Beware of the heavily marketed Chase current account which is app only & operates in a very odd way

torus

My husband and I opened Chase currents and savings accounts in May as they were being heavily recommended on MSE and were offering 1% cashback on the current account for a year. This has been a big mistake.

The last straw is that we we have been 'missing' £430 for over a month. We rented a gite in France on 20th June and were asked for a security deposit of 500 Euros which we paid using my husband's Chase card. Two weeks after we'd were home we still hadn't got the deposit back that had been taken from our account on 20th June so I contacted the gite owner. She explained that it was just a PLBS transaction (a pre authorisation) and that she'd closed it the day we left (25th June) and the money would never have come out of our account. She sent us copies of the receipts showing us this.

The money had come out of our account we we contacted Chase who told us that we needed to wait a month as the money would then be returned to our account. This is what we did and the money has now been returned after 33 days of them having it. I've never had this before and am furious with Chase as it was just fortunate we had enough in the account to cover being $430 short for over a month and it could have caused a lot of bother between me and the gite owner as I initially assumed this was her error.

To make matters worse, there were two transactions not on the June statement, this 'deposit' being one and another of over £400, but the money was removed from the account. This made reconciliation very hard as I had to check and double check every transaction to find the discrepancy. 

Chase do not allow joint accounts so I am having bother reconciling both our accounts (my husband's and my own) as I have to have his phone in my possession to reconcile his (I do all the house banking admin) and there is no online version accessible. If one of us loses our phone I don't see how we can even access our money which is now concerning me greatly.

penners324

Pre authorisation DO deduct the money from the available balance for as long as it takes. It suggested using a credit card for them.

Also the 2nd £400 I assume was close to the end of the month and a foreign spend?

Statements only show cleared transactions, whilst the transaction feed shows all transactions, including pending ones.

Chase UK has only ever been app based, and probably only ever will be. If you lose your phone you get a new one with the same number, download the app and login again

Daliah

Chase does have its issues, as has been discussed in the existing Chase Bank thread which has been going for nearly a year. Bottom line though, most people are quite happy with the cashback, the savings account, and the now expired referral programme.  May be you can add your experience to the existing thread.

But since you posted here, this is my assessment: the perceived shortfalls - app only, no joint accounts - were known when you signed up, so you can hardly blame Chase for your decision to still open an account with them regardless. Also, it is well known, and not unique to Chase, that using a debit card for deposits can well result in lengthy refund issues. Had you used a credit card, you'd more than likely not have had to use your own money (and you would have had Section 75 protection if anything had gone wrong). You got your money back, so as the saying goes, all's well that ends well.


A piece of advice for the future: MSE doesn't recommend any accounts. It just lists the best deals. Clearly, an account with market-leading cashback, interest and exchange rate gets a lot of coverage, not only on MSE.

Marchitiello

I have commented on this in various other threads and have seen others on travel forum doing the same:

For Hotels and Car Rental I have presented my Travel Credit Cards at check in /car collection to put on hold on it, but then at check out /car return, I have specifically asked to swap the card and settle the bill from my Chase Debit Card, making the most of the cash back.

The hold on the Credit Card will eventually drop off (it always take time for some reason). I have done this across several EU countries, US and I am doing more of it this summer.

as others have said there is a dedicated, albeit fairly long thread to read all at once, about Chase general discussion where you could have got most of the information you have since discovered, but also hints and tips such as my experience above, that could have avoid you some Frustration.

Travelling abroad, and making the most of things like Banking and frequent traveller benefits does always require in-depth research beforehand to be successful 

torus

Thank for the replies - useful to know of the Debit versus Credit card issues for deposits. Well known to some maybe but not to me.

The second transaction that didn't show on the statement for over £400 was made on the 20th June and was in France but I still find it off that it didn't show on the statement 10 days later.

born_again

If the chase is a Visa card then pre auths for the likes of Car hire, hotels etc can sit there for 32 days. Before dropping off. Same on Credit & Debit cards.

Marchitiello

born_again said:

If the chase is a Visa card then pre auths for the likes of Car hire, hotels etc can sit there for 32 days. Before dropping off. Same on Credit & Debit cards.

It is a MasterCard, in theory World Elite Debit, but without any additional benefit

Bigwheels1111

Any deposit or future payment like fuel, Must be on a credit card.

You then have weeks for it to get sorted out.

Not Chase banks fault its the system.

eskbanker

torus said:

The second transaction that didn't show on the statement for over £400 was made on the 20th June and was in France but I still find it off that it didn't show on the statement 10 days later.

Are you saying that £400 was deducted from your actual cleared balance via an unstatemented transaction, or that your available balance was reduced by that amount (typically shown as a pending transaction)?  It should be the latter....