Major bank JPMorgan Chase admitted to NBC News that it improperly overcharged several thousand military families on their mortgages, including families of troops who are fighting in Afghanistan. In addition, the bank admitted it erroneously foreclosed on more than a dozen families.
Admission Stems from Lawsuit
NBC News recently conducted an investigation after learning about a lawsuit filed by Marine Capt. Jonathan Rowles. In the lawsuit, Rowles, a Marine for five years and backseat pilot of an F/A 18 Delta fighter jet, along with his wife, Julia, said they had been battling Chase for many years over the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA).
Under the law, active-duty troops are generally given mortgage interest rates as low as 6 percent. Also, the troops and their families are supposed to be protected from foreclosure.
The lawsuit claimed Chase violated the law and did not provide these protections to the Rowles. In fact, the family was overcharged up to $900 a month. Later, they were told they owed the bank $15,000 and received harassing collection calls at 3 a.m. threatening to take the house and report it to a collections agency.
After NBC News began its own investigation, the bank admitted it indeed violated SCRA on multiple occasions, leaving numerous military families, including the Rowles, under financial stress.
Troops to Receive Refunds
In an interview with NBC News, released on Monday, Chase said that 4,000 troops may have been overcharged when it recently “discovered it improperly foreclosed on the homes of 14 families.”
To fix the problem, Chase plans to mail a total of about $2 million in refunds to families that may have been charged at this beginning of this week. The bank insists that families that were improperly foreclosed upon have gotten or will get their homes back very soon.
Chase said that it has made a lot of mistakes over the past several years and wants to correct them, so for homeowners who are not automatically receiving refunds, the bank encourages them to come in and discuss their accounts immediately.
Where is President Obama in this debacle? Isn’t he “Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces?” Why hasn’t he called for a freeze of JP Morgan’s” and “Chase’s” transactions and assets and frozen them until such time that an internal and external investigation is completed. “Financial Responsibility” is a core value across all branches of the service that can ultimately “Make or Break” a career in the military. Any other organization would have immediately been “red-flagged” and have come under investigation of the many agencies under their charge. What about those individual families who lost not only promotional status but were also penalized by a negative comment in the “ServicePerson’s Personnel Records and further penalized by the “Credit Agencies?” How can JP Morgan/Chase make restitution for those lost opportunities and years of suffering?
filthy bank
How can we let this type of thing happen? How do we let financial institutions like this stay in business. This is not an accident as they have said this is a deliberate act of irresponsibility and the banks continue to allow this to happen. These men and women are helping protect this country and they need to be worrying about this type of action from a lender. They live everday with there life on the line and these fat cat bankers sit back in there high rise buildings making millions and not a care in the world because these great military people are putting there life out there for us. You should all be ashamed of your self for this act of stupidity. Mr. prseident where are you on this issue? Ever think about stepping in and finally doing something with these banks???? Dont you think its about time you did? And we all wonder why the economy is not getting better, how do we look forward and have faith in the economy and the banks when this crap continues to happen, maybe we should give the banks more money so they can get fatter and put people out on the street. This is absolutely unacceptable and Mr president YOU need to do something to stop this crap and put a stop to this bank and all others that participate in these type of “ACCIDENTS”.
I recently retired from the Navy. I purchased my home 13 September 2002 at 7.75% interest rate. I still reside in the same home. I would like to know if the Servicemember Civil Relief Act (SCRA) applied at the time of me purchasing this property.
Thank you for your attention.
Isn’t that just great! As restitution, the bank officers responsible for the overcharges should be sent to Afghanistan for a year. The troops they cheated should have the bank salaries for that year given to them, and the job if they felt so inclined.
[...] the first to kick it all off when they admitted to overcharging several thousand families on their military mortgages. Even worse, about a dozen families were foreclosed on when they couldn’t make the mortgage [...]