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CB Banks PNC Financial Services Group overcharges, added on cahrges and ripoffs
PNC Financial Services Group

PNC Financial Services Group review: overcharges, added on cahrges and ripoffs 15

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11:03 pm EDT
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Sign you to a 3 year contract at very low rates and then start adding, monthly and yearly charges so that you end up paying way more than you were before. But, when you try and cancel, they hit with outrageous earl;y termination fees saying the contract you signed allows them to add charges that didn't exist before!
Enticed you from your previous credit card processor with low ball rates which steadily increased always blaming the increases of the credit card companies and not them in addition to adding yearly and monthly fees of their own. Excuse "Well the cost of business keeps going up so we have to recover those costs"! WHAT? And who should I recover my costs from? So, I cancelled after two years of a 3 year contarct and was hit with a $225 early cancellation fee! On top of everything else they are the nastiest people to deal with!

15 comments
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Reviewer55705
,
Mar 02, 2016 2:47 pm EST

PNC deducted money from my IRA for a voided transaction. The branch and the IRA personnel are very helpful and polite but not very efficient in correcting their error and getting the money back in my account.

They said they would correct and get back to me. They didn't I checked and the money still hasn't been put back. They are checking again. Beware of using PNC investment services. I am sure they will correct because I checked, otherwise I would just be out the money.

BEWARE

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Brandon Brooks
, US
Jan 20, 2016 10:50 pm EST

Impossible to reach your representative. I tried for months with no return to my phone calls. Left message after message...trying to cancel my service because they pulled a bait and switch on me. First they tell me that after i pay of the credit card machine, i wont owe anything on it anymore. So i go into a 4 year contract to buy a portable machine, only to find out that even after i pay of the machine, they still will charge me $36.95/month through FDGL. I then tried calling my rep to straighten it out and he doesnt return any calls. When i finally got a hold of him, he said, "oh sure, ill take care of that right now" ...another month goes by, and still getting charged. So i call him again. "oh, sorry, ill take care of that"...another month goes by. more charges. month after month. 8 months later, i finally send in my machine, and for 2 months after, Merchant services charges me $24.99/month, and i get a letter saying..."we noticed you arent using your machine to process payments for a while. Let us know what we can do. If you continue to not have any charges, we will terminate your contract" ugh..hello, thats what i have been trying to do for 8 months. Finally they cancel my service...but not without more fees for another month! Worst thing i ever did for my business! When i signed up, my rep said i would only be charged $5.00/month...I never noticed how much i was being charged because of all the transactions i was doing. But when i stopped using the service, and they continued to charge me, i saw that it was the $24.99/month. Complete liars. Ready to close all of my accounts with them!

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Deaf Diva
, US
Dec 05, 2015 7:01 am EST

PNC has been like this for years since I know back in 1990's... some portion good but merchant services NOT GOOD at all!

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Walker thorn
Louisville, US
Jan 25, 2015 4:19 pm EST

We own a small business that came under the crush of the PNC Merchant Services Ogre. We were charged back a total of $2800 for transactions that occurred over 300 days before the chargeback. When we [censor]ed about their actions (without notification and other flaws) their response was to fire both our business and personal accounts. For the uninitiated, they only have 120 days to initiate a chargeback, but NOT ONE person at PNC could cite the MasterCard rules correctly. RUN SCREAMING from PNC.

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unhappy Small Business
Oviedo, US
Nov 03, 2014 3:01 pm EST

Stay away from PNC Merchant Services. They do not stand behind their merchants in the event of a chargeback with a larger card issuing bank. Their sales people are really nice and make promises to entice you to sign the contract. Then when you want to cancel the contract they do not follow through on their promises. The first draft of the contract had a 3 year term. I explained to the sales person that we were a new business and only wanted a one year term so he drafted an addendum for a one year term which we agreed to. He also told us via email that when we wanted to close the account we could just call him and he would handle the closing of the account. A little over a year later when we asked him to close the account for us he told us that he does not have the ability to close accounts and we had to call customer service. So when we called customer service we were told that we had a 3 year term and would be charged an early termination. We were also told that there were procedures to follow and they couldn't close the account without the owner's signature.The sales person never gave the 1 year addendum to PNC. We had to prove that we had a one year addendum! Luckily we had all the original emails to prove the 1 year addendum and the written statement from the sales person that he would close the account with just a phone call from us. They are totally deceptive and a scam and once you are their customer they are not very nice.

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Little Tor
New City, US
Aug 28, 2014 11:17 am EDT

PNC Merchant service is awful...Stay away from PNC merchant services. I sold my business after owning it for just one year... PNC told me I can not cancel my account immediately after selling business as it was three year contract, however there will be no charge on my account if i do not use their service... and i can cancel account after total 3 years without any charges or fees. I agreed, but in between these three years, PNC started charging $19.50 per month and one big charge of $109.95 in November 2013. I did not notice these charges till May 2014 as i do not even check this account since business is sold and I am busy with my job and family... I immediately called PNC merchant service on [protected] and they advised me to send a cancellation on [protected]. I did send a fax on very same day with all the details at the beginning of May 2014. Checked back my checking account in August 2014 and they were still charging $ 19.50 on my account every month. I called back on [protected] and they said they never received Fax... huh... I again faxed cancellation letter on 08/12/2014 with all the details they asked for on [protected]... called back them to verify if they have received fax or not on 08/28/2014... and lady said account is still active as they have not received any fax yet... i explained that i have sent fax twice on [protected]... this time she gave me new fax number [protected]. I have sent fax to their both fax numbers on 08/28/2014 and now i have been asked to call after an hour to verify if they received it or not. So far PNC has charged total $ 421.95 from my checking account as ghost fees. so much hassle to even get this cancelled... every time i do get digital confirmation on my MPS fax machine of successfully transmitting fax to PNC... STAY AWAY FROM PNC MERCHANT SERVICES.

