What is JPMCB card services and why is it on my credit report?

Young man looking up JPMCB card services on his laptopImage: Young man looking up JPMCB card services on his laptop

In a Nutshell

If you have an Amazon Prime Visa or one of the Marriott Bonvoy credit cards or Southwest credit cards, or a handful of other credit cards, you may not have realized that your card issuer is Chase, which is formally known as JPMorgan Chase Bank. This may be why you see JPMCB on your credit report.
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If you’ve seen JPMCB on your credit reports and wondered what it’s doing there, you may want to take a look in your wallet.

Chase, which also does business as JPMorgan Chase Bank, provides financial products such as credit cards, auto loans, mortgages and more.

If you have credit cards, there’s a chance one of them is a Chase card — and that it appears on your credit reports as “JPMCB Card Services.”



What does JPMCB stand for and why is it on my credit report?

JPMCB stands for JPMorgan Chase Bank. It might be on your credit reports for a variety of reasons, including the following.

Hard and soft inquiries

Hard inquiries: If you’ve applied for a Chase credit card and you authorized the bank to check your credit, you may see a hard credit inquiry from JPMCB card services on one or more of your credit reports. A hard credit inquiry, which can negatively affect your credit scores, can stay on your credit reports for up to two years, so even if you didn’t recently apply for the card, you may still see the inquiry on your report.

Soft inquiries: Alternatively, if you tried to prequalify for a credit card offer, you may see a soft credit inquiry on your credit report. A soft inquiry doesn’t affect your credit scores, but you’ll still be able to see it on your credit reports.

Unauthorized hard inquiries: What happens if you spot JPMCB on your credit report and you don’t recall authorizing the hard credit pull in the past couple of years? It can be unsettling to realize you may have an unauthorized hard inquiry on your credit report.

If you find yourself in this scenario, consider these five tactics.

  1. Check with the company that performed the inquiry. Ask for proof that you authorized the inquiry. If the bank can’t provide it, request that it remove the inquiry from your credit report. (Learn more about how to remove erroneous hard inquiries.)
  2. If you suspect fraud, report it using the Federal Trade Commission’s IdentityTheft.gov website. You may also want to consider filing a police report.
  3. Freeze your credit. To prevent identity thieves from further using your personal financial information, you may want to consider putting a freeze on your credit. You’ll have to contact each credit bureau separately to do this, and you probably won’t be approved for new financial products while the freeze is in place. A credit freeze won’t retroactively protect your credit, but by preventing any new hard inquiries, it can help stop identify thieves from opening a new account in your name while your credit is frozen.
  4. Place a free fraud alert on your credit with the major credit bureaus.
  5. Dispute the unauthorized inquiry with the credit bureaus. The credit bureaus are required to investigate all disputes and remove or update any information that turns out to be incorrect.

FAST FACTS

How to remove a JPMCB hard inquiry from your credit reports

If you suspect that JPMCB mistakenly performed a hard credit pull, or that someone fraudulently used your details to apply, you have a right to dispute it with the major credit bureaus. Once you file your dispute, the bureaus are obligated to investigate and correct any information that turns out to be incorrect. Learn more about how to remove inaccurate hard inquiries.

Authorized users

You may also see JPMCB on your credit reports if you’ve been added as an authorized user on any of its credit cards.

Being an authorized user means that the primary cardholder has added you to their account and has approved the credit card issuer to extend most of the terms of use to you. This means that you’re allowed to make purchases up to the primary accountholder’s credit limit, but you’re not officially responsible for repaying them.

If you’re an authorized user, one potential benefit is that the account and its activity will be reported on your credit. This means that factors like on-time payments and a low credit utilization rate (how much of the available credit being used at any one time) could help you build your credit. But beware that if the primary cardholder doesn’t keep up with payments, your credit may be negatively affected.

If you were incorrectly added as an authorized user, you should be able to remove yourself from an account by calling the credit card issuer.

What credit cards are issued by JPMCB?

You might have one of JPMorgan Chase Bank’s credit cards in your wallet without realizing it’s a Chase card. In addition to its Chase-branded credit cards, the bank also issues the following cards:


Next steps: Checking your credit reports for suspicious activity

Approximately one in five people find a mistake on their credit reports, according to a 2013 study from the Federal Trade Commission. These errors can end up costing you in terms of loans, credit cards and other financial products you may miss out on, which is why it’s important to routinely check your credit reports.

You can get a free copy of your credit reports from all three major credit bureaus periodically from annualcreditreport.com. You can also always access your credit reports and check your credit scores for free using Credit Karma.

Whether you choose to do it through Credit Karma or use another service, we strongly recommend that you consider adding credit monitoring to your financial toolbox. Credit monitoring can help you identify and take action on certain errors or suspected identity theft on your credit reports. In general, the faster you take action, the better opportunity you have to minimize any long-term damage to your credit profile.


About the author: Romy Ribitzky is a senior editor at Credit Karma specializing in autos, auto insurance, credit, personal loans, savings and tax. Romy is an Edward R. Murrow Award–winning journalist and a marketing leader, having hone… Read more.