Somebody please explain Chase's absurdity to me
 

Several months ago I converted a Chase card that I had for a year or 2 to a Continental World card, to earn some miles, obviously.

Since then I've charged over $150,000 (had some business purchases to make). $150,000 in less than 2 months, I know that's not a lot for some, but it's certainly a lot in my book. Today I noticed that they hit me for the $85 annual fee. Fine, it's part of the deal, but I figured they would waive it or offset it somehow. Seems reasonable based on the spending, right? Wrong, they won't reverse the fee, they won't give any bonus miles, they won't even give a partial credit.

At this point I was frustrated enough to cancel the card, but it's been open for a while, has a decent credit limit, and I'd like to keep it open, even if I don't use it. The agent refused to convert it to a no-fee card and told me if I wanted to convert they would inquire on my credit and open a new account on my credit report. Obviously, it's possible to convert, since that's how I got the card in the first place!

So, by refusing to waive an $85 annual fee Chase has:

a) lost a customer who potentially could charge an average of $75,000 per month and
b) lost the $85 fee because I'll either cancel or convert the card to a non-fee version before paying a dime in fees for this card

Please explain the business rationale of this to me.

Update: I just tried to speak to someone else, but the low level agent who answered REFUSED to transfer me to a supervisor. She kept saying I already spoke to someone, they won't change their mind, yadda yadda. We went around and around for 10 minutes, I never raised my voice once. Finally, after telling her I had an unrelated question, she said she would transfer me, which she did, to a random voicemail box with a rather sketchy message. At this point, I'm more mad about this last experience than the annual fee.

I was just going to suggest that you ask to speak to a supervisor, but now I see that you updated your post stating that you already tried. Maybe, you should try again tomorrow during regular business hours and ask to speak to a supervisor - there is no reason why they should refuse to transfer you; just be polite, but firm and insist they do so. Or, you can try to walk into a branch and discuss it with a manager there.

Have you picked up a paper lately? ;)

It isn't 2005 anymore and the go go days are over. With things going the way they are, be happy that Chase didn't lower you limit. Don't threaten to close it as they'll happily do so. They are all about limiting risk right now.

http://creditboards.com/forums/index...pic=361813&hl=

I tried the old "call back and speak to someone else routine" last night, but I guess they rely so heavily on account "notes" that they won't budge. There was nothing nasty in the notes as far as I know, just that they spoke to me and would not waive the fee. Do people in the branch have the ability to waive/discuss credit card fees? I always figured they would be somewhat separate entities.

Yea, at one point I told them I wanted to close it and they started doing it immediately. In the past AMEX has thrown me a retention offer on a card where I've spent literally 1% as much as on this Chase card. Chase is certifiably insane - it's not even like I paid late, in fact, I paid early and the statement closed with a $0 balance.

I inquired about the possibility for a higher supervisor (manager) to listen to the tapes of the one call where they refused to transfer me to a manager. They said it was possible, but I couldn't bring myself to file the official complaint. As much as I'd like to get this silly fee waived or some sort of offsetting compensation, I can't in good faith be responsible getting that woman in trouble, and believe me, she would and should be facing some harsh criticism by her bosses for it.

Now I understand people's frustration with AMEX FR.

bolding mine: why not? The goal of a retention agent is to leave you with a good feeling about the bank - even if you decide to close. Yes, they don't want you leaving angry since it makes you start threads like this one. That is bad for business. Do write a letter with as much details about the call time, person, etc. and strongly urge them to listen to the tapes.

Get ready for a whole lot more of this sort of thing and worse from Chase, Citi and BoA, post bailout and with the new three bank oligopoly where they are just about the only players. Save Wall Street, and as for everyone else ...

The banks are (going to be, already have?) put the credit squeeze on all of us.

Which is why getting a good relationship with a national credit union and/or a smaller regional bank makes total sense right now.

I would echo the sentiment of trying to do all of this during business hours. I worked at a credit card call center (not Chase) and while the call center was open 24/7, the "good" supervisors and managers only worked during the day, and the retention team was only available certain hours as well. That second part meant if we got a call to cancel the card while retention was unavailable, we were basically told to cancel the card right away, with an option to offer some lame canned offers instead.

