She said she gave the woman her ATM card like she asked and she keyed in her new pin number under the cover of her other hand like I taught her but the Chase rep would not return her card. Instead, she wanted my mother to accept another card. [My mother is old and doesn't want anything new.] The clerk told my mother to accept the CashBack card; my mother said no; (well, she would) but the clerk insisted. This went on for a moment more with insistance from the rep.

Then the Chase rep did the unforgivable, according to my mother. The rep actually sat there in front of my mother face to face and went through my mother’s spending in her account. She even criticized how much my mother paid for a frame: $127. She even said, “I see you go out to dinner sometimes. You could get cash back for that spending” That’s when my mother remembered me and got up angrily and snatched back her card and left Chase Bank very angry. She felt insulted and humiliated and she felt her privacy had been invaded. She felt totally disrespected.

Well I decided to do something about it. I don’t want anyone treating my mother that way. But before I went off on somebody I decided to get my facts straight. Good thing I did. I called a half-dozen Chase Banks and asked what was the exact procedure for changing a pin # inside the bank. I even asked, “Is it normal and customary for the Chase rep to go through the customers records, their personal checking and spending and talk to the customer about it? I mean, are they suppose to do this?” I swear, all those reps I talked with sounded like broken records; every word matched verbatim. They were like robots to me, the “Stepford Wives” or something.

So, I sent a letter to the branch manager at the Chase branch my mother visited. She read my letter and called me and I was too shocked. She said the same words almost verbatim…especially the part about “providing our customers the best” and “making sure our customers have the best products and service.” There was absolutely no convincing that branch manager that the Chase “banker” they call their reps now…did anything wrong and she said she was not going to speak with the rep when she returned from vacation.

When I asked, “What about the fact that my mother was constantly saying no, I don’t want that, and, give me my card back?” That branch manager ignored that question and went back to her consistent statements: “We want to help our customers and make sure that they are getting our best products and service.”

Privacy is not one of their best services. The bank can’t make any money off of customer privacy…or respect…so, they don’t do much of that.

My mother and I are closing our accounts after 20 years. We had those accounts long before WAMU came along and now Chase has bought-out WAMU. But since then, I did some research online and found out that JPMorgan Chase got TARP money, $50 billion, so now I know why they have gone insane at Chase. They need money to pay back the money that they got from the government. But we’re the ones who give the government money. So, it’s like robbing Peter to pay Paul. They want money from the customers to pay back the people who gave them the money in the first place. Chase even sell gift cards now. Well now, THAT’S a real truth teller. Gift-cards are like free money; people don’t use them at least 25% of the time. That’s free money.

Since when has a failing bank, well, a limping bank (or any bank) cared about giving money to customers. There is a catch and it has to do with getting money from the millions of cutomers who will sign up.

I wrote this because I want you to realize that these banks are really training people to behave like this and the employees think it is okay because they really believe they are helping the customers to be so beligerent. Listen, if my identity is ever stolen I will look first at the banks and other such businesses. I don’t believe anything is really secure.
MO–