The Virtual Chase Bank Hustle
Christian said he wanted to help me
24 July 2O24
I have been a customer of Chase Manhattan Bank since the Eighties and have maintained accounts there throughout banking crises. I had studied banking history, and I did not trust banks, yet I reckoned that Chase was too big to fail. I eventually wound up with two accounts at Chase because another bank I did business with failed and Chase took over the insured deposits. Otherwise, when I was the corporate controller of a real estate research firm eventually absorbed by Moody's, I ran millions of dollars through a Chase branch when Chemical Bank folded. I remember when the shares were $10. Forget Citibank, I said, buy Chase.
Now I received a message out of the clear blue yesterday from Christian Ledesma,who identified himself as my Chase Virtual Banker. I responded because I like Chase. "Virtual" is almost real, and I wondered how real "almost" was. Furthermore, I was curious if this was one of those artificial intelligence programs.
Christian, however, turned out to be a natural person, a friendly salesman willing to chat at that, something real bankers do not have time to do nowadays unless you have deposits exceeding two million dollars; even then they are extremely busy because that amount does not really amount to much nowadays.
Christian apparently wanted to save me from the low interest rate I am getting on a 3-month CD. Chase rates in themselves are generally low, but I have not been interested in interest rates for many years. Indeed, I had not even bothered to draw interest on my Chase accounts for decades, at least not until a year ago; I figured the interest I received would help defray my rent increases.
I told him that Rebecca Figueredo, a banker at the Chase South Miami Beach branch, said she had given me the best rate, the current rate for the 3-month CD, and I wanted to go short-term because I figured rates were bound to rise even though she said they would not. That was around 9 months ago, and I expected the rate on a three-month CD to almost double.
During the Reagan administration when there was a moratorium on mortgage loans, a gentleman walked up our driveway to offer my wife and I cash for our house. We accepted and put a sizable capital gain in the savings and loan where she worked, a deposit upon which we drew 18% interest, enough to rent a big house overlooking the ocean in Hawaii. Of course rates would come down, and, ironically, given the high return I was getting on cash, I went to D.C. and lobbied my state senators to help bring borrowing costs down and save the nation from economic disaster.
Now I asked Christian to email me information on the better return that I could get for a 3 month CD; perhaps Rebecca had made a mistake if what he was saying were true. He waffled. The Chase 866 Area Code telephone network totally crashed my phone. Then we went back and forth via email; he refused to email me information about the better rate he said I should be getting, because that would violate Chase policy.
"I am very limited to what I can share via email that's why I was trying to speak with you on the phone rather than respond to your question via email, essentially I wanted to talk towards your CD after the maturity date. I have no doubt your banker help you put that CD in the best rate possible. Anyhow, we can always talk again about this topic after maturity next month when it happens."
What best rate? I wanted the short-term rate because I expected the rates to go up. I invested in the three month CD thinking that its rates would automatically increase when it was automatically renewed. If rates soared, I would scoop up, if not, I could care less. So Christian had planted doubts in my mind. Had my banker, Rebecca, misinformed me? Was there a better deal available for my principal amount? Was I stuck with the low interest rate on that CD unless I came in and bought something else?
I emailed Rebecca. When she returned from vacation, she advised me to come in personally with identification in order to get a better deal, and she also refused to email me any details. Damn, had I bought one of those rare CDs where the interest rates stayed the same no matter how many times it was rolled over? But she would explain nothing to me on the telephone.
I protested, saying I understood that my CD at maturity would roll over at whatever the prevailing interest rate was, which I had expected to be higher than when I bought it, and it had already automatically renewed a couple times; I had not bothered to calculate the interest.
Chase Virtual Banker, represented in mainstream media as doing the public a big favor by educating ignorant customers, had me totally confused. Could I get a better rate in a longer term CD without putting up more money? Neither the virtual nor real banker would tell me in writing I could almost double my return if I bought a shorter, 2 months CD. Maybe they would have been fired if they revealed that.
Rebecca said it was against policy to email me about such matters, that everything must be explained orally. Maybe she was just trying to do me a favor? My doubted it.
I have had good reason to be leery of people who would not reduce what they said to writing so they might subsequently deny they had said it; they often did just that when the truth might embarrass them.
I insisted on seeing the text of the certificate of deposit, and she finally sent me the information. The very clause I was concerned with answered my question. She finally revealed in writing the big secret, which was actually for all the public to see online, if only they knew where to look.
"If we don't hear from you, your CD will automatically renew for the same term with a new maturity date. You'll receive the interest rate and APY that are in effect on your maturity date..."
No, I did not have to come down to the bank with identification, not unless I wanted to find an investment other than the one that I had made in the original CD. The virtual banker had done what he was supposed to do: put doubt in my mind and get me to wondering whether I had a good deal or not; then he could talk me into putting up more money.
Rebecca was unsympathetic and had no apology to me for the confusion. She is a strictly business, no nonsense banker, polite but curt, not your friendly banker of old. I got the impression she thought I was stupid, and she might is right. I have not been around hustlers for a long time, so I am not up to speed in that department. But neither of these bankers would tell me in writing was that my 3 months CD yielded only 2% but a two months CD was yielding from 4.25"% to 4.75%.
Yes, indeed, it dawned on dumb me that this new Virtual Banker system was set up by Chase to smooth talk customers and shake more money out of the tree, so to speak, for everyone's benefit, of course. So why didn't the bankers want to send me the published rate sheet which would make it obvious I could double my interest rate return? When I bought the 3 month CD, I was told that was the highest rate I could get.
I noticed that reporter Mark Williams of The Columbus Dispatch had waxed enthusiastic in his news article about the new service.
"Chase began the service two years ago, with bankers calling customers to introduce themselves and to see how they were doing financially. 'People need financial guidance more ever before,' said Gerrod Parchmon, managing director and head of business development and virtual banking for Chase...'Since then, bankers have made hundreds of thousands of calls, building relationships with individual customers. We really have the ability to help out the masses, not the few," he said." (mawilliams@dispatch.com)
The next time a virtual banker calls me, I'll try to keep him or her on the line for an hour if I'm feeling lonely. Real bankers have no time for pleasantries with small customers, but virtual bankers do; just don't ask them to put facts in writing.
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