Consumer complaint received 2024-09-23
Product: Checking or savings account — Checking account
Issue: Managing an account — Problem using a debit or ATM card
Company: PNC Bank N.A. (VA)

PNC Bank promises zero liability if your PNC Bank XXXX XXXX is used fraudulently. PNC also claims that its identity theft prevention and assistance programs protect customer assets each and every day. PNC does not live up to these promises, promises we relied on when entrusting our money to their care. PNCs gross negligence resulted in the theft of more than {$41000.00} from our PNC Bank account through unauthorized uses of a debit card associated with the account. 
On XX/XX/XXXX we realized that our bank account ( XXXX ) had dropped in value by more than expected through our normal use of the account. Our research showed that more than {$40000.00} had been taken by unauthorized users ( almost 50 based on our understanding of PNC account statements ) over a period of several months. Initially, the withdrawals were small but had jumped to more than {$11000.00} in XXXX and almost {$18000.00} in XXXX. We immediately filed a police report with the County Sheriffs Office ( which has declined to take action because of resource constraints and suspected jurisdictional issues ). We also filed with the Virginia State Police and with the Federal government through the XXXX website. We met with PNC Bank personnel on XX/XX/XXXX, who locked the account in question and initiated a dispute resolution process internally. 
On XX/XX/year>, we received a letter from PNC ( their reference XXXX ) denying our claim for reimbursement for essentially all transactions. The basis for their denials, as we understand it, is that we were not sufficiently diligent in monitoring account transactions. PNC claims that if we had identified and reported the fraudulent claims when they were first made PNC would have prevented the subsequent losses. PNC further claims that all fraudulent transactions are one act ( ignoring the multiple apparent fraudulent users on their platform ). The account agreement has some vague language about a sixty day window for reporting fraudulent transactions once we became aware of them. PNC contends that we should have been aware when we had access to the first statement containing fraudulent transactions.

We contend that the promise in PNCs website about zero liability for fraudulent use of a debit card is binding on PNC. This is a clear and unambiguous promise, No caveats, limitations, or equivocations were associated with the commitment. We also believe that PNC has a general trust and duty of care. PNC holds a fiduciary responsibility to their customers, who trust PNC with their finances, expecting PNC to take all reasonable steps to protect their accounts. XXXX of fraudulent activity is primarily the responsibility of PNC, which claims to have effective fraud prevention software programs. Its transaction monitoring software should have identified fraudulent activity as soon as it began which would have identified unusual activity before it became a major issue. Not once over the several months of fraudulent activity and literally thousands of separate transactions did PNC notify us of suspected unauthorized use of the debit card. PNCs failure to notify us of these obviously fraudulent transactions has caused us significant financial damage. Finally, we reject the notion that the thousands of unauthorized transactions are one act. The transactions appear to involve almost 50 different users in a number of separate physical locations. We believe each fraudulent transaction is a separate act.