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https://mitchellh.com/writing/my-startup-banking-story
(edited since at first I remembered it being more negative about chase in particular -- but it's really just funny!)
Anyway, sibling knew someone who worked at JP Morgan private bank and they were willing to do all the work so I said "sure".
Turns out Chase and JP Morgan are integrated on the backend but not Private bank. So the transfer couldn't go through.All in all this was 15-20 emails and multiple phone calls.
And then I was told to open a Chase individual investment account instead.
Not wanting to continue to burn time during work hours when I was super busy with a project, I drove 20 minutes to a Chase branch to open an account with an investment banker to make sure all went smoothly (instead of doing it online).
He couldn't open the account for me, couldn't get anyone on the phone, either. Turns out that the backend is connected enough with Private Bank that I had a profile in their system, but he couldn't "do" anything with it.
A few more emails and phone calls and the Chase investment banker sent me a link to open an account online. So I do that and let the banker that controlled the original stock account know the account details. But he still couldn't transfer the stock. That private bank profile still causing problems I guess.
I was given an 800 number to call private bank to get them to close the account. I spent about a half hour on hold before I hung up. I then contacted the banker I knew at Private Bank and informed him, he said he'd take care of it. Later that day he emailed me and said he had put in the order and I would get a confirmation.
I did get the confirmation but was informed it would take a few days. Once that was done I contacted the broker that controlled the stock account. He tried again, no dice.
He then decided to get licensed in my state so that he could create the account for me. That took another week or so.
And, I was told to close the Chase account. I did that, again, a couple days. By this time I'm 20-25 hours in with phone calls, emails, conversations with my siblings, have driven into the city twice, and so on.
Finally, after about an hour on the phone the next week, the broker creates my account and is able to execute the transfer. Of course, by this time the stock market had tanked and the stock had lost ~20% of its value, meaning I netted less than my siblings, and spent a ton of time.
What. A. Circus.
The most important lesson learned here is not to ever deal with retail banking at the branch. Not only do they not care they aren’t given the authority or autonomy to help you. By trying to do this at multiple branches across the country OP likely made the problem worse as those actions raise suspicions even more. With that much money after the first day of inaction by support he should have CC’d every department fro…
This may vary a lot by bank. At the small regional bank I used to work for accounts were assigned a home branch, typically where the account was first opened, and that branch had enhanced responsibilities in terms of servicing and maintaining the relationship. Chase is big enough that their KYC fallout queues probably have an entire team working them, and it wouldn't matter who else you CC on the email. ("Hey Joe, co…
Any time I’ve ever had issues that weren’t resolved within 24hrs by t1 support I’ve sent a succinct, mostly emotionless email to anyone I could find and it’s worked every time. Phone companies, banks, hell even the government.
Similar experience: Citibank Retirement. I had about $80,000 in IRA/CD's. I'd created & contributed to them over a period of 35 years. Last year, it's time to retire, and Citibank won't give me half the money. It seems that some CD's are for "Cliff Stoll" and some for "Clifford Stoll". Citibank Retirement demanded a "Marriage Certificate, Divorce Decree, or Court Order" to demonstrate that "Cliff Stoll" is the same p…
Infuriating. That kind of thing is what makes me wish I could not have to ever deal with a bank ever again.
Try a credit union if you want to avoid banks.
The real question is: why did it take months of having their vital money withheld before trying to go around the bottom rung support that was clearly not going to help? By like week 2 I’d be talking to an attorney and I bet a letter from them would get it cleared up fast. (Perhaps I’m wrong though.)
Similar experience: Citibank Retirement. I had about $80,000 in IRA/CD's. I'd created & contributed to them over a period of 35 years. Last year, it's time to retire, and Citibank won't give me half the money. It seems that some CD's are for "Cliff Stoll" and some for "Clifford Stoll". Citibank Retirement demanded a "Marriage Certificate, Divorce Decree, or Court Order" to demonstrate that "Cliff Stoll" is the same p…
Funny enough, I recently opened a Chase business checking because of this "bank not bank" news: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40480159
I still have a different business checking with a Mercury-like fintech provider. Chase freezes accounts, Fintech startups go under.
Chase already froze my business credit card once. I had to send them a deed of a house that I had already sold. It made little sense.
On the fintech bank side, my biggest client cannot make transfers to that account. Their payment system throws an error when they try to ACH to it. That plus the news about Synapse going under made me want a chase.
So I don't really know what to do. I now have multiple business accounts, multiple personal accounts. I want to find like a good credit union maybe?
What's clear is being in small business requires building tolerance for money uncertainty that wasn't as necessary when I was an employee.
I feel for the author. That all sucks. I enjoyed the 'Yuppie Nightmare' reference. Many thanks for sharing.
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Blaming OP is totally unhinged