Chase Blows
Get this – we opened a Home Equity loan a few years ago to invest in a business. We got out of the business a while back and no longer need the line. But it has remained open since then. This was a good thing since we are thinking about doing a little addition upstairs to make a little more room for the coming little bundle, and the HELOC rate is pretty low, so it is a good time to borrow.
A couple of days ago we got a letter from Chase, the HELOC provider, informing us that because of declining property values they are freezing the line so we can’t draw on it anymore. Someone else (a bank loan officer, actually) told me they are doing the same sort of thing with a lot of their credit card holders. Now we are excellent customers. We always pay on time, we never carry credit card balances, we never miss payments, or anything. Furthermore, banks all over the country are taking our tax money from the government to cover bad loans, while this bank is freezing our good loan.
And they’re doing it right at the moment when we want to spend some cash and – dare I say it – stimulate the damn economy. You know, create a few jobs for a month or two, buy a lot of American made materials, invest in our property and keep the investment local.
Anyway, my response to Chase has been consistent ever since they bought Bank of NY and forced me to be their customer – when they provide ridiculously bad customer service and impose incredible stupidity on our banking relationship, I pick it up and go somewhere else. I’ve closed out all of my personal and business checking and savings accounts, a business line of credit and an auto loan. Now I am getting a new HELOC and will close the Chase one. And next I will open a new non-Chase credit card and stop using the ones I have that they bought out from Bank One and First USA.
The good news is we should have no trouble getting another loan and move ahead with the addition. We got a solid estimate that is pretty reasonable and includes just about everything. All we have to do is decide between wood flooring and carpet. And we have to pick paint colors.
And if we’re really lucky we might actually be able to pull this off before the baby is born in June. Reminds me of when Jake was born and I was finishing up the bathroom renovation in our Ossining house the night before Carol and baby Jake came home from the hospital.
Who doesn’t love a little excitement, right?
2 COMMENTS
[…] Well, it turns out we are going to do some work on the house and had to apply for a line of credit. In the process we reviewed our credit report along with the applicable scores. There are 2 flavors of FICO and something else called BASHTA or something. While the numbers vary, our scores on all 3 are well in the excellent range, and in the new version of FICO, we are near perfect. The only thing that has brought our scores down from perfection is that we’ve opened a number of lines lately. These would be a car loan in August, a retailer credit card (to get a freebie) and a new personal checking account to get away from Chase this Summer – you may remember how much I hate Chase. […]
[…] of us thought we’d do it any time soon. But home equity line rates are low, and even though Chase screwed us, we went to the glorious local Rondout Savings Bank and scored a sweet […]