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K par
Pittsburgh, US
Dec 10, 2013 8:02 pm EST

i was told I could do a 3 month trial period and cancel before the 90 days was up. Then my rep, Sarah, never answered or returned my many calls to cancel so I'm now locked into three years and can't get out. She still, a year later, hasn't retuned a single phone call even after calling her office, cell and talking with other reps in person who said they would have we call me. They are horrible liars.

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Mitchell Ballas
State College, US
Nov 06, 2013 12:30 pm EST

Their agent sold me their new terminal with the "latest" in technology that made pin pad debit obsolete, and would save me money. I was wary but in 22 years have never had a bank sell me fake credit card technology. After two weeks of running cards, I find out that I'm just running debit as credit, and that I no longer can input security code and address info on keyed in transactions which account for 50% of our transactions. He still claims that
the new technology makes v code unnecessary, but in reality without it, it exposes me to fraud and puts my transactions into a more expensive, higher tier structure of clearing. I felt defrauded, switched to a different company, PNC's agent wanted to stop me from bad mouthing him, so he agreed to cancel my account without any termination fee. His boss talked him out of our agreement without my knowledge, and they took $850 out of my account. I filed a complaint with the Comptroller of the Currency and have been in touch with my Senator. PNC will not address why I lost trust in them, just that I signed a contract so they are keeping my money. I was just acquainted with another merchant having similar problems, now I see this sight, might be time for a class action lawsuit.

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Toomey
Delmar, US
Sep 26, 2013 7:22 pm EDT

My husband goes in to branch to talk about the merchant services. The woman never shows ask if we can have a phone conference call. Well what they said was an application to get credit approval is now a contract they show u a book and then ask you sign the application. We'll we will call you to let you know the decision and we never get a call back and 3 weeks later recurve a device in the mail and no phone call well now we are told we are in a 3 yr contract and because we had a customer who needed immediate attention and was out if state and only had credit card we went to Radio Shack purchased the square we don't need there device we haven't even activated they refuse to allow us to get out if contract. The girl calls and says it only a 1 year contract keep it a year our rates are 1.67 compares to the square 2.5. Any suggestion to get out if it or I'm calling a lawyer and try refuse to give us a copy of the Application or as they call it a contract. Toomey's from Delmar De

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R Mohr
Cumming, US
Dec 12, 2012 1:19 pm EST

They talked me into signing up with this card reader even though I was happy with mine. They said the money is deposited same day. I agree. No one said anything about it being a 3 year contract, no one mentioned a 750.00 cancellation fee. I received the reader, took one look at the gigantic book of instructions and sent it back. The I'm getting called saying well you're active so the contract is active and in the same breath, if you still want to activate this service lets get you going" I thought you just said I was active! very sneaky

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galey
, US
Sep 11, 2012 9:12 am EDT
Verified customer This comment was posted by a verified customer. Learn more

alert...alert... alert stay away from this bank at all cost. they will suck the blood out of you, all other reviews are accurate
its looks like we have being dealing with the same rip off .there business license should be taken away from them.
instead of helping businesses survive during these tough time, they try to run you down to the ground without telling you.
they promise one thing and do something else. read your statements carefully! if you leave it alone they will try to steal
from you by charging fees out of this world. customer service suck. if you are trying to open an account you will get
a ton of calls, but when you try to fix a problem you end up talking to the wall with not a lot of help.

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Marc Hare
Falls Church, US
Dec 19, 2011 10:42 pm EST

You sign an agreement that has you "acknowledge" you have received and read their 42 page agreement that has the termination fee on page 40 near the bottom. The sales rep doesn't cover this, and if they were upfront and honest about it, it would be shown clearly on the paperwork you actually sign. Don't do business with them, they hide under this type of "signed contract agreement' and won't budge. It's surely not any way an honest reputable company would do business.

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Kevin McCaul
, US
Dec 06, 2011 7:19 pm EST
Verified customer This comment was posted by a verified customer. Learn more

The Merchant Service Account is THE WORST I've ever dealt with.
They agreed to refund a $99.95 fee I was not libel for, but after 1 month it is still outstanding.
I was told it would be refunded by the end of the week. That came and went - now I'm told AGAIN at the end of the week.
Thanks for Fuc..ing up my cash flow.
AWFUL AWFUL AWFUL!
MERCHANTS BEWARE!

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Bob Mastro
Phoenicxville, US
Jun 09, 2011 9:28 pm EDT

PNC BANK isn't too bad, but Merchant Services is like a hitler organiozation unto its own. They answer to no one.

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bpowers84
Burnham, US
Jun 09, 2011 5:56 pm EDT

Our business was destroyed by fire recently we had signed what I thought to be a 1 year contract which has now turned into a 3 year contract thought I was getting a terminal for free until it showed up on my credit report as a lease terminals cost 145.00 they charge me 33.00 plus insurance on the terminal every month as a lease charge at 48 months making the terminal 1584 give me a break filing a complain with the attorney general in Pennsylvania what a rip off plus wanting to charge me a termination fee on the merchant account of 250.00 for crying out loud we've just lost everything at no fault of our own and have to deal with this BS I would never never never do business with PNC Merchant Services again.