Chase Bank takes $ 28,000 from Chatham Restaurateur’s corporate account in error, due to someone else’s court order – CBS Chicago

CHICAGO (CBS) – Every penny counts for local businesses these days, so imagine the shock of a Chatham restaurant owner when he learned that his bank had mistakenly transferred $ 28,000 to his business account.

Latasha Taylor has spent the past two months trying to get it back, with no success. CBS 2’s Marie Saavedra reported Thursday evening on Taylor’s efforts to fix it and find a new bank.

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Taylor’s restaurant, Flammin at 641 E. 75th St., is in its fifth year of serving favorites.

“Mustard catfish and macaroni and cheese, shrimp and oatmeal, and our famous red salmon cakes,” are part of the offerings, Taylor said.

Surviving the past two years has been work, and that’s what Taylor was doing two months ago – working – when his financial world was rocked.

“On October 12, I went online like I do every day – I went online to pay some vendors – and when I looked he said my two accounts were frozen,” Taylor said.

Taylor said his checking and savings accounts with Chase were on hold. She called and found it was due to a court order she knew nothing about.

“So when I looked at the court order, I said, ‘It doesn’t have to be me. This is not my company. It’s not my social. It’s not my tax ID number, ”Taylor said.

The court order in question is a judgment of the New York State Supreme Court in Brooklyn. It’s against a Northbrook company and a Chicago woman who isn’t Taylor, warning that $ 27,385 plus interest was owed.

The judgment was handed down on October 6 by the Brooklyn Supreme Court – which in New York City is a county-level trial court rather than the highest court in the state. He cited a specific account number.

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“It wasn’t my checking account number, but it was my savings account number at the bottom of the page,” Taylor said.

Taylor says Chase Bank employees told him on phone calls that they were going to fix the problem. But that did not happen.

“The hold was taken from my account, but there was a debit of $ 28,891.01,” Taylor said.

Taylor then accepted another full-time job, in the form of calling Chase nonstop to collect that money. But what she heard changed. The bank told him and us in a statement, “There was no Chase error. We obeyed a court order and properly processed a payment as directed…. We told Ms. Taylor that she had to go directly to the creditor.

That’s the policy of Chase’s deposit account deal, but all Taylor cares about is another week without $ 28,000.

“I feel like everyone who works for me, their family and financial situation is in my hands,” Taylor said. “What should I do as an owner? A black small business owner just trying to survive? “

Until she figured it out, she found another bank.

“This is a very unfortunate situation, and we are looking to find a financial institution that is worthy of putting our money and keeping our money safe,” Taylor said.

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Taylor has hired a lawyer to work with creditors in this New York State case to get her money back, which means she’s paying out of pocket to get back thousands of her own dollars.