The PNC Nightmare Shitshow
My name is Eric Novak and I’m a musician/artist living in Chicago. Back in the first week of February I was approached by a man via email saying he needed a saxophone player for a wedding. I accepted the gig and told him my fee and then he said he would send the check in the mail. Shortly after he sent the check he emailed me again saying there was a problem; they accidentally sent an extra $1600 on top of my promised $400 and that extra money was supposed to be for a wedding planner, so the entire check was for $2000.
Approximately a week later on February 8 I received the check and deposited it into my bank account via the photo deposit feature. My bank is PNC. After I deposited the check I waited for the funds to clear into my account. They arrived in my account the next morning of February 9 and then I called PNC to ask them if the check looked legit or if there were any red flags I should be concerned about. They told me the check looked fine and there was nothing to be concerned about. So I then proceeded to send the money to the “wedding planner” via Venmo. A day or so after I made this transaction I called PNC again to alert them because it seemed like this whole situation was pretty suspicious. I was hoping they would be able to take action to preemptively protect my account. Again, they told me they weren’t going to do anything because nothing had happened yet. The Venmo transaction finally went through on February 13 and the check bounced the next day on February 14th. I remember feeling very defeated seeing the email that my account was overdrawn because I really tried to get ahead of this but PNC chose to do nothing. They failed me. Banks are supposed to offer protections for their customers. Unfortunately that day I was also due to leave to go to New Orleans to play a couple shows and record an album so there was no time to do anything on my end.
I then called PNC every day for the next four days getting essentially the same response each day, getting transferred around between various low level bank associates who were powerless to do anything. During this time I was lied to and treated rudely all with a level of indifference that made me believe I did not matter to them at all despite having been a customer since 2011. One of the supervisors named Patricia was especially rude, saying they weren’t gonna do anything but not really explaining why and just having a general sarcastic tone towards me. Also during this time while I was chasing them around because no one from PNC would call me back I was called by a collection agent saying they were going to come collect if I didn’t settle my debt. One of the associates I talked to told me that PNC was sending me a piece of mail regarding information about my case. I asked the associate what the letter contained or even pertained to and she said she wasn’t privy to that information. And this all happened while I was in New Orleans, talking to the bank pretty much every day and getting nowhere.
When the letter finally arrived around February 17th all it said was that PNC had reached a resolution on a recent dispute of $1.00. Yeah, one dollar. And the letter even stated that they decided not to give me the dollar that was the subject of the dispute. This felt extremely petty to me and needlessly obtuse. Why they couldn’t have just told me this over the phone is neither here nor there.
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What followed was essentially 2 weeks of purgatory. My father started sitting in on the calls I made to the bank to back me up and offer additional insight so it was usually the two of us talking to PNC from this point onward. One of the people we talked to, I believe her name might have been Ashley, said she was gonna send us to someone one level up the food chain to talk to. Unfortunately she wasn’t available, which was another common occurrence, and we had to leave a message. We weren’t transferred to her voicemail, instead we were transferred to what seemed like an empty room where they didn’t even have hold music. After waiting for 10 minutes in total silence, we decided to hang up as it seemed like they stuck us in some kind of customer limbo. We called back and were finally able to leave a message.
I don’t have records of every call I made to PNC. I called around 10 times in February and my father also called separately a few times, mostly just getting voicemails that they would never return. Unfortunately because I had to restore my phone due to a virus I don’t have those call records anymore, but I do have records of calls made on March 3rd 4 times, March 6th 2 times, March 10th, March 15th, March 16th 2 times, March 17th, and March 20th, 21st and 22nd
Finally by the third week of us calling we were able to reach two people in executive client relations, supposedly the highest level of escalation. Their names were Jennifer and Dylan and they assured me that they were really sorry I’d been treated this far and they were committed to making it a priority and getting it resolved quickly. This was refreshing as it’d seemed like we had finally gotten through to someone who could do something real. We spoke to Dylan mainly and he assured us that he would at least have an update by the end of the week. This call occurred on Monday, March 6th. Friday finally rolled around and still there was nothing. So we decided to call them on that Friday, March 10th and Dylan wasn’t available so we got transferred to a coworker who hadn’t even looked at the case so she couldn’t give us any information. So this was another lie, saying they would get back to us by the end of the week. My father called a few times on Monday-Wednesday because I was out of town again and he wasn’t able to get through to anybody. It wasn’t until that Thursday, March 16th Dylan called back, a full week and a half since we had last heard from him. I’m not gonna lie to you, this was a very frustrating call.
He essentially told us in his research he wasn’t able to locate the calls I made before the check bounced, only the calls after it bounced. This seemed odd to me, it seemed awfully convenient. This is speculation, but it felt like they were intentionally withholding information from being available to bury my case. I can’t prove this, but they have been treating me like absolute shit this past month. Dylan said he would have to give the case off to another coworker to take a second look to see if he missed anything so it was going to be even more waiting. At this point we are four weeks into this whole process and still not that much closer to an actual resolution. Dylan continually said things like “I appreciate you telling me how that feels” or “we prize our customer service, this is not what we stand for” ad nauseum. It kinda felt like talking to a robot. Bottom line, I didn’t feel like I was being heard or considered. I felt unimportant and small. And PNC refused to take accountability for their mistakes and their part in this whole ordeal. They are also culpable as I would not have sent the money back if they raised even a single concern when I called them initially.
This trend continued with the latest call with Dylan saying essentially nothing still and that he was working hard to try and push it towards a resolution. We spoke to Dylan again on March 20th and 21st with him saying he was sending the case to another person to get it looked at. However, the next day he called again saying PNC decided against refunding my money. Just like that. He said they looked at it from every angle but they were never able to locate the initial calls I made so that was just a blatant lie to my face. He also said the calls I made that proved PNC was culpable wouldn’t even help my case. It makes me feel like they decided my fate a long time ago and just weren’t gonna budge to help me in any way. Instead they saw it more fitting to string me along on this wild goose chase for weeks, leading absolutely nowhere. It’s been 5 weeks now and I’m just exhausted. I’m not about to give up but I’m very tired by this whole process. My bank account has been -$1600 for over a month. I can’t function independently, I’m constantly having to depend on others. I haven’t really been able to pay to get food or to take public transit to the places I need to go. I’ve had to rely on others for rides and cash. It’s been exhausting; I can’t even think straight. It feels like the past month I’ve just had to babysit the bank in addition to all of my normal responsibilities. I’m spent. I just want this to be over. All I’m asking for is the $2000 from the check restored so I can move on with my life. $2000 really isn’t much for a bank of this size as banks are supposed to have protections against fraud, with PNC telling us that they routinely deal with these kinds of problems. In this case, PNC has failed me. They failed to protect me or do any due diligence and when I tried to point out their mistake they only tried to bury me deeper. I have seen precedent for cases of this nature before and I humbly ask for some help to get what I deserve through this long drawn out nightmare.
