New York, NYJP Morgan Chase has admitted in a report aired by NBC News, that they have "overcharged several thousand military families for their mortgages, including families of troops fighting in Afghanistan." Furthermore, the bank actually foreclosed, improperly, on the homes of several military families.
A law passed in 2003 makes it illegal for members of the active military to be charged interest rates on mortgages that are higher than 6 percent. It was designed to "ensure that service members protecting our country do not suffer the added burden of worrying about the loss of a home," the Department of Housing and Urban Development's website states.
One homeowner, Marine Captain Jonathan Rowles and his wife, sued the bank after being overcharged on their mortgage for several years. Rowles was overcharged by 3 or 4 percentage points on his mortgage, which caused his family to wrongly accumulate thousands of dollars in late fees.
Rowles told NBC News that he would receive several phone calls a day from the bank's debt collectors, sometimes in the small hours of the morning and while he was on active duty. "It's been a nightmare. It's been my living nightmare," Julia Rowles told NBC. "Saturday, Sundays, middle of the night. It did not matter if it was a holiday."
A spokesperson for JP Morgan Chase told NBC News that "we feel particularly badly about the mistakes we made" referring to 4000 mortgages for troops and foreclosures on 14 military families. The bank is reportedly going to issue refunds totaling more than $2 million. And most of the families who had been foreclosed either will be or have been restored to their homes.