JP Morgan Chase Unethical Debt Collection Practices
JP Morgan Chase has finally been outed for its years of abusive and unethical debt collection practices. Linda Almonte, who was employed by Chase as a process specialist (then fired for refusing to send obviously flawed files to collection), filed a whistleblower complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2010. Almonte’s complaint was recently detailed in American Banker, and its details reveal a widespread policy of shoddy record-keeping and purposeful destruction of information.Chase Corp. made a decision in 2008 to aggressively up their collections activities, and installed new management in their San Antonio operation (which oversaw litigation). Almonte was employed in this branch (and filed a wrongful termination lawsuit after they fired her). Among Almonte’s charges: Chase Bank sold to third party debt buyers hundreds of millions of dollars worth of credit card accounts—when in fact Chase Bank executives knew that many of those accounts had incorrect and overstated balances; Chase Bank executives routinely destroyed information and communications from consumers rather than incorporate that information into the consumer’s credit card file, including bankruptcy notices, powers of attorney, notice of cancellation of auto-pay, proof of payments and letters from debt settlement companies; Chase Bank executives mass-executed thousands of affidavits in support of Chase Banks collection efforts and those Chase Bank executives did not have personal knowledge of the facts set forth in the affidavits.American Banker’s story continues, quoting current and recent employees who confirm that the unscrupulous practices Almonte called out are still very much alive. “We did not verify a single one” of the affidavits attesting to the amounts Chase was about to collect on, says Howard Hardin, who oversaw a team handling tens of thousands of Chase debt files in San Antonio. “We were told [by superiors] ‘We’re in a hurry. Go ahead and sign them.’” The documents Chase’s law firms used to sue people differed from Chase’s own files at a staggering rate, as shown by a routine Chase presentation prepared by Almonte, and later submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission—some law firms’ records disagreed with Chase’s in 20% of cases sampled, a level far greater what is regarded as acceptable error. And, correspondence from borrowers to the San Antonio facility (bankruptcy notifications, address changes, hardship requests), were dropped on an unmanned desk; this news comes from a 2009 printout from Chase’s troubleshooting log.As in the housing crisis and subsequent prolonged recession, robo-signing is also central to Chase’s bad practices. One of their most prolific affidavit signers was Ruben Alcaraz, who rarely if ever reviewed the bank’s pertinent records (as required by law). In court documents, Alcaraz describes himself as an “officer of the bank” and an “Assistant Treasurer;” high-level Chase management had instructed employees to stop signing documents using such titles around the middle of the last decade, four Chase sources say.If a collection agency has harassed you, you may be entitled to money damages up to $1,000.00, based on the FDCPA, which has been around for almost 35 years. The FDCPA is a federal law that applies to every state. In other words, everyone is protected by the FDCPA. The FDCPA is essentially a laundry list of what debt collectors can and cannot do while collecting a debt, as well as things debt collectors must do while collecting a debt. Plus, the FDCPA has a fee-shift provision. This means, the collection agency pays your attorney’s fees and costs. Founding attorney, Michael Agruss, has settled over 1,500 debt collection harassment cases. We want to help you, too.