Don't Worry Chase Bank,
Nobody Here but us Lemmings.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Chase Bank spits out a hairball class action lawsuit settlement regarding raising their customers monthly minimum payment by 150%.

(Update, Sunday, March 03, 2013, 12:22 am) If you have received your Chase Bank Monthly Minimum payment Class Action Lawsuit settlement check and wish to leave a comment, please do so by clicking this link.

Rather than Chase Bank showing a modicum of remorse over their hideous actions regarding the monthly minimum payment increase they levied against a million of their most trustworthy, reliable customers, Chase Bank basically threw almost endless legal thumbtacks into the path of the class action lawsuit attorneys, a lawsuit that was supposed to provide financial relief for around ONE MILLION CHASE BANK CUSTOMERS who were put into financial jeopardy back in late 2008 and 2009 by Chase Bank.

Chase Bank basically bait and switched a million of their MOST RESPONSIBLE AND LOYAL CUSTOMERS into monthly minimum payment increases that meant a monthly minimum payment of 200 dollars escalated to 500 dollars, a 400 dollar monthly minimum payment rose to 1,000 dollars.

Chase Bank then hid the best solution from customers who could not afford the sudden increase, which the Cat Who Ate Chase Bank, blog, reported about back on Oct. 07, 2010, I know this from personal experience because it was only through a significant amount of internet research that I found out about the Chase Bank balance liquidation program.

Ultimately, Chase Bank also did not allow their customers to opt out of their change in terms!

When I called Chase Bank customer service back in 2009 to find an alternative to having my monthly minimum payment suddenly increase by an additional 150%, THE CUSTOMER SERVICE REPS KNEW NOTHING about their own "Pro Active" balance liquidation program, meaning anyone caught up in the Chase Bank monthly minimum payment increase was given no solution even though the "Pro Active" balance liquidation program would have been an effective compromise.

The proposed and apparently already agreed upon 100 million dollar agreement works out to around 50 to 100 dollars per customer after legal fees of 25% are subtracted. In my estimation, the agreement should have been for ONE BILLION DOLLARS plus an additional amount equal to all the bonuses the Chase Bank credit card division executives received during the time they put a million of their best customers through financial peril.

Even though I have written over 400 articles about various Chase Bank shenanigans since April of 2009, I was not invited to contribute my ideas on how to get the settlement offer higher. 

I did submit a paper of protest about the Chase Bank Change in Terms settlement offer and it is part of the legal record regarding this case. (Edit Update, Nov. 17, 2012, The Chase Bank Monthly Minimum Fairness Hearing took place yesterday, Nov. 16, 2012)

One thing that upsets me is that I offered my services back in January of 2012 by email, twice, and never heard back. I don't know if my email ever made it to the plaintiffs attorneys however as the email address does not actually state the name of the legal firm or where it was actually going.

info at chaseminpaymentlawsuit.com appears to be a valid email address, but I never heard back even though I emailed them twice. I had MANY good ideas on how to get Chase Bank to see the light and I have reason to believe that at least some of them were not tried. However,  I have come to learn that there is a difference between behaving despicably, and behaving illegally, especially when it comes to how the banks treat their customers.

I am guessing what happened was Chase Bank was so busy keeping the class action plaintiff lawyers busy with legal challenges, motions to dismiss, and other types of legal shenanigans that the plaintiffs side did an excellent job of meeting those challenges, while possibly missing the opportunity to engage people like me who might have been able to give them outside the box ideas to counter punch Chase Bank hair ball tactics.

However, it is also possible that my ideas might have been counterproductive in terms of getting a baseline agreement of 100 million dollars.

It appears that as a general rule class action lawsuits top out well below the real value of the actual damage caused because actual legally defined damage may be different from the actual damage that occurred. Additionally, as the settlement number increases, the risk of losing via a jury trial versus what has already been agreed to has to be considered, and the legal firms spend a lot of upfront money getting the settlement offer higher as they go farther into debt on the case.

I read that Chase Bank keeps a "legal war fund" of around 3 to 4 billion dollars. So if this case should have settled for a billion dollars, Chase bank can instead throw 50 million dollars worth of hairball legal motions that cause the plaintiffs to spend out of their own smaller legal war fund to keep pace.

Eventually, 100 million dollars looks pretty good to both sides as both sets of attorneys will claim victory, even though the consumer in my opinion is the one that has been shortchanged.


Don't forget, the Cat Who Ate Chase Bank, the book, coming out some day.

5 comments:

  1. I received my class action settlement. It wasn't even $50 and I had to pay back thousands of dollars earlier than I would have under the original agreement. I also found out that reducing the minimum payment from 5% back to the original 2% was not part of the deal, so those of us that tightened our belts and made sacrifices to pay on the new terms get to be pillaged until the balance is paid off. Makes me feel violated by both Chase and the lawyers. I will never do business again with Chase.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. In retrospect, I was far too nice in my article. I have since found out my 13 complaints that I filed were sealed from the public!

      I have not given up yet.

      This specific issue IS AS BIG AS ALL OF THE GUNSLAYINGS in the past year or two. The reason being is that ONE MILLION PEOPLE were put in danger of losing their homes and their credit standing, and in turn could even then negatively affect their ability to get employment if the employer checks out their credit history and sees a default.

      I believe that debt collectors push people over the edge and they commit suicide as a result.

      In other words, it is possible that this one specific Chase Bank action against a million of their BEST CUSTOMERS could have caused a level of discomfort/stress that if there was a way to convert to living a shorter life as a result, could easily surpass all of the gun deaths in terms of years lost that have occurred from crazy long gunmen in the past couple of years versus what Chase Bank caused with their Change in Terms.

      Remember, these over 1 million Chase Bank customers are people that CARED about their credit card reputation. If they could not pay the higher amount, they had their monthly interest rate on a HUGE amount of money raised from low single digit interest rates to 29.9% !!!

      Delete
  2. I got my settlement check yesterday. $217.32 was the price I was paid for the 2 Chase CC's that I had to raise the interest rate in order to keep my minimum payment at 2%. Both of my cards had very large balances with a lifetime fixed 2.9% rate (used to purchase a used vehicle, which at that time was the lowest APR I could easily get). To keep my minimum payments at 2%, I had to agree to raise my interest rates on both cards to 7.9%, which effectively netted them an additional 5% of interest on my large balances, which I am still paying off to this day.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The Cat Who Ate Chase Bank, the book, will help raise awareness
    about MANY questionable Chase Bank tactics and methods. settlement quote

    ReplyDelete
  4. My name is Fajar. I live in  Bedono in Central Java   I was in a very chronic financial issue and terminal health situation some few weeks back. After all my search for assistance from friends and neighbors proved abortive, I feel there was no one who truly cares. I became so exhausted due to lack of funds to expand my business and my 2 kids aged 5 and 8 were also not good looking due to lack of proper care as a result of finance. One faithful morning I saw an old time friend of my late husband and I told him all I have been going through and he said the only way he could help was to direct me to a good loan officer in USA that also helped him, He explained to me on how he was financially down and how he got boosted by this loan officer ( Mr Pedro   who grant him 7,000,000.00 USD loan at an affordable rate of 2% rate . He further assured me that they were the only legit loan firm he found online. He gave me their email &  That was how i applied and was also granted a loan and my life changed for the good. CONTACT THE ONLY GENUINE LENDER Mr Pedro VIA    Email /  Whatsapp +18632310632   pedroloanss@gmail.com  to resolve your financial mess.  

    ReplyDelete