Consumer complaint received 2016-09-25
Company: PNC Bank N.A.
State: WV
Product: Bank account or service
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Account opening, closing, or management

Complaint:
The minute we first received notification that PNC had decided to charge us {$3.00} for check images, we immediately within minutes called PNC and specifically said " NO THANK YOU! " Still they keep stealing {$3.00} per month and refuse to return the funds and close our account. On XXXX/XXXX/16, there was a {$3.00} unauthorized withdrawal on our monthly statement. We called customer service at XXXX. The customer non-service representative who answered harassed us for a long time, verified our identity several ways but refused to discuss the {$3.00} bank error and insisted we drive over XXXX miles to the nearest PNC branch or open an online account because she was not capable of doing her job to correct the obvious routine bank error. So then we called a branch office at XXXX on XXXX/XXXX/16 and were told that the unauthorized fee for the " Check Images '' would be happily reversed since we never agreed to purchase pictures of checks that we do not need or want and specifically said not to send. She also told us the boldfaced lie that they would stop repeating this error every month. When we received our next monthly statement on XXXX/XXXX/16, not only was the original error not corrected, there was an additional theft of another {$3.00}. No one at the branch office at XXXX answers the phone. Again we were forced to call customer non-service at XXXX. The customer non-service representative who answered said his name was XXXX. He was extremely nice and professional but since PNC does not allow their employees to correct routine bank errors or provide any customer service what so ever, he was not able to fix the problem. He did apoligize profusely and explained our three options which are : 1. He closes our account and MAYBE someday PNC issues us a check for some portion of our illegally depleted balance while PNC keeps the misappropriated funds 2. He leaves our account open and passes us along to other PNC employees who will continue harassing us while PNC continues stealing from us 3. We hop in a time machine back to XXXX XXXX, 2016 and open an online account so every hacker in the world can find us and steal our identity, then enter a secret pin number and click on some button to opt out of this bank scam we had no way of knowing even existed back then. 
According to the PNC website, the nearest branch office is a XXXX mile out of state trip to XXXX, Md, but when we travelled long distance to those addresses that we had banked at before, the XXXX downtown is now a dry cleaners and the XXXX in the mall is a vacant hole in the wall. PNC 's position is that only an " online '' customer is a " valid '' customer and therefore an illegal unauthorized withdrawal is a " valid '' charge whenever the customer has an XXXX card in their wallet instead of an electronic gizmo with lots of apps in their hand. When I opened the account 3 decades ago, I fit the XXXX year old customer demographic they were willing to serve. Now I do n't, which is fine because they no longer fit the bank profile of local honest secure financial institution that we are willing to trust with our money.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation