Lately, I seem to get nothing in the mail except notices that “Bank One is now Chase“. And the last time I was in New York, I used a Chase ATM which cheerfully told me “Hello, Bank One customer — you’re now part of Chase! Have (your own) money for free!”

So… I made an assumption. And you know what happens when you assume, don’t you?* That’s right — you’re often wrong.

Last night I mailed out the mortgage check and this morning I got on a plane for New York with my roommate’s check for his half of the mortgage in my pocket. Over lunch I walked over to my convenient Chase Banking Location and cheerfully presented that check and was cheerfully told that Bank One “still has their own databases” and that the check was, to Chase, so much scrap paper.

Boo.

(And when they replace my Bank One ATM card with a Chase one, it’d better still have the Chicago skyline on it, like it did when they made the switch from 1st Chicago to Bank One five years ago.)