Chase Bank forgives all credit card debt in Canada

[adela76]

www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/08/09/chase-bank-canada-forgives-all-credit-card-debt-customers/1964419001/

"Chase made the decision to exit the Canadian credit card market. As part of that exit, all credit card accounts were closed on or before March 2018. A further business decision has been made to forgive all outstanding balances in order to complete the exit," Maria Martinez, vice president of communications for Chase Card Services, said in a statement.

Chase declined to say how much debt was forgiven or how many customers were affected. It wasn't immediately clear when the decision was made, but CBC spoke with some Canadians who said they received a letter from Chase this week.

"I was sort of over the moon all last night, with a smile on my face," Douglas Turner of Coe Hill, Ontario, told the Canadian broadcaster. Turner said he still owed more than $4,500 on his card. "I couldn't believe it."

When I first saw this headline, I thought it was one of those satire articles that mistakenly gets picked up as real news, but it seems to be quite real.  What are your thoughts?

[Artemis Windsong]

Unbelievable.

I would like to know who decided this and if the numbers supported forgiving the amount as compared to continue a payment center.

[Tiny]

Isn't this just a write off of debt?      Will the people who have had 'forgiven debt' be hit with a tax bill?  I assume Canada has an income tax of some sort... 

Don' t the credit card companies routinely "forgive"  aka write off debt they have been unable to collect on closed accounts  

OK, maybe the CC companies 'sell' that debt to another company who might attempt to collect on it... so they get something, but it still seems to amount to the same thing for the CC companies -- a write off. 

Chase closed ALL accounts over a year ago.  I would assume Chase attempted to continue to collect/billed the accounts with a balance.  I strongly suspect Chase notified account holders this closure would happen and that the account holders still had to PAY the amount due.    I'm sure many of the account holders paid their bill... 

I was bad and didn't read the article.    I had a "Meh" initial response to the headline.  Credit cards write off/forgive debt all the time. 

[Tiny]

OK, with a 'write off' the debt is still there - but someone may or may not bother attempting to collect it.     

I guess Chase is doing a big nice by NOT selling the debt so no one will attempt to collect the debt.     

[weltschmerz]

When I first saw this headline, I thought it was one of those satire articles that mistakenly gets picked up as real news, but it seems to be quite real. What are your thoughts? 
Nope, not satire.   However, I've never even seen a Chase bank in Montreal.

[Tiny]

Aug 9, 2019 16:13:52 GMT -5 Artemis Windsong said:

Unbelievable.

I would like to know who decided this and if the numbers supported forgiving the amount as compared to continue a payment center.

I'm sure it made financial sense to Chase - as totally closing the 'books' was part of the accounting/legal agreement for pulling out of the Canadian market.     I doubt Chase was doing this out of the kindness of it's heart (corporations don't have hearts).  

[engineerdoe]

Aug 9, 2019 17:34:50 GMT -5 Tiny said:

Aug 9, 2019 16:13:52 GMT -5 Artemis Windsong said:

Unbelievable.

I would like to know who decided this and if the numbers supported forgiving the amount as compared to continue a payment center.

I'm sure it made financial sense to Chase - as totally closing the 'books' was part of the accounting/legal agreement for pulling out of the Canadian market.     I doubt Chase was doing this out of the kindness of it's heart (corporations don't have hearts).  

I'm sure the loss they are taking on this far outweighs the cost of continuing business in Canada specifically.  There must be some onerous rules for debt collection in Canada that Chase doesn't have in the US. 

[ednkris]

probably all that free healthcare they people have to pay in taxes, they can't pay their credit card bills

[weltschmerz]

Aug 10, 2019 13:24:55 GMT -5 ednkris said:

probably all that free healthcare they people have to pay in taxes, they can't pay their credit card bills

Right. Funny how we could still pay our bills to the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Toronto Dominion, Laurentian Bank, Royal Bank of Canada, et al.  Canada has the strongest and safest banking system in the world.  The American bank couldn't cut it here. Too bad, so sad.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banking_in_Canada

[mollyc]

I'll try to keep things short for the TL:DR crowd.  Or not.  If you asked a question and can't be bothered to read the answer, that's on you.

Chase Bank had no banks in Canada, only credit cards.  They had been discontinuing their Canadian credit cards and were down to 2.  They stopped accepting applications for their Amazon.ca Visa in April 2017 and the Marriott's Rewards Premier Visa around September 2017.  In January 2018, Chase announced it was operationally discontinuing both cards as of March 15, 2018.  The reason given was Chase Visa Canada was discontinuing its relationships with Amazon & Marriott.

Scotiabank was, at this point, providing the customer service for the Chase credit cards on a contract basis and had been for a year.  Scotiabank would continue to do so as customers paid their balances over time (so another 15 months).  This brings us to now with Chase deciding to write off the remaining debt, including that of the accounts in good standing.

A quote CBC got from Chase that I didn't notice in US Today's version:

Chase told CBC News it chose the debt-forgiveness route so that everyone benefited.



"Ultimately, we felt it was a better decision for all parties, particularly our customers," spokesperson Maria Martinez said in an email.

So Chase seems to have decided that possible Positive Publicity, lack of need to pay Scotiabank and a tax write off is worth more than whatever funds are still outstanding.  They are not releasing any information regarding how much money is involved or how many people had balances written off.  Bloggers and YouTubers are throwing around Millions and Millions of dollars but I have no idea what they are basing that number on.  Butt smoke, maybe.  It would be funny if it ended up being just the dozen or so people who've been interviewed by news outlets or commented online.

CRA is currently reviewing tax implications.  I understand there will be tax consequences for written off business expenses.  I don't know what category they would use for debt write off of personal expenses, though.  Yes, if someone paid their tuition or certain work related expenses on the card, they could have used the expense to attain non-refundable tax credits.  I just don't know how CRA would be able to get the information needed to determine if the remaining balance included any of those things.  I can't imagine what T-slip Chase would need to file for everyone.  Maybe a T4A as "Other Income" but I don't know if they are allowed to keep S.I.N.s on file after your application is approved.

To the best of my knowledge, there are no significant differences between debt collection in Canada and the US.  Regarding why Chase didn't sell the debt, I've come across some guesses.  I don't know how good they might be.  One is that there isn't enough debt left to sell to make it worthwhile for anyone to buy.  Another possibility is, that Chase's agreement with Visa doesn't allow it to sell off the debt of the accounts still in good standing.

If anyone will have access to Chase's next annual financial statement, let me know if the loss is broken out anywhere.  It would be interesting to see what the amount actually was.

Some links if anyone is interested.  Hopefully they work.  My system seems to be having problems with links and pastes.

CBC's story on Debt Forgiveness

Chase Visa Cards Ending

[weltschmerz]

"Chase Bank had no banks in Canada,"

Well, I guess that explains why I've never seen one!