"THE" letter from Chase....
 

Hello. I received a letter today from Chase stating the following:

"We have been reviewing your account with Chase Currency to Go and we find that we can not continue to provide our servides to you. Therefore, effective immediately we will no longer accept and process orders for Currency to Go from you"

This was signed by Beata Bialecka, Vice President.

Did anyone else receive this letter or something similar? Or does any one know what may have caused them to write this?

Regarding my "transactions" with Chase, before i learned of the weekly cap they placed on certain "transactions", i had requested a total of 4 transactions: 3 in 1 week and 1 last week. of the 4, only 1 from each week was completed, while the other 2 from the first week were cancelled.

I haven't called the VP yet because when i received the letter, it was already past business hours on friday. i will call monday to see what this is about, and inform you then.

just thought i'd share the latest development with you.

Very amusing.

I have a friend at Chase (who will go unnamed for obvious reasons), who told me yesterday that Chase (including its Currency To Go personnel) was aware that people were taking advantages of certain mileage-related "loopholes," including purchases of travelers checks and cash back on the CO/Chase debit card, but that Chase was not concerned about these "loopholes," and had no plans to change any of its policies.

Looks like my friend was wrong.

Cabrits -

They may have, in addition to the mileage question, concerns re: potential money laundering, etc.

The repeated circular transactions probably falls into the category of "suspicious" behavior that Chase is obligated to report, even if it's totally legit.

Bummer.

Greg

I got exactly same letter today. I plan to call Monday also. We'll have to compare notes after we talk to Beata.

[This message has been edited by MilesNut (edited 12-10-1999).]

arturo sey wat? beat-a? soun lik to arturo thet beat-a es beat-en us ff's.

1950 miles later, I got the same letter.

[This message has been edited by PG (edited 12-10-1999).]

if a 'deal' seems 'too good to be true' - it is 'too good to be true' ... or at least 'too good to last'!

[This message has been edited by Rudi (edited 12-10-1999).]

I'm starting to dread the arrival of my mailman now! I placed two orders, last Friday and Monday - they arrived together on Wednesday. However, my Wednesday order failed to materialize. Seems I might get a letter instead. At least I have a calling card to use if I want to get in touch with Beata... http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

"Me Too" letter- - I suspect it's because I ordered, & received 2 pkgs. in 1 week --other subsequent orders were not filled - I deposited the Travelers Checks immediately into my checking account. Tracking would show that no merchants were used in these tranactions --so how can Chase make money on this deal? Is it legal for them to refuse service? --and on what basis?I'll be interested in postings about this. Thanks, Renee

Has anyone wondered why Chase did this offer in the first place? After you add in the cost of the credit card transaction, postage, phone card, and TC processing, I'm sure we're looking at $20 minimum. And for that, Chase doesn't make one cent. Certainly they're not as dumb as we might want to believe. All I can see that they might get is some good advertising press, and even that is only among us, and certainly our motivation is to pad our bottom line, not Chase's. Now Chase has killed even that with the letters they're sending out (at even more postage costs to them). So what is going on here that I'm not seeing?

I haven't seen a letter yet (and the mail already arrived today), but expect I'll see one too. I placed two orders within a week, neither of which showed up. After finding out about the 7 business day rule, which still isn't on the web site, I waited til my 7 days was up and tried again. Ordered Thursday, nothing showed up Friday and was told that that order was cancelled too, although the rep. I spoke with couldn't understand why.

This is a foreign currency operation (even the US dollars) and there are ways to make money that are probably not apparent to the average person. I am not a financial expert, but currency futures and forward contracts come to mind as two things they may be using to make money.

Well, I hope you all enjoyed this while it lasted. Hopefully I won't get another type of letter from Chase (served with a lawsuit for loss of $$ !!!!!!!).

Yes, they can refuse business to anyone. They are a private company.

Received my letter today as did my sister and my mother. It's ridiculous. Yes, they can refuse your business but on what basis. We have received 3 orders total between the 3 of us. Their computer system has some kind of problem because they keep putting my mother's and sister's orders under my name. We have tried reordering and they keep getting cancelled. I say they either provide the service or they don't. I have a call into a supervisor and I will be speaking to someone. They must of been stupid not to know that people will be doing what we're doing, so know pay the price.

I would think that Chase probably makes money on this, on aggregate scale. Yes, they are willing to absorb approximately one percent commission on credit card orders (provided that average VISA / MC discount rate for large merchants is around 2 percent, and the merchant's bank gets approximately one half of this fee -- and Chase obviously is both the bank and the merchant) and give you free shipping (valued at around 5-6 dollars, I'd say). Of course, this is not a free lunch, and they get (1) interest on the purchase amount effective from the day the credit card transaction is processed until the day the Travellers Cheques are deposited for collection (and in many cases, this period is rather lengthy), and (2) many Travellers Cheques never get cashed in the first place, which adds tremendously to their bottom line.

On average, they make money on these transactions. Yet, it makes good sense for them to track customers that cash the TCs right away; it also is a potential problem, as in many instances credit card companies give you different limits for purchase and cash advance transaction, and this option from Chase allows a small percentage of people to abuse the system, making us to pay higher fees in the very end.

I, for one, think that Chase is acting rather foolishly, as this creates a lot of bad will and customer service problems. If such loopholes exist, then paying some of the Chase top executives million dollar salaries is not justified, and we, as consumers, are actually teaching them a good lesson, as far as their policies are concerned.

Thank you VladdieD for your explanation. I think we have a winner!

They absorb the fees because they hope to earn the interest for a while, and they hope you lose the checks. Once they identify people who cash all the checks right away, they cut them off. It's very smart actually, and we really can't blame them. So, those of you who haven't been cut off yet and you want to keep the checks coming, consider holding on to them.