More than a year after I used my Chase Bank Credit Card to pay the fee for my wife's green card, I went through the process of making a claim against the charge. A year later! I think the bank would be well within their rights to deny the claim after this length of time, but they surprised me in the form of credit to my account. While the notice says that it is only temporary while waiting for Immigration to tell their side of the story, I suspect that will never happen. I suspect that nobody in the government will ever know that the money was charged back. I can't imagine this is a common occurrence, so there is unlikely to be a procedure for what to do in this instance.
The government was very quick to make excuses, pass the buck, and wash their hands clean of any wrong-doing. From their point of view, they sent the green card, and since they didn't get it back, there was no alternative other than having us pay another $450 for a second card. There was nobody anywhere in the channels that were explored, that could make the call to just print another card out. Having done a Congressional Inquiry into the matter, I'm pretty sure that I had exhausted any avenues within the government to actually have my problem solved.
USCIS, my US Representative and one of my US Senators all had the same answer...just pay the $450 fee again. The more I tell people about this, the more I realize how mind-numbingly asinine this solution is. But that was the solution! The letter sent to me from Martha Roby's office was sent with regrets, but this was the solution! One of the staff members from her office was puzzled by my mention that I felt as if my wife and I didn't have anyone representing us. Puzzled. After coming to their office for help in trying to obtain a document that is required by law for my wife to have, after the government is unable to successfully deliver the document, the answer from their office is that we have to pay the fee again, and hope this time it gets delivered. USCIS refuses to send the document with a signature required, so there is no way they can ensure that this doesn't happen again. The fact that this office has so little clout that they can't find a cage to rattle and get someone to act on something so glaringly wrong...this is what's puzzling.
But I got the speech instead. Why, Martha Roby herself would have no other recourse but to pay the fee again, since we are all bound by the law! Sure she would.
But Chase Bank. Oh Chase Bank, you lovely private enterprising capitalist bastards, oh how I love you. A phone call and a fax is all it took for them to go into action. It was actually two phone calls, but that was because USCIS put us on hold (during a 3 way call) for what would have been over 3 hours, and Chase couldn't stay on hold with me for that long.
From the time I sent the fax (as they instructed) to the time that my account was credited with the full amount of the year-old charge was exactly two days. I hadn't even noticed the credit until I received the snail-mailed notice in the mail today. I faxed the request to them on the 17th of March, and the credit was applied to my account on the 19th. Two. Days.
Where do I buy a Chase Bank T-Shirt?
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