Chase had closed my mom’s Starbucks prepaid card back in early July. At the time, I had a balance over $6,000. I waited about 2 months for a check in the mail, but it never came. I then called them up, and they said I had to go into a Chase branch to show them proof of my last ~$6K load. I then had my mom bring them a printed transaction page of the load to a local branch. The branch then called up the 800 number who then told her that wasn’t good enough proof. They then wanted ME to go to a local Chase branch since the load came from my account and show them proof of the transaction ON MY PHONE (I guess they were concerned about a Photoshop?!?)
I then went to my local branch, where the rep then called up the 800 number and told them, “He’s here showing me the transaction on the phone.” It took about 30 minutes for the phone call to be taken care of. My local rep then said I was good to go and so I waited a few more months. Remind you that was back around September.
By December, still no check. I then had my mom go back into the Chase branch to figure out what’s going on. The rep then called the 800 number who then told her they wanted a copy of the transaction page with the letterhead on it. I WAS FURIOUS! They were clearly giving me the runaround, and I was pissed. Why couldn’t they tell me this 3 months ago when I went into the branch? Why would one rep tell me to bring in my phone and now they want a transaction page again?!?
I kept thinking back on how Paypal would hold your money for 6 months in case of chargebacks, but I can’t see how my Starbucks card would have a chargeback. So I got fed up with their games and filed a CFPB report. Within 2 days, a lady called up my mom and left a message saying she would look into it. A week later, my mom got a check for $6,000. Oddly, that wasn’t the full amount. Then a week later, she gets a 2nd check for a few hundred more to close out the mess.
I definitely could have sped things up along a lot quicker, but I kept giving Chase the benefit of the doubt. Clearly, they were in no rush to pay me my money. I should have CFPB’ed them in October after my visit into the branch that resulted in nothing. I’m just glad I got my money so quickly after the CFPB.