Because we handle investor money, we need to be super-careful about how we move funds around. After all, screwing around with investor money is career-ending for Jon and me.
Therefore, I personally approve every single transfer of funds out of our accounts, which are all with Chase. At a big company, this is the kind of thing that would be handled by a comptroller or CFO. Because we’re small and I care, I do it.
So, it’s incredibly irritating when Chase screws something up, since it means that I need to deal with unscrewing it, personally.
For example:
Yesterday, I needed to send a security deposit refund to a tenant. I had my bookkeeper ask Chase customer service what the best/cheapest way to handle this would be. They recommended using Quickpay, a new service.
I went through the whole, irritating process of activating Quickpay and entering this tenant’s information, all so I could use the service.
Imagine my annoyance when, this morning, neither I nor my bookkeeper could log into the Chase system. Turns out using Quickpay triggered some fraud prevention system, which:
- Canceled the payment to the tenant;
- Blocked me and my bookkeeper from accessing our accounts;
- Blocked all of my clients from seeing their accounts; and
- Blocked the tenant’s account
I’m never getting back the hour I just spent resolving this situation. Thanks, Chase.