“I will never in my life bank with an online bank again,” adds King, who says she spoke on the phone with more than a dozen different customer service reps during the ordeal. (Chime admits it made an “initial error” in its dealing with King, but says it corrected the problem after King appealed, and not because of the TV reporter’s inquiry.) Four days later, after the reporter contacted Chime, it returned the money, more than a month after King first reported the incident. She tried twice more, eventually copying an investigative consumer reporter at a local ABC affiliate on her email to Chime.

King disputed the charges, but Chime denied her claim. Everything today is built starting with marketing, and risk oftentimes comes way further down the funnel.” “Companies used to build financial products starting with the risk. Upon returning home, she moved most of her money from Chime to her account at Bank OZK, a regional institution with more than 200 branches and roots stretching back to 1903. After two hours, Mathis finally gave up and called an Uber. Frustrated, Mathis, who was traveling with her two college-aged children, called other airport rental outlets-Enterprise, Avis and Dollar. Budget would not accept her Chime credit or debit card. But at the Budget car rental desk at Philadelphia's International Airport, Mathis got an unpleasant surprise.

For the last few years, the digital bank’s debit and credit cards had been her payment methods of choice. She was set to pick up her rental car and charge it to her Chime card, as she had done several times before. When Robyn Mathis, a 41-year-old food production plant worker from Brunswick, Georgia, stepped off a flight to Philadelphia last June, she expected an easy passage to her destination. By Eliza Haverstock, Jeff Kauflin and Emily Mason

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