I can’t refinance because my credit report shows 30 days late on my mortgage for the last 5 months.
Chase SUCKS.
