Consumer complaint received 2018-12-19
Company: PNC Bank N.A.
State: GA
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Managing an account
Sub-issue: Problem making or receiving payments

Complaint:
Our experience with PNC has been appalling. After making a simple bill pay error where I clicked pay in full instead of pay the minimum, for eleven days now I have been misinformed by numerous representatives about what actions to take causing delays, all the while the bank is charging fees and returning payments to our creditors. There was a very simple solution available that would have stopped all of this this from ever happening, but all PNC employees misdirected me over an over, since all involved departments were not communicating with one another. 

Despite have spoken with a rep as soon as the error was made who informed me all she needed to do was stop payment, the bank paid the full amount of the bill pay item to the payee..creating an overdraft of XXXX XXXX DOLLARS. Yes, {$14000.00}. How could the bank ever allow this to be paid? That's exactly what every person at PNC employee has asked me, including Branch Manager, XXXX XXXX who finally put me in touch with Retail Escalation. 

Now, our checking is frozen and I have not been able to access money since XX/XX/XXXX. They also proceeded to freeze our savings accounts. 

After the stop payment proved to be unsuccessful, I again contacted PNC who informed me the {$160000.00} payment was not being paid. It was being returned by them and the funds would be released to my account the next day. However, this in fact proved to be untrue as well as my account remained at - {$14000.00} and my credit card received the {$16000.00} payment. 

I was then assigned to Case Manager, XXXX XXXX who informed me everything I had been told by both reps was incorrect and had they done their jobs correctly, she would have been able to reverse the transaction herself if they sent me to escalation initially. She planned to have the calls pulled so the reps could be trained properly and avoid giving incorrect information causing the snowballing dilemma. She then said she was initiating an emergency dispute and I should get results in 24-48 hours. She told me she would personally be managing our checking account and told me to continue using checks, bill pay and pay all necessary bills at the payee 's website and she would be pushing all items through till the bank got the dispute resolved. Several days went by without our balance changing so I tried to contact her at the number she provided. My husband and I continued leaving message after message but did not receive a call back. After an entire week of not return calls, I reached out to PNC through a XXXX message. I explained the situation and she said she was reaching out to Retail Escalation to provide my contact information and they would be contacting me directly shortly. However, I did not receive a call. 

After waiting several hours for a call, I called the Retail Escalation department and was transferred around till I finally reached a different Retail Escalation Employee, XXXX XXXX. He informed me all of our accounts had been frozen until I participate in a conference call because the Payee needed me on the line in order to reverse the payment. He had a toll free number to give me to initiate the conference call and said he could not remain on the line because the wait time was 20+ minutes and he could not hold that long. I hung up and called this number only to be connected to Check Free, a third party vendor who said they could not speak to me, that they communicate with banks only and did not know why I was given their number. They then transferred me to PNC Online Banking dept who told me everything I had been told from every single PNC employee up to that point was completely incorrect and that If I didn't stay on the phone and push for a resolution, the issue would never get resolved. That's when he told me PNC uses a third party to pay bills for PNC Billpay and that's why the payment was made despite the account being {$14000.00} short even though I NEVER opted in for Overdraft Coverage. He asked me to remain on the line while he contacted Retail Escalation and inform them everything they were telling me to do was incorrect. He told me simplest solution would be to contact the Payee directly and request a reverse of the payment. 
In the meantime, he connected me to the Retail Escalation rep, XXXX XXXX, who continued to give me incorrect instructions just as I was advised would likely happen from the Online Banking employee. I had to inform her of everything he advised, including about the third-party vendor and how I was told that a call to the payee would have resolved the issue. During my 2.5 hour phone call that day ( XX/XX/18 ) XXXX also informed me the donation check I wrote and the online bills we paid, including our mortgage ( instructed to do so by our XXXX XXXX, XXXX XXXX would not be paid because XXXX was also mistaken about all of that. The Overdraft Protection Department didn't let her know she could not push the items though so she should not have instructed us to do that. Oh yeah, and the hold on the accounts would stay intact on all accounts till we contacted the payee and the payment was reversed and reviewed ... .and all banking fees would apply. She apologized for the many mistakes on behalf of the many PNC employees but had nothing to offer far as fixing the results of all their mistakes. 

We contacted the payee and they immediately agreed to process the reverse payment back into our account which would take 3-5 days and said that exact same mistake happens all the time my many customers.

Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief