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Regulation and Compliance > Litigation

Clients Sue Chase Over $1M in Missing CD Funds

By Dinah Wisenberg Brin

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A mother and son have sued JPMorgan Chase Bank, contending they never received over $1.1 million in funds from certificates of deposit that they say the bank mailed without their knowledge.

In a complaint filed last week in California Superior Court, Rui Wang and Hengchen Qu, who live in China, accuse Chase of unjust enrichment and breach of contract and seek over $1.18 million in damages.

The pair opened three “automatically renewable” nine-month CDs totaling $1.16 million in 2019 at a Chase branch in Arcadia, California, according to the complaint. 

After opening the accounts, they returned to China; when they came back to the U.S., the plaintiffs went to the branch and asked about the CDs’ status, the lawsuit says.

“The staff stated that the CD accounts had been closed and three checks, each representing the fund therein, had been mailed to the address provided by plaintiffs, which were not received by, or even known to, plaintiffs,” the complaint says.

The accounts totaled nearly $1.19 million by then, according to the suit.

The mother and son demanded the checks be reissued, but a bank assistant vice president required them first to provide the numbers on the three previously issued checks, “which was impossible for Plaintiffs to do,” they contend. In several meetings this month, the executive told the pair that he and his supervisor couldn’t help them further without the check numbers, the lawsuit says.

Chase is obligated to provide the funds on the spot upon customer request, the suit claims.

As a direct result of the bank’s breach of contract, Wang and Qu “have suffered financial losses for their failure to access the funds they needed,” the suit says.

Chase had no comment on the complaint Tuesday, a spokesman said by email.

Photo: Shutterstock

Dinah Wisenberg Brin

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