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LOWER BURRELL, Pennsylvania (WTAE) — A Westmoreland County man is suing his bank and claims it’s withholding nearly $12,000 of his money.
A federal lawsuit has been filed against JPMorgan Chase Bank by Jim Serena of Lower Burrell.
Serena told Pittsburgh’s Action News 4 that the lawsuit began with him trying to help a friend throughout the past year.
“His significant other had recently passed,” Serena said. “I started helping him with his daughter, who’s a minor, household things, grocery shopping, taking her school shopping, and things like that. He worked a second shift. He would have me go do those things, and then he’d send me the money for it.”
In April of this year, Serena’s friend, Peter McNeal, reported that nearly $12,000 was missing from his Chase bank account.
“He made an honest mistake,” Serena said. “When they asked him if he’d ever sent Zelle transactions, he didn’t realize that was the platform name. He filed a dispute, which he later withdrew in his affidavit, because he realized that Zelle was not what he was disputing and realized what had happened.”
JPMorgan Chase froze Serena’s account because he had the $12,000 in question.
The two realized the mistake and submitted two notarized affidavits to the bank.
“They reversed all of the transactions and froze my account,” Serena said. “We wrote the affidavits here, we went and had them notarized, we took them to the bank, and they still refuse to return the money. They ultimately locked me out of my account,” Serena said. “They credited everything back to Pete, and then closed his account.”
Serena has another bank account with Citizens Bank. He had to quickly turn his payments over earlier this year.
“My Social Security would’ve gone into [the locked] account,” he said. “I would’ve had no funds to live on. I would’ve had nothing. I actually ended up in the emergency room over stress and anxiety.”
In June, Serena filed a federal lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase Bank. The Lower Burrell resident could be paid out as much as $900,000. That document can be seen below.
In the motion to dismiss documents by the company regarding Serena’s claims, it reads, in part, “This action stems from non-party Peter Raymond McNeal’s report of an unauthorized transfer from his Chase bank account to Mr. Serena’s Chase account. Upon receipt and review of this claim, including Mr. McNeal’s statement to Chase that he never authorized a Zelle transfer, Chase acted swiftly and in accordance with the agreement that governs Mr. Serena’s Chase account. Pursuant to that agreement, Chase is permitted to charge back any deposits from its customer’s account that the originator claims are unauthorized. That is exactly what Chase did here. This lawsuit challenges Chase’s reversal of approximately $12,000 in deposits from Plaintiff James Serena’s bank account back to Mr. McNeal’s bank account despite the fact that Chase’s action was expressly permitted by the governing Deposit Account Agreement Mr. Serena agreed to. This lawsuit further challenges Chase’s failure to return those funds to Mr. Serena’s account after he submitted his own affidavit and an affidavit allegedly from Mr. McNeal, the person to whom Chase returned the challenged amounts, allegedly attesting to the legitimacy of those Zelle transactions and challenging Chase’s decision to freeze Mr. Serena’s bank account. None of the claims in the Amended Complaint are viable as a matter of law.”
No matter how this ends, Serena said taking this further is not about money.
“What’s right is right and what’s wrong is wrong,” he said. “The documentation shows that everything was legitimate, authorized; he withdrew his complaint, and they’re still trying to penalize me for something that was authorized and legitimate.”
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