As far as I can remember (this was in 2004) we were told to always transfer to a supervisor if they asked for it, no matter what. Obviously that policy can differ from company to company, but it seems bizarre that they would flat out refuse.

As for the actual issue at hand, we were free to waive all sorts of fees (and I waived them like crazy), but the annual fee was kind of a golden goose and we mere CSRs couldn't waive that one, except for the first year's fee. It didn't matter if you spent $10 or $10 million, at least at the CSR level. Supervisors and managers could make exceptions to that, as with pretty much everything.

Thanks for this informative post!:)

A few thoughts:

* Is there ever a time when the entire balance (last statement plus new charges after the statement date) completely paid off? One doesn't have too much "I'm leaving" leverage if there are $50K in new unpaid charges.

* Is an $85 fee for 150,000+ miles, when the fee's part of the published terms, really that bad?

The balance was always paid in few several days after making the charges. There was never a balance at all for more than 1-2 days and the statement closed with a $0 balance.

No, an $85 fee is not too bad, and yes it is part of the published terms. The issue here is that its a terrible business practice to refuse to budge at all, nevermind the troubles I had speaking to a supervisor. I felt like I was up against a brick wall. There wasn't even any "Sorry Mr. Troyb, the system doesn't allow it, maybe I can try to help in some other way." It was like the CapOne commercial, all I got was "No."

Other cc companies would have no problem offsetting such a small fee somehow. I would think in these markets, a high spender and quick payer would be sought after customers, not driven away. If I had been able to use an AMEX for those purchases, I would have done it.

I haven't called back during the day, I might try that this afternoon, but I'm not expecting anything. If it doesn't work out, I'm going to transfer the credit line to another card and cancel this one on the spot. Bye bye Chase.

A common misperception is that high spenders who pay off in full are profitable customers. This is not always the case, especially since you are getting miles in return. The cost of those miles can wipe out any revenue the CC company is getting from you. Especially like it sounds like you are earning miles over the card mileage cap (because of elite status I assume). The way MC/V issuers make $$ if different than AMEX. AMEX has much higher merchant fees so they can make money off pure transactors. The quick pay is the only benefit to the bank that I see since they don't have to carry your float.

How are you going to transfer the line to a non Chase card? Or are you saying that you will transfer it to a no-fee Chase card?

And American Express ... and US Bank ... and HSBC ... and Capital One ... and those are just the big players that come to mind off the top of my head, plenty of healthy smaller banks and credit unions still issuing cards too. Nothing that has happened recently really changes the credit card industry landscape that much, it is still a very competitive business. WaMu was about the only player with much in the way of credit card operations, Wachovia's were next to non-existent (they were completely non-existent just a few years ago).

If they can't make any money off someone who charges and then pays in full, they aren't running their business right. Merchants pay different rates depending on the type of card it is, with rewards earning cards at the top of that range. I know they make more money when customers carry balances but if they are depending on their customers to carry a balance in order to make a profit, they've got some major problems. On top of this and as mentioned, paying early rather than waiting for the statement to post means they don't have to carry float, so the expense to them is even less.

As far as transferring the credit line, yea, I will bring it over to a no-fee Chase card.

I feel your pain, last year I actually had to cancel to get the $60 annual fee refunded. The Indian call center cancelled the card literally seconds after I muttered "cancel." The next couple weeks I kept getting calls from a Scottsdale phone number which I googled and determined was Chase retention department. They tried everything to switch me to another card, which I declined, and finally relented and agreed to waive the fee for another year. With my Citi AA card I just call up, ask to cancel and they waive the $85 annual fee instantly.

This year I figured I'd do the same thing, but I was a little lazy and called over a month after the annual fee was charged (and paid.) Below is my experience from the UA thread which is similiar to yours. I suspect this year they are under more pressure to reduce outstanding credit lines (my credit score is 750+ though.)

Just an update, I called to verify my [UA Chase] account was closed after receiving a terms and conditions update in the mail. The account was indeed closed but there was a $60 credit on the account! The CSR flat out lied to me about the annual fee being non-refundable. I asked about 3-4 times and he said no adding "you've already paid it so you should keep the card." I'm going to wait for the the $60 refund check to clear and complain to Chase.