Ask HN: How do I convince Chase that I shouldn't be receiving other's info?

30 points by rd11235 6 years ago | 16 comments

I have been receiving emails regarding another person's Chase credit card, including the last 4 digits of the CC, monthly balance, due date, failure to make minimum payment, etc.

Meanwhile I have my own Chase account. Chase's system happily sends emails for both accounts (mine and this other person's) to my email.

I have called Chase twice, explaining that a) sharing another customer's information is not good and b) this is why nearly everyone requires email confirmation (Chase does not). But both discussions, including 1 with a supervisor/manager, led to them firmly saying that it is impossible to stop, since apparently this other person accidentally typed my email as their own. (I also suggested that they simply contact this other person; apparently this is also impossible.)

Any advice on how to escalate this?

elliekelly 6 years ago |

Call corporate directly at 212-270-6000. A human will answer and ask for your name. Tell them you need to speak with Frank Pearn (Chief Compliance Officer) regarding an ongoing “GLBA” (Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act) violation. If you get pushback mention that you thought you’d try to resolve it with compliance before you filed a complaint with the FCC. Be polite/calm but speak with confidence and as matter-of-factly as you can.

You won’t get put through to the CCO but you’ll probably get put through to someone who can put a stop to it.

If that doesn’t work you can send a letter explaining the situation via certified mail. Someone in the legal department is guaranteed to open it.

akeck 6 years ago | |

Write a certified letter to Frank Pearn explaining the GLBA violation. This establishes an evidence trail, which will definitely get a response.

LurkersWillLurk 6 years ago | |

You probably meant FTC, the Federal Trade Commission. But in this case the complaint probably ought to go to the CFPB.

elliekelly 6 years ago | | |

I definitely did, thanks. Can you imagine if Ajit Pai were in charge of all consumer protection? Yikes.

Tagbert 6 years ago |

I’ve had a similar thing where a chase customer used my email address to open an account. I don’t have a Chase account. I used their online customer service to ask them to remove that address. It was hard to get them to interact as they kept asking me for my Chase account number. Eventually they said that they removed it.

For a while the emails stopped but then they started again. this time I went into a Chase bank and went through the same song and dance. They said that they removed the email address. Again, the emails stopped for a while but later restarted. I gave up and setup a filter to delete those emails.

This is not the only account where someone put my email address into their account. My address is myname@gmail.com and a lot of other people with my name seem to not know what their address is. Some are things where they probably want the email address to be right such as a wireless carrier account or a job application. Why do companies not verify email addresses when setting up accounts?

jagannathtech 6 years ago | |

I have myname@yahoo.com. Every day I get a password reset email. Plenty of other transactional emails of all kinds of accounts of people named 'myname' and other close variations. Thankfully I chose a myname+something for my gmail which I use currently...

bberenberg 6 years ago |

In doing my PPP application, Chase attached some other persons documents to my application. Agents on the phone happily read that info back to me. My trust in the technical side of Chase is 0.

babycake 6 years ago |

Sure, modus operandi to get any company to do good these days is to make a public post about it. Spin up that medium blog! I'm not even joking is the sadder bit here.

MaanuAir 6 years ago | |

Not a bank account, but a E-retailer I am a customer of, started to send me occasional emails targeting another customer, without any name or email similarities (at all), from another European country (wtf ?).

At beginning it was promotional stuffs regarding the loyalty card program, and a call to support in both countries even denied this is possible. I gave up.

Then the other person bought an iPad, with extra insurance and I got very personal details (shop address, person name and address, bank details...). Insane.

Making it (gently) public on Twitter solved my case (and the other person, too) very quickly.

I just try to avoid thinking about whether a random email receives information about me...

xupybd 6 years ago |

I've had a similar experience. Got no where for months. Then I read their disclaimer back to them. Told them I did not agree to confidentiality and told them I would publish all future correspondence. Did not get another email.

matthewrobertso 6 years ago |

I have the same problem with Verizon (except I am no longer a customer with them). I've even gone to a Verizon store and asked the manager about it (sometime in 2017). They did not have any procedures in place for this and I still receive emails about someone else's cellphone bill.

LurkersWillLurk 6 years ago | |

File a complaint with the FCC.

https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us/requests/new?tic...

Select "privacy" as the complaint category.

bestnameever 6 years ago |

I just had this experience with CapitalOne. I got in touch with the fraud department and they were able to assist me. They were able to locate the account using the account information I provided them with.

Whether it works remains to be seen.

saluki 6 years ago |

Same, I'm currently receiving a Bank of America customer's emails.

I tried emailing them but I'm still receiving the emails.

buffaloo 6 years ago |

Just curious: Is this “other person” a former spouse with whom you shared the account?

rd11235 6 years ago | |

No. It's a random Chase customer.