Consumer complaint received 2025-02-18 00:00:00
Product: Checking or savings account — Checking account
Issue: Managing an account — Deposits and withdrawals
Company: PNC Bank N.A.
State: NJ

Complaint narrative:
On XX/XX/year>, I completed the sale of an automobile in New Jersey. I do my banking with PNC Bank, so the buyer and I met near a PNC branch in XXXX, NJ. 


The buyer provided me with a cashiers check from their NY based XXXX XXXX in amount of $ XXXX. I immediately deposited the check into my checking account # XXXX at PNC Bank. The staff in that location was also rude to me as I carried out this transaction. The teller said the funds would be available in a few business days. 


The funds were not made available to me over the next few days and they remained as 'pending '. About a week later, I received a letter in the mail from PNC stating that the deposit was placed in review to verify the check. I called PNC customer service and their fraud department stated that the check was simply " under review to verify that the issuing bank could cover the deposit amount ''. Mind you that the check was a cashiers check and this should not have been an issue. 


A few days later, the deposit was finally moved to my available balance. I then moved the entire amount of this deposit into my checking account # XXXX, which is not connected to a debit card. I did this because I was victim of ATM skimming a few years ago and for that reason I do not keep large balances in the checking account connected to my debit card. At this point I thought everything was ok. It was not. 


On XX/XX/year>, I submitted a XXXX payment to cover my monthly rent. My XXXX payments draw from my checking account # XXXX. I received an email early in the morning on XX/XX/year> stating that the payment could not be fully processed due to my checking account # XXXX being frozen. A portion of the payment was taken from my XXXX balance with the remaining amount was covered by XXXX and creating a liability of a few XXXX dollars. I logged into PNC XXXX banking to discover that I have XXXX available balance in my checking # XXXX. Not only was the amount of the deposit related to the automobile sale frozen, but the entirety of my checking # XXXX was frozen. The deposit for the automobile sale was only a portion of my total balance in checking # XXXX, but PNC froze the entire account balance and reduced my available balance to XXXX. 


At this point I became very alarmed. On XX/XX/year>, I immediately called PNC customer service and was told by the XXXX department that " they had to again verify the check with the maker bank because they could not match the check ''. They stated that they were faxing a copy of the check to the maker bank and that the account would be unfrozen by end of business. 


It is now XXXX days later on XX/XX/year>, the account is still frozen and PNC has yet to provide an update. This is absolutely unacceptable and shows complete lack of transparency and courtesy from PNC Bank. I have bills to pay and I'm facing the possibility of not making my payments due to my account being frozen. This is going on nearly a month since I deposited the check and the funds are still in limbo. I can not believe a very large financial institution is unable to process a check in a timely manner and so poorly treats customers.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation