Consumer complaint received 2020-11-17
Company: PNC Bank N.A.
State: MI
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Trouble using your card
Sub-issue: Can't use card to make purchases

Complaint:
I took a trip to XXXX in late XXXX lasting until the first week of XXXX. I had waited for this trip all year and wanted to spend my XXXX holidays there to visit the country and attend a dance festival. It was the worst days of my life instead because of PNC banks irresponsibility to allow to use my PNC travel credit card to obtain cash. I just recently learned about CFPB and thought to launch my complaint to bring my disastrous experience to officials who oversee banks consumer transactions. 
I had issues with getting cash from ATMS and banks from the very early of my arrival time in XXXX. I did however succeed a couple of times but that completely stopped after I received an alert text message about a transaction in Tennessee using my credit card which was fraudulent. I quickly notified the bank and my card was blocked. Up to this point the banks action was completely understandable aside from the fact that I had problems getting cash before this latest incident. 
My nightmare began after this ; I did not bring a huge amount of cash for obvious security reasons and trusted my bank. I was desperate to get cash, I contacted the bank visa number countless times that I can possibly remember. I was passed on from one agent to another, from one supervisor to another supervisor from one department to another every day, I had to make most calls late afternoon to late into the night sitting in my rental flat because of time difference. 
It is standard procedure when one needs a new visa credit card outside of US, visa XXXX  would ship one within 24 hours. The procedure calls for filling a report for Visa XXXX and they process it from then on. However, they need an OK from the issuing bank, in my case PNC. In my case I filed that report but Visa XXXX  could not process my request and ship me a new card because PNC would decline permission every single time. Every time I had to spend much time to follow up with the bank and played with like a ping pong between different departments. No one seemed to have authority to issue permission. Clearly some bank employees were quite disturbed themselves who completely understood my desperate situation in a foreign land but could not help. Bear in mind, the PNC customer service department is only open during the office hours and they do not provide a direct phone number unlike the credit card helpline with a number on the back of credit card. That meant I had seven and a half hours of time difference and the earliest I could contact them was at XXXX XXXX  local XXXX  time. I often had to be on and off the phone ( including time when they accidentally hung up on me ) until late at night local time in addition to times spend the rest of the days on the phone or emailing with other PNC phone numbers and visa XXXX. 
In short PNC ruined my annual vacation time for three weeks. All my time and expenses were wasted because of my, ironically, PNC visa travel card not to mention the stress. I was prevented to even change my flight home since that needed a flight change fee that could only be done by a credit card. PNC let me down in protecting me like other banks do when their customers are in desperate situation even if not at the banks fault let alone when the entire ordeal was caused by PNC incompetency and lack of responsibility. At one time I begged to have a {$300.00} advance cash sent to me to pay for my apartment and even that was refused. I attach to this complaint a document how XXXX XXXX guarantees and protects its customers in similar situations. 
What was and insult to the injury was when upon my return, I insisted for my case was passed on PNC retail escalation team office ( XXXX XXXX XXXX on my insistence in XXXX, MI. 
She did nothing but take additional hours of my working time to complete her case report to help the bank process, absolutely no care for my time far from even contemplating for any compensation even after learning all the details. I was an abused customer and a Guinee pig to streamline PNCs bank process, how arrogant! I am a 40 year customer of this bank, unbelievable! 
I think it is completely justified to ask PNC not just to reimburse all of my travel expenses but also my consultation time to improve their system after spending hours on the phone and email most of it during my regular working time. I have recorded all phone conversations which would attach some here along with some of the email exchanges. I was told that XXXX  was recording every single of my conversation. Ironically at one point a supervisor who declared that our conversation was being recorded refused to talk to me when I mentioned I was recording the same call too. 
PNC is not a bank but is run as a corner grocery store, it must not be allowed to function as a bank and to disservice American citizens as the ample of online customer complaints and reviews speak for this fact. Their license should be pulled by the authorities.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation