This is the kind of story that you report and shake your head about. Why would a big company, a reputable bank, charge fees for non-existant services? Well, here goes the story:

2.1 million Chase customers will get refunds adding up to $309 million because of illegal credit card fees. Chase Bank USA, N.A. and JPMorgan Chase Bank will also have to pay a $20 million penalty. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) found that Chase charged some credit card customers for credit monitoring services that they did not receive.

CFPB Director Richard Cordray said, “At the core of our mission is a duty to identify and root out unfair, deceptive, and abusive practices in financial markets that harm consumers. This order takes action against such practices…”

The CFPB says that Chase enrolled consumers in credit card “add-on” products that promised to monitor customer credit and alert consumers to potentially fraudulent activity. Customers were billed for these services before they even signed up for them and and many were apparently billed even though they never signed up. The practice started in October 2005 and ended in June 2012.

 
CFPB CHARGES

•  Consumers were charged fees as soon as they enrolled for these add-on products, which include identity theft protection and fraud monitoring.
• Monthly fees ranged from $7.99 to $11.99 even though the promised services were not performed. In some cases, consumers paid for these services for several years without receiving all of the promised benefits.
•  The unfair monthly fees that customers were charged sometimes resulted in customers exceeding their credit card account limits, which led to additional fees for the customers. Some consumers also paid interest charges on the fees for services that were never received.
• Consumers were under the impression that their credit was being monitored for fraud and identity theft, when, in fact, these services were either not being performed at all, or were only partially performed.

 

PAY BACK

While this announcement was made on September 19, 2013, the CFPB says most Chase customers have already received credit to their accounts or checks in the mail.

 

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