JP Morgan Chase's Online Banking is Not Ready for Prime Time

I recently opened an account with JP Morgan Chase having previously used Citibank for all of my financial needs.

I am startled by how poor the interfaces are. It really feels as if the internet were just invented yesterday when I use this thing. None of the menus are logical or easy to navigate. The two things that irk me the most are the following:

1) When I use the online payment functionality to issue a check online, the money is withdrawn the instant that the check is written, not when it is cashed. Aside from the fact that I lose the interest that I should be accruing between the time that it is issued and cashed (this interest is obviously now accruing to Chase), I have no way to ever know whether the check has been received, unless I am contacted later by the person or organization that I am trying to pay saying that it has not been received.

2) There is no way to get a summary online of all of the recent activity in the account. I need to go into each separate folder - deposits, checks written, online checks. When several checks are deposited at once, they do not appear individually on statements, but as one deposit, and there is absolutely no way to go back more than 12 months to see activity (I need to get all of my statements out in order to prepare my prior year returns).

I am not sure who built Chase's online banking system, but it is highly inferior to Citibank's or any other bank's that I used.

Citi and BoA may be the banks in trouble today, but if these banks are to be judged by ability to adapt to technology and consumer needs in the the 21st Century, JP Morgan Chase is in the worst position of all.

Comments

Rob

March 19, 2009

Im sorry, but you have it all wrong. As a banking employee of 10 years experience, I have seen it all, and I understand why and what is out there. There are reasons why online banking is done that way, which because of fraud am among other reasons can have a big impact on checking account mistakes. The Chase online is actually rated within the financial industry as number 1 and the simplest to use. Although I respect your opinion, there are far too many folks that disagree with you.
Chase has been so conservative for so many years that they have seen mistakes buy citi and boa among many others and have set up operations and procedures and cust serv far superior to citi. Because the co is so big, are there mistakes, sure like with any financial co, but Chase is growiing and is strong because of smart decisions and effective banking techniques.
Go talk to a manager and share with them your concerns, and you may be surprised with the answers to your concern.

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BlackGold

April 08, 2009

I agree, just open a Chase account as well and am very disappointed in layout/features of Chase online. Agree with the original poster that Citi has a great online site--free transfer between external accts, Chase charges $5? I might have to close out my Chase account as I do the majority of my banking online.

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Limbo

April 11, 2009

I wonder if Chase has a scheme for floating money for auditing reasons. I always thought online banking meant my payments were electronic. Not so, says the local Chase customer rep. A recent payment I made to AMEX which has been receiving my online payments for a year now, showed it was made from my Chase acct. When I got my next AMEX bill, it was added to my new bill, as unpaid. Since I had a transaction # from Chase, I gave it to AMEX as proof they supposedly paid it a month ago. When I visited my local Chase branch, the rep tracked down the transaction and said it was "sent out as a paper transaction" i.e. (check). Hey, I could have written out a check and plunked it in the mail too. They were basically telling me, "it was lost in the mail". So now they put a stop on the transaction and it will take 5 days minimum until they put the close to 2K back in my Chase acct. Gee... now if Chase did this on a regular basis with enough "lost in the mail transactions" made on their end (think high millions here... could even have a computer program to glean the right number), the money is still really with Chase, not paid out, and their balance sheets might look much healthier than they really are. This may seem paranoid, but NOT in this banking climate. It would be interesting if there were a way to find out how many transactions deducted from Chase accts. never truly were paid out... at least without doing what I've had to go through.

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DeeDee

May 26, 2009

I am very unhappy with the layout of the site. It looks unfinished and very unprofessional. Not user friendly at all. I'm surprised by this. I have tried to send out an e-mail to them in my 'secure e-mail account' and although it says you can send a message there is no way to do this.

Very inferior site as compared to WAMU. Rather than calling I would like to be able to write an e-mail but there is no way to do this. Did they just begin running online? Is this still a new site? Even so, it is still way below sub-par.

I don't have much confidence in this institution if they can't even figure out how to design a website. It's fairly simple, yet still they don't get it right.

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