The Saga Continues - PNC Redux

(Please ready yesterday's post so that this one makes sense.)

I'm not confident about giving this bank any more of my money.  But I do have bills to pay.  So,  I took the time I'd have used to type in something (my payees) that should have magically appeared (in my not-so-seamlessly transferred Bill Pay page) to type yesterday's post and then look for somebody at PNC to call.

It was hopeless.  An endless round of being routed to the voice banking.  PNC is headquartered in Pittsburgh (anybody have a relative there who'd like to go knock on some doors?).  There is nary a phone number on the interwebs for any of the dozens of VP's nor the President nor the Board.  Scarlet suggested I look at their Annual Report; again, nothing.  

There are a variety of sites - like bankchart.us -  that purport to lead you to emails and phone numbers for corporate executives; obviously, I'm not the first to have tried to find them.  The phone numbers they referred to were either no longer in service  or, once again, sent me to voice banking.

I was beginning to have evil thoughts regarding the voice banking voice.

While this was going on, Gmail announced the arrival of 3 new messages.  Two were from PNC, telling me that I had (1) changed the email on my business account, and (2) changed the phone number on my personal account.  If I hadn't done this, I was to contact them directly.

And.... there was a different phone number, a new phone number, a phone number they wanted me to call.  So, I did.

Hannah answered the phone, and my luck began to change.  

She listened.  She heard me.  She sighed appropriately.  She didn't try to make excuses for PNC's actions.  She understood my pain, laughed with my bad jokes, and then said the magic words : I can help you fix this.

Two hours after we connected, after she sat on hold and I sat on hold listening to her sit on hold (occasionally breaking in to reassure me that she was still there and that she would stay there until she found me somebody good, an on-line specialist,  I was on the phone with Aubrey, another good one.

Hannah had filled her in on the details - I didn't have to repeat a thing.  That, in itself, felt like excellent customer service... which tells you the depths to which this ordeal had sunk me.  After assuring herself that I was in good hands, Hannah said goodbye.  I asked for a supervisor so that I could pass on glowing compliments, she laughed and said No, thank you.  This is a temporary gig.  Just hearing it from you is enough.

Wherever she's going next, they are lucky to have her.

Aubrey, meanwhile, had been doing some sleuthing.  Unfortunately, we are unable to retrieve the information for you was her conclusion - I was never going to be able to see my Bill Pay pages again.  I would never be able to see who I'd paid when, what bills were coming due, which bills were paid on time.   

PNC's information packet had assured me that there was a 90 day window of opportunity after the transition to download and save the information in my BBVA account; I was counting on using the 20 minute spurts while the brownie list brownies were baking to deal with it in spurts.  Now, though, that plan was moot. I'd never be able to see my stuff again.

Fortunately, Aubrey had my back.

She could see all the information.  She just couldn't send it to me, or print it out for me, or do anything but read it to me.  And read it to me she did.  She was happy to stay on the phone as long as I needed her, to give me all the information I needed, including reading every single line of every single payee if I wanted her to do such a thing.  She was mine until I needed her no longer.  

We tossed around a variety of ideas, and settled on a plan. Tell me all the bills that come electronically, and the credit cards to which they are aligned.  Tell me my account number and the routing number. And reassure me that all the bills I had submitted had, in fact, been paid.

Nope. They had cancelled two transactions.

Remember that third email message?  It was from JP Morgan Chase.... telling me that I'd missed a payment.  I never miss a payment.  I pay the full amount on the credit card bills every single month.  I'm proud of this fact.  Getting an email like this put me into The Red Zone.... and you don't want to be around me when I'm feeling that rage.  

I was devastated.  I'm going to ask PNC to pay the late fee - and she laughed. 

We went through a few more details and then she, too, refused to give me a name so that I could compliment her.  You might get a survey about how this call went; you can put your comments there. I assured her that my compliments would be effusive for both her and Hannah, and we hung up the phone.

More than 24 hours have passed and I still don't have the survey.  I guess they don't want to give me an opportunity to bitch and moan along with sharing the love.

My work was not done - I had to call the credit card companies and explain the situation.  LaLa at JP Morgan Chase was the most sympathetic human being I have ever spoken to in my life.  her OH NO's were off the charts.  She was aghast, appalled, sympathetic - all while laughing with me as I recounted my story.

I ended with - And now I wonder if you will cancel the late fee because, honestly, it just feels like piling on.

Ma'am, I see that you pay every month, on time, and you pay the whole amount.  I'm going to waive the late fee, take your information, and everything will be fine.

She, too, has a survey coming in the email, on which I will heap compliments (should it ever arrive).

The other unpaid bill was also cancelled, but was not yet due.  One problem avoided...through no agency of my own or PNC's.

Remember all that web searching to find contact information for PNC honchos?  One of them suggested that 98% of PNC's emails are formatted first.last@pnc.com.  2% are first@pnc.com.  Karen L. Larrimer is executive vice president, head of Retail Banking and chief customer officer of The PNC Financial Services Group.  I decided to send this mess to her, using both formats (assuming that the top execs use their first names, being in the 2% and all.....), and hope for the best.

I went to LinkedIn, thinking that platform would help me connect to her.  Nope - I need a fancy, paid, account to send a message to a person with whom I am not connected.  I'm not going down that rabbit hole.  I didn't even try Facebook - engaging with Mark Zuckerberg on any level makes me vaguely nauseous these days.

So, I'll finish this post and copy and past it with the first one into an email I will send to both formats, hoping that this blurb I found on her LinkedIn profile is true :

Karen is one of those rare senior executives who never lost touch with the people doing the work. 

Those people need help.  It's true.  It's not only me.  I went to pick up The Uv at the dealership after her 40K check up and my credit card was declined - I forgot and used the JP Morgan card before the bill was paid.  I wasn't embarrassed,  I was peeved.  I took out another card as I told the service advisor that my bank had been swallowed up by PNC and. before I could say another word another advisor looked up, stalked over, and joined it - his wife works at another local branch and she's been stressed and depressed for weeks.

They managed to change the logos and the signage.  That's about the only thing PNC has gotten right.  I love my bank and my people there, but I'm looking for an outlet that is responsive and that won't lose my data.

I'm paying the minimum on my credit card bills until I find a new banking home. I'm not giving another dollar to PNC..... who knows where it will end up?