On January 1, my partner Kin Lane and I incorporated as Tech Gypsies. We chose the name as we both live and work as technologists, writers, and consultants and live and work on the road. We chose to create a company because it was easier for us to handle our professional lives that way (way easier than getting married, he jokes).

In February, we opened a business banking account with Chase Bank, choosing one of the corporate giants (somewhat begrudgingly) because we thought it would have the most branches in cities we frequented and because it had a good mobile app and Web banking system (the former allows for you to deposit checks electronically – great when you’re not near an actual branch). All banks are evil, but we figured if we went with Big Evil that at least they’d not be Incompetent Evil, something that our former credit union in Oregon had become.

But no. Chase has proven to be even more incompetent.

All seemed to go swimmingly with Chase until Monday, August 6 when – without warning – Chase froze our business account, where we keep almost 100% of our money since almost 100% of our expenses are, ya know, business-related. We were in Palo Alto at CalTrain, trying to buy tickets into San Francisco when Kin’s debit card stopped working. Mine stopped working too. Thankfully we had enough cash on hand to buy tickets and get into the city, where we sat in a Chase Bank for 3 hours trying to resolve things.

12 days later, we still have no access to the funds we have there. Apparently there was some paperwork snafu when we set up the account (6 months ago). And apparently such things are just about impossible to rectify.

Having no access to your bank account might be all well and dandy if you have a roof over your head and some food stored up in the cupboards. But for those that know how Kin and I work, know that we travel constantly and know that as of July 31 we are "homeless" -- or maybe "permanent-address-less" is a better term.  (We are in the process of relocating to Southern California.) So to have no money is frighteningly frustrating and frustratingly frightening to say the least, even though I guess there are worse places to have to sleep outside than SoCal.

Despite their ongoing promises to rectify things promptly, nothing changed on Chase’s end in almost two weeks now. They couldn't address things over the phone; they couldn't address things electronically. Eventually they said we needed to come into a bank in person (again) as they couldn’t accept faxed or scanned copies of the forms (the irony being that when we went into banks this week, they then faxed and scanned forms to their headquarters.) We were in DC last week where there are no Chase branches. We flew to LA this week, and then spent $350 to fly to San Francisco for the day in order to sign a bunch of paperwork that was supposedly going to clear things up within 24 hours. It’s three days later and still nothing. A banker called yesterday to say that the signatures were blurry on those forms and asked if we could swing back by the bank again. (Um, no. We’re in LA. And we have no money to fly to SFO. Also: OMFG, R U SRS)

Having the bank account frozen means neither of us can pay our business bills. Since we use Amazon Web Services for our websites (hosting and data storage), we’ll lose everything if that bill isn’t paid. (Yay, "cloud.") Our phones and our mobile Internet access will be shut off. I can’t buy plane tickets to travel to the events that are necessary for my job.  Chase seems to be doing its best to destroy the way we make money by shutting off access to the bank account we use to “live on the Internet."

Still worse, we can’t accept any payments or deposits into that account for the work we do, including the sizable wireless transfer we were expecting August 15 that would give us enough cash to move in to a new apartment (and all the other expenses that moving entails). We’ve put that particular deposit on hold, and if past experience with this particular client are any indication, we now won’t see that money ’til mid-September. (They only pay invoices once a month.) 

By some time this weekend, all the money in my personal account will be gone too. Thankfully I’ve paid for the hotel room we’re staying in ’til Monday – my birthday. (Thanks Chase for that special gift.) And in one of those wonderful twists of fate, we can’t really scream and yell and withdraw all our money and take it to another bank because we currently have no home address for them to send new debit cards and checks and the like. To put it mildly, we’re screwed. And we’re screwed because Chase screwed up, not because we did.

We walked the mile over to the nearest Chase Bank yesterday, re-signed all the paperwork and were promised that once the fax of that paperwork arrived in the Bay Area office, the funds in our account would be released immediately. Big surprise – it was yet another lie. The banks are now all closed for the weekend, and we still cannot access our money.

All this hardly rises to the level of outrage of Progressive Insurance defending a killer, I realize, (although I'm pretty damn outraged) but it’s all certainly sympomatic of the corporate culture that has completely forgotten what “service” or “customer” really means. It’s our money, Chase. It's our business. You're killing it.

Updated 8/18: I spent an hour on the phone being passed from consumer rep to consumer rep until finally someone was able to unfreeze the account. My debit card still doesn't work, but Kin's does. I don't even have the stamina to deal with that right now. But at least -- thank goodness -- I have access to my money.