Chase Closed My Sapphire Account & Took the UR Points...HELP!
 

A brief synopsis of my story:
I had a Chase checking account for the past 5 years. It never held much of a balance (if any, at all) due to awful interest rates. I keep all of my money in two credit unions that pay awesome interest rates and withdraw cash from them to pay off my bills at Chase. Chase compliance shut my checking account down because of the cash deposits. One month later, with no warning, I received a letter in the mail saying my credit card account was being closed immediately. As soon as that happened, my 155,000 Chase UR points disappeared. An agent told me once retail severed it's relationship with me, they instructed Credit Cards to do the same.

I've been advised to contact the office of President to find out about getting my points but that it was a long shot. I was wondering what tone to take in the letter...nice, demanding, threatening legal action, threatening PR problems, etc. Even if I can't transfer 155,000 UR to UA which I would normally do, that's still 2,000 in redemptions at 1.25 cents which UA took from me. Only 40 of the 155 were in sign up bonuses...everything else was in spend so I feel like I'm entitled to at least those. Any thoughts, suggestions, tips are welcome.

Also...if you want to link to this on a blog, etc. give me a PM as a heads up before you do.

A couple of questions. Why were you running cash through your Chase checking account? Why not just pay your CC bill as a "pull" from your CU?

Did you ever "bounce" payments with Chase (You mention that the checking account may not have had any balance)?

Seems like there must be more to the story. If not, then write a very nice letter to the office of the President requesting information. Do not be demanding. Tell them that you never bounced a check, you have run $XXX through your credit card in the last year, with no late payments etc.

Never bounced a payment and never missed a payment. The reason I went with cash instead of a pull was at points during the summer I was blowing through my credit limit every 4 days or so (I was planning conferences at the time) and I couldn't wait for the pull to get processed. Mind you, this only during a 15 day stretch in June when the conferences were taking place. As it was, I had to get someone from CC to call retail to confirm the money had been withdrawn so they could credit my account same day which was a huge PITA. I understand why retail saw this as sketchy and I don't begrudge their closing my account, but to close the CC was a bridge too far in my book.

They saw you blowing through your limit and quickly paying it from depositing funds. Raises quite a few red flags.

You agree that what you were doing with the checking account was "sketchy". If the bank saw you doing something "sketchy" with one account why would they not think you would do some other "sketchy" thing with your credit card?

You were seen as very high risk and so they acted accordingly.

The difference between a CU and Chase checking is almost 0. bumping the limit is a game you do not want to play, calls attention to you.

I keep a high balance in Chase Checking, and work within the limits of the card. Many years ago United had a 10,000 mile limit per month, I lost some miles on it, and did the pump like you.

Move you money to Chase and be nice, it might pay....I trade stock and got called in once for it, and had to pick a bank..

Time to strike a deal, and put something on the table.

The difference between my CU is 2.5% to Chase's 0. Anyway, at this point, I can't move money to Chase because that account is gone and I assume I'm precluded from opening another one.

will you lose your money in your checking account if they close your checking?

No, that would be illegal.

You are saying you deposited cash in your Chase checking account, then use the checking account to pay off your Chase CC due to it being used up to the limit every 4 days? And the card side has to call the bank side to make sure the fund is indeed available even you said it was Cash Deposit?

There are some areas that I really am confused, or fail to understand.

1) Cash deposit is available immediately. Why would the CC side needs to call the bank side to make sure the fund is cleared before it can be used to pay the card?

2) I gather you have to deposit the cash at a branch as cash deposit cannot be done remotely. If so, why even bother to go thru the checking account? You could literally pay off the card with cash right at the branch. There is no need to go thru the checking account at all.

3) Based on the above I suspect what you deposited was not cash but a check written on your CU account. And the check has to clear the system first. Meanwhile you could not hardly wait to use the fund.

Since you said what you did with the checking account was "sketchy" by your own admission, exactly what you did with your checking account?

If you feel your checking account is closed by the bank without sufficient reasons, why dont you contact the government agency that regulate banks? They are very responsive in consumers' complaints on unfair treatments from the banks which in turn, are very responsive once government is involved.

The story has a lot of missing parts. The bank account closure due to frequent cash deposits is "sketchy" enough.

If your cash deposits added up to more than $10,000 over a period of a few days (like 4k every 4 days) that screams money laundering. That is a red flag for any financial institution or brokerage firm or custodian. It's possible you were flagged for that and they acted on it.

They dont close your account based on that. They may file a SAR on you but not close your account. During the coin days many folks deposit this much and more in a week's time. There are folks being SARed and actually interviewed by FBI but no account closure from that. (Those who were interviewed also came out fine.)

There are just too many missing parts in OP's story that dont add up.

A few more details...while planning the events I would receive cash from admission tickets at night...walk to the Chase bank and deposit in the ATM and then transfer to the card immediately (Chase ATMs don't take card payments for some stupid reason.) I'd then call up Chase CC services who would call the retail side over the phone and confirm I had made the transfer and there was cash in the account and then they would put a pending negative number in to temporarily clear the limit while the actual limit clear the next day. Cash is not instantaneous at Chase. If done after 8PM ET, the transfer doesn't process until 1AM two days later. If done before 8PM ET, the transfer doesn't process until 1AM the next morning. Either way, the limit does not clear immediately.

It's possible, based on my conversations with a banking friend that what I got flagged for wasn't necessarily a SAR but rather "structuring" which is keeping below the radar (intentionally or not, the bank doesn't know.)

Either way, much as I'd like to keep my accounts with Chase for the future, I don't care that much...but what I really want is my damn UR points, all 157,000 of them!

This.

Somehow it is viewed very negatively by the bank. I have no idea why but someone told me last year her Chase account was closed after she deposited a few K's cash to the ATM and then paid CCs (not even Chase but other banks' cards paid from Chase account). May be the bank or at least Chase, views this as being "desperate act" to try to keep a card current and suspects the customer is stretching it... therefore being high risk to default... Just guessing but your experience matched what happened to the story I was told.

You should be able to get back your UR pts. That person did. Chase made it very clear that it was a courtesy that it gave a $500 check (she hadn't quite met the spend requirement for the 50K bonus yet, a bit short.) after she contacted the government agency on the bank account closure.

You can contact the CFPB office on this.

If I were a bank I would be afraid of some sort of kiting scheme. When you deposit at an ATM and not in the presence of a teller the bank is trusting that you are depositing the correct amount. In essence, until they go through the deposits how would they know if you "deposited" $10,0000 or $1,000. What they do know is that you are immediately transferring funds that technically aren't verified to pay off a card that is over drawn. Just my thoughts on the matter.