Well Done, Chase!

Well, I must once again take time to rave about a good thing done by a ‘Corporate Giant’. Chase Bank/Credit Cards…whatever – For our purposes here today, we’ll just call them ‘Chase’. Now, before I start, let me say I know some of you reading this don’t have a good opinion of Chase – I’ve heard plenty of bad about them, in fact. But in spite of that, I think it’s important, maybe even more important for you skeptics, to see that they did a good thing…So the story begins –

Mark and I have a Sony Rewards credit card. It doesn’t have a huge limit on it, which is fine for us – Mark uses it when he travels, I use it to purchase Mary Kay…things like that. And we are great cardholders – always paying way more than the minimum and always on time. So one night, I sit down to use the card to pay for a Mary Kay order and it got declined. I knew something was up because this card doesn’t get maxed out. We don’t use it like that.

I start looking at my account online and notice that in the ‘Available Balance’ spot, there is $0.00. WHAT??? So I keep digging and finally realize that my payment scheduled for April actually went through early, missing the line by 2 days, and got applied as a second payment in March. SO, April not only showed no payment but also a $39 late fee.

I immediately got on the phone to talk to customer service. I explained the situation to the gentleman who was so fortunate to take my call – You would be so proud of me, I maintained the nicest tone of voice for the duration of the call…sometimes at varying volumes, but always a pleasant tone – But I digress. He told me there was nothing he could do about it. I asked him why since he could plainly see by looking at our account that we were excellent customers. He continued by saying that with ‘the way things are now’ they just can’t refund those fees. ‘They used to do it all the time’ but now they don’t unless they determine that it’s something they can do. I asked what criteria they used to determine they couldn’t do it on my account??? “It wasn’t our error.”

No he din’t. So, with my much louder pleasant tone, I pointed out to him that my husband and I and the millions like us who pay our bills, live within our means, and make the necessary sacrifices to always be responsible for our commitments, WERE NOT the reason the country is in the sad state it’s in, ‘you realize that, right???’ I think the poor guy thought I was about to make him get down on his knees, confess his sins, and walk him down the Romans Road to proclaim his love for Jesus right there in his little customer service cubicle, headphones and all… “Get down on your knees right now. GET DOWN now! Do you love Jesus? DO YOU? CONFESS YOUR SINS, you ungrateful sinner. CONFESS!”

So, showing me the love of Jesus, he offers to let me speak with a Supervisor. I obviously accept. Surprise! Voicemail. Double Surprise!! The dude/dudette didn’t call me back. SO, you’ll never guess what I did next. (yeah, right) I sat my butt down, googled and googled until I located the email address for Mr. Dimond, Chairman and CEO at Chase Bank (and in the process, also found the email address for the CEO of Credit Cards at Chase – heck, why not? Put his address on there too!), and proceeded to share my story with the head of Chase.

Would you believe it? Two days later, the assistant from Mr. Dimond’s office calls me back on my cell phone to discuss. She not only refunded the late fee, she also explained that after another billing cycle, the late payment would cause my interest rate to go up to 29%! I nearly swallowed my tongue. But she put a reminder on her calendar for the week following the run of the next billing cycle to go back and check and if the interest rate had gone up, she will not only take it back down to what we currently have but will also refund any additional interest and fees we paid because of the increase.

Holy Ravioli!!! So, as I’ve said so many times before, I am a huge proponent of complaining to the company because I’m also a huge proponent of complimenting them. I have complained and now I’m complimenting – it’s all in finding the balance in life.

In these extremely hard times we’re in that are only going to get harder before they get…um, softer…it’s important to find some way to keep an eye on the positive, and more importantly, the ability to turn something that wouldn’t normally be positive into a positive…Positive is relative.

Love, Kisses, Hugs, and Misses~
Princess Positivity