Chase closes couple's bank account for fraud after Grandma writes checks in red ink

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

... It started when Judy Lackey and her husband, Ethan Sorrelgreen, each got a check for $100 from Sorrelgreen's grandmother for Christmas. The grandma "is going blind and she could only find a red pen to write the checks," Lackey says.

When Sorrelgreen deposited the checks into a Chase ATM on Dec. 28, the red ink did not show up well on the scan of the check, so he manually entered the amounts.

... On Monday, she went online to pay their mortgage (to a different bank) and discovered that neither of their paychecks had been direct-deposited into their checking account as scheduled.

Lackey called Chase and was told the direct deposits had been refused because their account had been closed due to fraud "and there was absolutely nothing we could do about it," she says. "They said that they would send us the funds remaining in our account in 10 days."

... Lackey, a lawyer who works with the homeless in Oakland, says she read her account agreement and was distressed to see that Chase had the right "to close the account at any time" without notice and was not liable for any fees or bounced checks.

... On Tuesday, Chase spokeswoman Eileen Leveckis said the bank had contacted Lackey and agreed to reopen the account and reimburse any fees. The problem took longer than it should have to correct, she adds.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/01/06/BUUJ1H4422.DTL&tsp=1

Pull your money out and put it either with a small local bank, or with a credit union.

Continuing to feed the beast is stupid and self defeating.

There should never had been a problem.

If you are doing business with a megabank you are part of the problem.
It is your deposits and the insane profits they make off them that allow them to be so powerful & corrupt.

Yhe only message the banks understand is carrying cost. If deposits leave it gets more expensive for them to do business. Without ultra cheap deposits they can't exist.

If grandma is "going blind", then this story also points to the need for someone in the family to take charge of, or closely supervise, certain parts of her life.

Like finances.

It's also pretty sad that grown adults who aren't elderly or senile or going blind don't know enough NOT to try and deposit checks written in red ink. Or any documents, for that matter.


Which is not to say that Chase Bank is not full of douchebags.


But just think of the opposite side of this. What if "blind" grandma had written checks in red ink to scammers out to get her money? In that case, Chase Bank would have been heroes for spotting something that could have had unpleasant consequences.

...not to try and deposit a check written in red ink.

Believe it or not, most people don't think much about technology, such as whether a scanner can read red ink. Our eyes have no problem with red ink, we can read it plain as day. I don't think it is surprising that someone did not give it a second thought. Now I might have known enough to make sure I gave the deposit to a teller, rather than trying to scan it in through an ATM. But I think it is outrageous to try and paint these people as stupid for a very simple mistake that could happen to anyone.

If the ATM is going to accept checks that it cannot scan, allowing the customer to put in an amount, then they have no right to then claim fraud on the part of the customer without going to any trouble to investigate, and just close the account without notification. They could make the ATM accept only checks it can scan. Seems to me the bank's systems are at fault, not the customer here.

i don't blame grandma one bit.

:shrug:

Never had a problem with them. Of course, I wasn't trying to deposit them in an ATM with a check scanner. Did the ATM warn them that the checks must be completed in black ink? That the checks were illegible? Sounds like it did not. Therefore, Chase screwed up and the couple paid for it.

BTW, if "blind" grandma had written checks in black ink to scammers Chase wouldn't have noticed.

Infact they called me this morning worried about a check that would over draw my account.
I never thought I'd say it, but I really like my bank.

like in the commercial :eyes:

Business and personal. Never had a problem. I'm with Chase.

was not in the red ink, but in the fact that when the ATM scanner for the deposit couldn't read the red ink, the husband overwrote the red ink with black or blue ink which is a "no-no". The bank should have called them up and clarified the situation with them rather than acting arbitrary.


Showing my age (71 and counting), but I had it drilled into me in grade school that only blue and black ink were legal in signing documents.

I only use red and green ink for highlighting or correction.

I just figured it was more style than substance. How could a mannered and polite person write in garrish red ink? How...how...gauche!

for over a month. And then, they re-opened the account when it turned out to be nothing. It could have been handled with a phone call but my guess is, they wanted to used that money for a month for free.