Before we go on, let me say that my mortgage is with Chase (was with WaMu). For the purpose of this comment, let's say I own a house in Tulsa and my name is Anne Marie Lee. My father's name is Robert Frances Lee and he was born in July.

So the first question is: Which city does Marie Lee own a home? A) Tulsa B) Houston C) New York D) I don't know anyone named Marie Lee.

Well that's sort of confusing because Marie is my middle name and Lee is my last name and I do own a home in Tulsa. I explained this to the customer service rep, but he/she played the same infuriating script game that you encountered. “Ma'am- I need you to select either A B C or D”. I didn't know if they had made a mistake (did they get my first and middle name mixed up?) or were they trying to catch me in a trick question? And of course, the customer service rep would not help. So whatever. I chose option D. “I don't know anyone named Marie Lee” which was a strange thing to say about myself.

Question Two- (and this is the one that really gets me panties in a knot) – “What month was Frances Lee born in? A) June B) July C) September D) I don't know anyone named Frances Lee”

It makes me angry just typing it. In the first place, my father's full name is Robert Frances Lee but absolutely NO ONE has ever called him that. He goes by “Frances Lee” exclusively. So I don't know if I'm supposed to say that I don't know anyone by the name of “Frances Lee” when that is my father's name! But probably they are trying to play the trick question game again. I explain the situation to the customer service rep who will not help me and must stick to the script- I am only allowed to say ABC or D and nothing else.

The second problem I have with this is that I'm a 33 year old married adult with a mortgage and a bank account completely seperate from my father who lives in a different state. His name is absolutely NOWHERE on my account. They must have done a public record search to determine who my father is and what month he was born. Now, isn't that a little insane? Do you know how many millions of people there are out there who don't have any idea what month their father was born? Many people don't even know their father. What the hell does this question prove about my identity?

In fact, it seems like such an insane way to prove someone's identity that I decided that sometime back a long, long time ago, I must have actually selected this question as a security question to prove my identity. Perhaps long ago, they asked me to write a question that would prove who I am, you know how email sometimes does that if you forget your password? “What was the name of your kindergarten teacher?” or something. Well, I reasoned, I must have chosen “What month was Frances Lee born?” as a security question years back and forgotten. That seemed like the only reasonable explanation, so I chose, “B July”. My father is Frances Lee and he is born in July.

But no. The correct answer was “D – I don't know anyone named Frances Lee”. So to prove my identity with Chase, I have to pretend that I don't know my father. Humph. I asked where they got this information, and the customer service rep explained that it was a matter of public record. So, insane as it sounds, Chase has pulled up random public record information and then asks you tricky questions about it in order to prove who you are despite the fact that the information might have nothing to do with you at all and might be about your family members and might use their names incorrectly.

And for that reason, I was not allowed to change my email address or access my account online.

Can you believe it???

This attempt at empowering consumers failed and serves as a great question for all users of the banking companies in the US.

What bugs me most … Chase was good to me, I liked their branding … now that is all thrown out the window from this poor experience. That's all I'm saying.

Due to reading this my experience went very smoothly.
I started by entering my card number but got thrown into a operator response queue due to some reason.
They asked for my name and address. Gave them the info.
Told them I wanted to OPT OUT. They asked me which choices I was shown.
I told them one,two,three. They asked which I wanted to choose and I chose one,two,three.
Bada Bing Done.

You saved me all sorts of confusion and stress. If I knew you I would buy you a beer

However, I do have something to say about the Chase customer service experience in general. I applaud chase on trying to protect their customers, but recently my cc was put of “security freeze” due to a legitimate purchase, and then I was locked out of MY OWN account for THREE DAYS. Good thing I have alternate ways of handling my fiances and didn’t have to depend on my CC.. something that not all chase customers may have in place.
To add insult to injury, the first 3 times I called they couldn’t tell me anything: not why the card wasn’t working, not how to correct the issue. They only told me to wait for some mysterious security confirmation phone call. When that call did finally come THREE DAYS later… I was left on hold by Rick the “unit specialist” for 17 minutes… then hung up on….

I think I should say that again. They left me on hold for 17 minutes, then discontinued my call.

When I called them back and finally got someone who would talk to me about the security information, all they could offer me is the promise of a written apology coming by mail in who-knows-how long.

I think all current and potential chase customers should be aware that their supposed “Customer Service” is going down the drain and quickly.

This is yet again, another attempt at squeezing a few extra dollars on the backs of customers instead of well, earning them.

~Joe

Exactly. Soon after I iron out a few issues with my account in general, I may make the jump to one of those Internet-based banks which have significantly less overhead so they pass the savings on to me. I wanted to alert others who might have otherwise ignored this email that was sent to customers and let them know the probable experience they might have.

~Joe

The point was that Chase took the first step in telling me about their privacy changes, then I reacted as they told me to. Then when I did, they make it a real hassle to opt-out. I believe when you opt out of marketing through the back of the card, that merely opts you out of marketing from that one relationship, versus, say, sharing your information with every other company who wants to buy your info for the lowest price.

Thanks for the feedback, in the future, I'll be sure I call that number on the back to opt-out; but that still doesn't excuse Chase from making my opt-out request harder than basic training for the Army.

~Joe