Consumer complaint received 2020-05-28
Product: Checking or savings account — Other banking product or service
Issue: Opening an account — Confusing or missing disclosures
Company: PNC Bank N.A. (NJ)

I am sorry I have to file my complaint anyway even though I could not figure out what category my issue would fit in this form. This issue is very serious to me, please kindly forward it to the correct party. Thank you very much!! 

Here is what happened. 

I have two safe-deposit boxes with PNC bank NJ. One is under my joint account with my husband in PNC XXXX NJ branch office and one is under my solo account in PNC XXXX XXXX NJ branch office. I did not tell my husband that I have a safe deposit box to myself in a different branch. He only knew about the box under the joint account of me and him. 

On Saturday XX/XX/XXXX, my husband needed to take something out of our box. So we went to PNC XXXX office where the deposit box is located at. The bank staffs checked everything before letting us step in the lobby. 

I thought we could just go ahead to go to our express box as we used to do. However, one of the staff there stoped me asking me which deposit box I would like to get access. He said, " you have two boxes, which one would you like to get access? '' Before they let us into the lobby, they've checked both my and my husband 's id and everything. They should've known by then that our safe-deposit box is express box, not the box in the vault!!, which means in fact we didn't need to go through so many steps of verification at all and we could just go ahead to the express box located outside the vault. Or they could've asked us what type of safe deposit box we have before they started the checking but they didn't. I understood during the pandemic, some procedures might have changed, so I did not ask why we had to go through so much checking that we didn't have to go through before. When we finally got into the building, I thought they have done all the checking and we could just go straight to our box without being asked with any further questions. So, If they had paid more attention when checking, they would've noticed what we have is just an express box, they probably wouldn't have had a staff member stand there waiting to walk us into the vault. This was the first mistake they made. 

And the second mistake was, they should've seen from their system by then, that the two boxes are in two different branch offices. Since we came to this branch office, of course we were here for the one in this office, not for the one in another office which was miles away!!. 

How could that staff member still ask a stupid question like " which box do you need ''?!! 

As everyone can imagine how much my husband got furious and flipped out after he heard from that staff that I have another safe deposit box that he wasn't aware of at all! 

When I opened my own account with the safe deposit box at another branch office. I was clearly guaranteed by the staff there that the bank would never disclose this information to anyone including my family members without my permission!!! I know privacy is always the number one priory for any bank to commit to their customers so I trusted PNC will protected my privacy well. That was why I decided to open my own account there instead of going to a different bank!! 

The stupid mistakes made by unprofessional and negligent staff members totally jeopardized my marriage. THERE IS NO WAY TO GET MY RELATION WITH MY HUSBAND BACK TO NORMAL!!