[Update] PSA: Don’t Use ACH for Chase Bank Account Fundings, Avoid Account Lockup

Update 11/22/20: Just a small update on this: Apparently, even ACH transfers long after the account is open trigger lockups with Chase on a regular basis – it’s not limited to the initial account funding. I just experienced this personally, and I see other readers in the comments reporting the same. In short, you probably don’t want to bank with Chase for your main hub bank account.

Original Post 1/18/19:

There are many recent reports of people who opened a new Chase checking or savings account and had their account locked up when attempting to fund it via ACH from an external bank.

Usually the fix is to have a 3-way call with Chase and the external bank and clear up your Chase account. Yet other times they require you to come in with 2 forms of ID or worse. Here are some of the reports of people who’ve bumped into this issue: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

From the comments of this post, it appears the issue affects:

  • even transactions as little as $1,500 (and possibly less)
  • both personal and business accounts
  • even Chase accounts which are many years old (not specific to new Chase accounts). It has been suggested, though, that the first 30 days is more of an issue.
  • whether you fund the Chase account with ACH-pull from an external bank or if you do an ACH-push from an external bank into your Chase account. Initially we wrote only to avoid ACH-pull from Chase’s end, but readers note that even pushing funders from an external bank to a Chase account might trigger the security alert.

It’s a big mistake in the system on Chase’s part because it’s normal for new accounts to transfer in large sums of money and it gives a bad taste to new customers.

A few recommended options:

  • I’d recommend transferring large sums to fund your Chase account by depositing a check in-branch or via the mobile app.
  • Alternatively, you can try doing smaller transactions which is obviously a pain.
  • Zelle/Quickpay might be another option.
  • While there have been reports of lock-up for ACH-pushes from another account, most reports are of ACH-pulls from Chase’s end, so it might be safer to try the external push method from the two options.
  • A reader suggests that You Invest accounts might not have the same sensitivity as checking and savings accounts. (In the case of You Invest, it may not be possible/easy to deposit a check, so you may have to either ACH-pull or ACH-push. ACH-push is probably a bit safer.)

A lot of us open Chase checking and savings account for the bonuses they offer, especially the current $600 offer and Sapphire Banking offer which many of us are doing. During account opening, you can fund the initial $25-$50 deposit with a debit card, and small amounts should be okay via ACH, regardless. It’s just when your doing the full account funding to trigger the bonus (usually it requires $15,000 or $25,000) that you trip into their security system.

Here are a few current Chase deposit bonuses:
    Chuck
  • On November 22, 2020, 23:35

View Comments (329)

  • This just happened to me. 20+ years continuous Chase customer and 8+ years CPC. Just got approved for a business checking account, and tried to fund it with $3,000 via ACH. Rejected. Fraud department called. Linked external account became unverified. Got told that I CANNOT use ACH to fund my new account. At some point this fraud prevention is purely business prevention.

  • Let me see if I have the process straight for the $900 bonus.

    1. Open the direct link to the offer in incognito mode.
    2. Apply for checking and savings combination
    3. Login with existing Chase credentials (if available).
    4. Temporarily life credit freeze. (Experian for me).
    5. Proceed to apply and get checking/savings accounts setup.
    6. Obtain routing/account number for checking and setup direct deposit of at least $500.
    7. Install the Chase Mobile app and deposit a check from an existing checking account for $15000 to the savings account (to avoid ACH transfer and account lock issues).
    8. Watch for the initial bonus - $300 checking account and $200 savings account.
    9. Let the accounts ride for 90-days after the $15000 is credited to the savings account.
    10. Watch for the $400 bonus for completing both activities.
    11. Close out the account - ***not sure of the optimal way to do this*** - perhaps request via secure messaging in the app, or via phone?

    • Just an FYI that I wasn't able to do a mobile deposit of 15k (there is an upper limit but I can't recall what it is). I had to deposit at an ATM, but it got credited the same day. If there isn't a branch near you, maybe consider pushing the funds in.

  • I wish I had read this post earlier. Never happened to me earlier with Chase.
    recently made few ACH transfers by pulling out from Chase and the one with Truist failed with no reason.
    Then tried to do a bill pay to one of my cc to pull the money out from Truist and that one failed too with the message "Returned payment" today.

  • Did a 15k pull from Chase to fund the savings bonus. Silently rejected. Customer service told me to push from my external account, wire, or go in person to a branch. I pushed 15k from the external account and it worked.

  • Is this still an issue? I have an old Chase account. Planning to push into PNC and pull back out. Now I'm thinking I should push out from PNC despite their low limits...

  • Chase is a joke!! I signed up with no issue, but when it comes to recurring external transfer, I had no way to make any changes(change the amount and date, frequency) these buttons were missing on chase end. I called to complain about the issue, they fixed it. A big bank like chase made such mistakes, I won't be staying for long. My husband has the same issue when he opened a new checking and savings account, he had to go to a branch to verify himself, his external linked account to Chase checking was gone all of a sudden. Can they not see he has been with chase(credit cards) for a very long time and use the same external checking account that they suspected and deleted to pay for years?? Now you think it's fraud since he just opened a new Chase checking account? Not letting deposit pull from Chase website is unbelievable! Of course they will say it's for security reason.
    I like Chase credit card sign up bonuses and reward points. But their depositary side is a mess!! Very disappointed!!

  • I decided to be the DP on this one. Pulling into brokerage does NOT cause any lockups. Can also easily transfer to deposit accounts after -- albeit there is a hold period of 4 business days before the funds become "available to withdraw" (but can trade immediately).

    Added quirk -- ACH pulls to brokerage (self-directed in my case) appear to be coming from "JPMS LLC" (JPMorgan Securities) not the usual "JPM Ext Transfer" so it's quite likely they're coded independently on the backend and aren't subject to account lockups as is the case with deposit accounts.

    • @guest_1578296 I ended up having a problem when pushing from Chase brokerage to a recently-added external bank. The next day when I tried to log in to the website, "We locked your account due to suspicious activity ... call 877-691-8086".

      It didn't seem to be as bad as the problems people had when pulling into Chase; Chase didn't need to talk to the other bank, and I didn't need to go into a branch. But Chase still handles it poorly. When I called, they told me to call a brokerage number (which he said was open on Sunday, but it wasn't). He couldn't tell me whether my checking account, credit cards, etc were affected (I noticed though that I could still log in to my personal online account, just not the business online account that I had used when making the transfer). On Monday, the brokerage person told me to call online support; online support transferred me to the fraud department, which supposedly was the 877-691-8086 I called initially. One lesson might be that if you call outside of normal business hours, the people may be less competent.

      The fraud department asked me if I made the transfer, and unlocked the account; the transfer would be cancelled and they added a note so that my next transfer should succeed. The website still showed the transfer pending for 3 days, and the cash wasn't available for me to withdraw. On the 4th day (7 days total), the transfer showed as Rejected, and I was able to make the transfer again, and it worked.

  • Crap, I completely forgot about this and opened the accounts tonight. I just pulled $10k from Cap One using Chase to initiate. How will I know if my account is locked? I haven't put anything at all in the checking account yet. I was trying to figure out if a DD from Mercari or my HSA will count.

    • Just as a data point, about 6 hours after I added my Capital One 360 account to Chase, I got an email that the accounts had been "unlinked" and I find no reference to the $10k deposit in my transaction list. I'm going to try to push a smaller amount from a different account to at least get the account funded with something...

  • what's the best way to get 15K back once the "frozen period" for $900 bonus is passed? write a Chase check of the remaining money? how many free check Chase will give upon opening the new checking account?

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