Bank Freeze? More Like Bank Heist! JPMorgan Holds Couple’s Cash Hostage for 2 Years

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Oh, JPMorgan Chase, you’ve outdone yourself this time! Not content with just being a bank, you’ve decided to moonlight as a financial kidnapper. Yes, you read that right. A couple’s hard-earned $102,914-awarded after a workplace accident, no less-was snatched away and held for ransom (or, you know, just because) for nearly two years. Bravo!

Here’s the Bridget Jones-esque saga: Maria Mercedes Diaz Ortiz, thinking she was just depositing a check like a normal human, dropped her husband Jose Maximiliano’s six-figure compensation into her account. Jose, by the way, had already legged it back to Mexico, but not before endorsing the check like a responsible adult. Seems straightforward, right? Wrong.

Enter JPMorgan Chase, stage left, with a dramatic freeze on the funds. Not just the big bucks, mind you-they also blocked her other account with a measly $3,115. Because why stop at one account when you can ruin someone’s entire financial life?

Maria, bless her, brought every piece of documentation known to mankind-marriage certificate, ID, probably her childhood immunization records-to prove she wasn’t running a Nigerian prince scam. But nope. JPMorgan Chase was having none of it. For two years. Two. Whole. Years.

Finally, after Maria and Jose’s family called in the big guns (aka NBC 5 Chicago), the bank decided to release the funds. A whopping $106,029, to be exact. Oh, and they threw in a statement that basically said, “Oopsie, our bad. We were just preventing fraud. You know, like we always do by holding innocent people’s money hostage.”

So, next time you think about banking with JPMorgan Chase, just remember: they’re not just keeping your money safe-they’re keeping it really safe. Like, so safe you might never see it again. Cheers to that!

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2026-02-21 17:02