My letter to the Chase branch on High Point Road:…read more
I am sending this to your branch, it being the one closest to my home, and which I've visited the most.
Please close both of the above-noted accounts, and provide confirmation. Both of them now have a zero balance, and there are no outstanding items remaining to be paid on the checking account.
I am keeping my credit card account open, as a convenience. . . but, as has been true thus far, Chase will never get a penny from me, for interest or for any late charges.
I've transferred the remainder of my consumer banking business (savings and checking) to US Bank. I've also given them the privilege of opening a sizeable new CD for me, and they'll get other new business from me as well. You see, US Bank is doing something simple and fundamental, which your company's management now finds beneath it: THEY ACTUALLY ANSWER CALLS PLACED TO DIRECT NUMBERS AT THEIR BRANCHES, AND THEY RESPOND TO EMAILS SENT TO THEIR MANAGERS.
When I needed to know whether Chase offers its customers a kind of service akin to notarizing - a specialized authentication called a medallion signature guarantee (for documents related to my late father's estate) - naturally I called the direct number for your branch (which is still publicly shown on the web). I discovered that, just as the US Postal Service did some time ago, Chase now routes all calls, dialed to any of its numbers, to a central, automated clearinghouse (where, despite my savvy and persistence, I could not figure out any way to speak to a human being).* I still have the business card of the very nice individual, at the downtown Madison branch, with whom I opened my Chase checking and savings. . . so I then called the direct number shown on her card for THAT branch. Same story. Ditto when I dialed her direct number. Then I emailed her, to tell her of my frustrations and ask her to pass my comments on to management. No reply. (The message didn't bounce back as Undeliverable, so I presume it was received.) I then visited your branch, and asked a teller for one of your business cards. When I got home and looked at it more closely, I saw that the only number displayed was the same branch number I'd already called . . . and NO email address. (I spoke to a relative about all of this. She maintained that she's able to reach Chase directly, but then realized that her contacts had been about her mortgage, not as a lowly consumer banking customer.)
Goodbye and good riddance, Chase. It doesn't deserve my business. Period.
___________________________________
* (Big difference, though, between Chase and USPS: Local post offices actually still have working direct numbers, specific to each branch. For those of us in the know, those offices still answer calls dialed to those numbers.)