Chase Bank Erases Credit Card Debt for All Its Canadian Credit Cardholders

Usually credit card stories are about new fees, reduced rewards or higher interest rates. I’m happy to say we have a good news story this time.

Imagine getting a letter in the mail from your credit card company saying that all your credit card debt is forgiven. Does this seem too good to be true? Well, it’s not. It actually happened in Canada. Let’s take a look at this unbelievable story, why it happened and why you shouldn’t rely on your credit card doing the same thing.

Chase Bank Forgives Canadian Credit Card Debt

After 13 years, U.S.-based Chase Bank is exiting the Canadian market. It announced its plans to do so in March 2018.

This should come as no surprise since this news has been known for quite a while, but what should come as a surprise is that Chase Bank has decided to forgive all debt owed by its Canadian credit cardholders. And, no, this isn’t a joke!

If you have the Amazon.ca Rewards Visa or the Marriott Rewards Premier Visa, all your credit card debt is forgiven. You could say that the holidays have come early this year.

Cardholders are over the moon and it’s not hard to see why. They’re sharing their stories of how they found out the good news.

Chase Cardholder Stories

Douglas Turner was still paying off his Amazon.ca Rewards Visa card when he found out that over $6,000 of his credit card debt had been forgiven. When he received a letter in the mail advising him of such, he couldn’t believe the news and his good fortune!

When Turner first got the letter in the mail, he thought it was going to be bad news, such as missing a payment. However, to say the letter ended up being good news would be a huge understatement. At an interest rate of 19.9 percent, Turner believes he has saved over $7,500. Not bad!

On top of that, Chase refunded him the $300 he paid towards his credit card debt after the decision was made to forgive credit card debt in Canada.

Paul Adamson has a similar story. He recently tried to make a payment on his Amazon Visa card, but found out his account had been closed. This concerned him and rightfully so. However, when he called his bank to inquire about it, he was floored when he found out he no longer had to make payments on his outstanding credit card debt of over $1,600.

Why Did Chase Bank Do It?

Why did Chase Bank decide to forgive the credit card debt for all its Canadian cardholders? That’s the million dollar question.

If you ask Chase, it says that it decided to do this so that “everyone benefited.” In the end, Chase felt it was the best decision for everyone involved, including its Canadian cardholders.

Cardholders aren’t going to complain, but doing this as a PR stunt makes little to no sense since Chase is leaving the Canadian market. Maybe if it was planning to stay it would make some sense, but even then, it could simply hire a third-party collection agency to recover the credit card debt that’s owed by its cardholders.

The Bottom Line

It’s nice to deliver a good news credit card story for once. That being said, we shouldn’t rely on credit card debt forgiveness being a regular occurrence in Canada. If you have credit card debt, it’s best to continue to pay it, because I’m sorry to say, but this is likely to be a once in a lifetime event.