posted 10-18-2000 08:41 PM         

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AN OPEN LETTER TO THE LEADERSHIP OF CHASE MANHATTAN BANK, NA AND CHASE MANHATTAN BANK, USA.

We are a group of investors and stockholders in Chase Manhattan Bank who met this weekend (October, 13, 14, 15, 2000) in Williamsburg, VA at a private home to discuss the chaos and out of date policies and practices at Chase Manhattan Bank, which are losing the bank and the investors and stockholders money.
We have gotten no response from you on our calls, our letters, our emails and our other communications to you regarding the problems at Chase Manhattan. So we have voted to use a public forum. Judging from what we have heard and read, your employees and customers also do not like what is going on at Chase Manhattan Bank.
Are you aware that some of your investors and stockholhers, some of your employees and some of your customers have been contacted by at least three different legal people from at least three different places to try to get information againstyou. Apparently, they have been successful.
All of this discontent is going on around you and you ignore it and act like you are in a fog. This is like a snowball that has started to roll and if it rolls much more, it is going to be too big to stop and Chase Manhattan Bank is going to fall and so is its leadership. This will not be good for the economy and it will not be good for the country.
You have got to do something positive soon to turn this around. Do not sell anything. Do not buy anything. That is the old way and it does not work anymore.
You need to make changes for the better in your policies and practices and actually go through with them. This weekend, after going over all of the information that we have gathered, it seems that one of the biggest problems is with Chase Manhattan Bank's collection methods. This is where you should start. There is a better way and a more effective way to collect money.
We are willing to do what we can to stop this rolling snowball, but you will have to do what we ask you to do.
This is what we want you to do. Go to the web site of MBNA America. They have one of the lowest percentages of troublesome credit card debts because they have the most effective collection practices in the business. Read the the philosophy of the leadership there and read what is on their web site. That will give you the first clues as to why they are so successful. Then call them and ask them (beg them if you have to) to send you samples of their different types of collection letters and ask them to send you their procedures. Because of business secrets, they may not send you everything, but maybe they will send you a good sampling so that you will get the idea.
Then hold a press conference or send out a press release before the end of October, 2000 to announce that there will be changes for the better coming in November, 2000 in your collections practices.
Then rewrite your collections policies and practices, rewrite your collections letters in the same framework as the MBNA collections, and hire collections people who actually like people and can work with people by phone, by fax, by mail, by email, and by anyway possible that will help these people pay you. Come up with many possible plans that they can choose to repay you and put them in writing for these people so that they can look them over and pick the ones that fit their situation. And if those plans do not work, try some more that might work better for them. This is what MBNA America does and their collection letters reflect that they care for people and they care about how they got in this situation to owe money. It works and people actually like MBNA America. MBNA America is one of the most highly respected banks and they consistently make money. While they have had some minor downs, they consistentlt have highs.
People respond better to kindness, caring and compromise than they do to threats, intimidation, and rudeness. It is a fact of life.
Once you get this started in November, 2000 and people begin to see that you are sincere about this, we can guarantee that your troublesome loan percentage rate will go down.
After you get this going, we will discuss some other ways to help Chase Manhattan Bank.

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