{"id":8430,"date":"2011-07-14T14:38:16","date_gmt":"2011-07-14T18:38:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=8430"},"modified":"2011-07-14T13:56:15","modified_gmt":"2011-07-14T17:56:15","slug":"black-man-jailed-for-depositing-chase-check-at-chase-bank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=8430","title":{"rendered":"Black Man Jailed For Depositing Chase Check At Chase Bank"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON — Ikenna Njoku <\/strong>of Auburn, WA tried to deposit a check for $8,463.21 at Chase Bank, and ended up spending five days in jail instead of getting his money. Even though the check was issued by Chase and had his correct name and address on it, the institution regarded Njoku<\/strong> as suspicious. Refusing to believe the document was authentic, the teller who received it reported him to the authorities based on her assumptions. Njoku<\/strong> recently recounted this humiliation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was embarrassed,\u201d Njoku<\/strong> said. \u201cShe asked me what I did for a living. Asked me where I got the check from, looked me up and down\u2014like \u2018you just bought a house in Auburn, really?\u2019 She didn\u2019t believe that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Customer Banker said the check looked fake, so she took it, along with Njoku\u2019s<\/strong> driver license and credit card, and called Bank Support.<\/p>\n

After waiting for about 15 minutes, Njoku <\/strong>said he got impatient and told Chase he was leaving to do an important errand. By the time he got back, the bank was closed. Njoku<\/strong> said he called customer service and asked them what he should do. He says they told him to go back to the bank the next day to get his money.<\/p>\n

When Njoku<\/strong> returned the next day seeking his funds, Chase had the police waiting for him. \u201cThey just threw me in jail; they called the police and said this guy has a fraudulent check.\u201d He was charged with the felony crime of forgery on a Thursday, and left in jail overnight.<\/p>\n

When Chase realized that the check was real the next day, an investigator from Bank Support called the detective on the case, but she had Friday off. The result? Njoku<\/strong> had to spend the weekend in jail. By the time he was released on Monday, he had been fired from his job for not showing up.<\/p>\n

In addition, the check was taken into custody for evidence. Although it was returned two weeks later, by that time Njoku\u2019s<\/strong> car had been repossessed and sold at auction because he needed that money to make car payments.<\/p>\n

In response to pressure about his treatment, Chase has just sent a letter to Njoku <\/strong>apologizing for his ordeal over a year later. The car he lost was a prized possession, and Njoku<\/strong> was understandably depressed by the injustice of the incident, but there has been no attempt to compensate him for his financial losses or emotional duress.<\/p>\n

Njoku<\/strong> is working with a lawyer now, and hopefully will recoup damages for what he experienced by trying to do business with Chase. It is clear that the teller saw him as a black man, not a customer, and was blinded by stereotypes from fulfilling his request. The racial profiling in this case is evident. Chase certainly has a PR nightmare on its hands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON — Ikenna Njoku of Auburn, WA tried to deposit a check for $8,463.21 at Chase Bank, and ended up spending five days in jail instead of getting his money. Even though the check was issued by Chase and had his correct name and address on it, the institution regarded Njoku as suspicious. Refusing to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8430\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}