Problem Solver: Bank battle ends after email

January 12, 2012

The Problem Solver did not lift a finger to help Norman Hernandez in his battle with PNC Bank, but he provided an assist.

Hernandez’s fight with the Pittsburgh-based bank began in August 2010, when he deposited rent checks from his six-unit Chicago apartment building.

The checks were posted to Hernandez’s account, and the Oswego resident thought all was well.

A few weeks later he received a letter from PNC saying there was a problem. One check, for $725, had apparently become lost in the bank’s system.

PNC’s solution was deducting $725 from his account, Hernandez said.

So began a protracted and frustrating battle. Hernandez said he spoke to several PNC employees and was repeatedly promised he would receive calls back. In most cases no one returned his calls, Hernandez said.

On numerous occasions, he was told the situation would be straightened out within weeks, he said.

That didn’t happen.

In November, Hernandez gave PNC a two-week deadline to fix the mistake, he said.

Two months later, with the $725 was still missing from his account, Hernandez decided on a different approach.

He sat at his computer and typed an email detailing his 17-month-long slog through PNC’s customer service department.

“I am a stickler for good service and will complain and/or pose very difficult questions when my threshold of satisfaction is not met,” he wrote. “Unfortunately, I find myself in a quagmire and have been extremely patient in trying to resolve an issue with PNC Bank.”

Hernandez addressed the email to two individuals he had dealt with at PNC — and copied the Problem Solver.

He hit the send button at 11:33 a.m. Tuesday.

Less than five hours later, a PNC representative called Hernandez and promised to post the $725 to his account immediately. Hernandez said he checked his account Wednesday morning via the Internet, and the money was there.

The Problem Solver has said it before and he’ll say it again: Often, the mere threat of bad publicity is enough to get action.

“PNC resolved the matter immediately after receiving the ‘cc’ on my email to you,” Hernandez said.

Why it took a 11/2 years and the possibility of bad publicity to resolve the issue is beyond Hernandez.

The final straw, he said, was when PNC employees made promises they did not keep.

“What really ticked me off was when they started blaming each other and not taking responsibility,” he said.

Fred Solomon, a spokesman for PNC, said Wednesday that the bank could not comment on Hernandez’s situation.

“We thank you for bringing it to our attention, but our policy is not to comment on our customers to unaffiliated third parties, including members of the news media,” Solomon said in an email. “Typically in a situation like this, we will have already contacted the customer and come to a resolution.”

Hernandez said he spoke at length with the PNC representative Tuesday afternoon.

“I let her know in no uncertain terms that I was not happy with the length of time it took to resolve,” he said. “I said, ‘This call should have come a year ago.'”

Copyright © 2012, Chicago Tribune

Seriously?  You deposit good checks into your Pittsburgh National Corporation bank account and are credited with the funds.  At some future point said bank loses those checks and instead of actually investigating where those checks wound up, they withdraw the money from someone who was in no way a part of their mistake and who is unable to resolve it.  pah, like I’d ever use this place…

SAN TAN VALLEY, Ariz. — A man is in custody after allegedly texting a naked photo of his girlfriend’s daughter to nearly 40 contacts in the girl’s cellphone.

Eugene Foster, 31, was arrested for sexual exploitation of a minor, said Elias Johnson of the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office.

Foster found a photo the girl, a student at Poston Butte High School in San Tan Valley, had taken of herself, and decided to teach her a lesson by sending the photo to contacts in her phone. Investigators do not believe Foster was intentionally trying to exploit the child.

When the officials at Florence Unified School District learned about the incident, they contacted parents, asking them to immediately delete the text if they or their children received it. They also advised parents to have a conversation with their kids to explain that sharing nude photos of minors, whether by text message, e-mail or via the Internet, is illegal under state and federal child pornography laws and that the penalties and consequences of such action can be severe.

“To spread this photo further would not only add to the devastating embarrassment of one of our students, making a bad situation worse, it would make the sender subject to severe legal consequences,” Dawn Hawman, the district’s director of public relations, told parents. “The welfare of our students is always our top priority, and we appreciate your assistance in minimizing the damage done by one adult’s poor choices.”

“That’s something that you deal with at home,” said Doug Peterson, a Poston Butte father. “You don’t get other people involved. That’s just horrible.”

Even if Foster’s intentions were well-meant, what he allegedly did is against the law.

“The bottom line is sexting pictures of juveniles is wrong,” Johnson said, explaining that this is a learning experience for parents and teens.

Foster remains in custody in Pinal County Jail in lieu of $250,000 bail.  PCSO is working with the Pinal County Attorney’s Office to determine how to proceed.

Goddess notes:  You cain’t fix stupid…

It is just so wrong, that not one person in this school saw fit to voice a comment or concern.  Who really suffers here (outside of the student)?  Neither the teacher nor the aide nor anyone on the district payroll.  Ultimately, it’s the taxpayers who will pay.

US couple bug special-needs student while trying to prove instructors bullied her

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A couple raising a 14-year-old developmentally disabled student say they hid a recording device on the girl to prove a teacher and school aide were bullying her, and a subsequent investigation has led to a lawsuit, the aide’s resignation and disciplinary action for the teacher.

The girl’s mother and the mother’s longtime boyfriend said in court documents they complained about the mental and emotional abuse to school officials in the Miami Trace district southwest of Columbus, and then secretly recorded instructors’ comments for four days last spring after their claims were rebuffed.

A $300,000 settlement was reached in a lawsuit filed this year by the girl’s family against the school district, aide Kelly Chaffins and teacher Christie Wilt, attorneys said.

In the recording, voices identified as Chaffins and Wilt are heard questioning the girl’s weight and how active she is and making derogatory comments about her character and the character of her mother and the boyfriend.

“Are you that damn dumb? Are you that dumb?” Chaffins said. “Oh, my God. You are such a liar. … You told me you don’t know. It’s no wonder you don’t have friends. No wonder nobody likes you. Because you lie, cheat … steal.”

In another instance, Wilt apparently talks to the girl about the results of a test before evaluating it. “You know what, just keep it,” she said. “You failed it. I know it. I don’t need your test to grade. You failed it.”

The girl’s mother, Kourtney Barcus, and her boyfriend, who helps raise the girl, said in the lawsuit that their concerns about the aide spanned several years before they recorded the audio and that school officials initially rejected their claims.

But they were shocked by what they heard on the hours of tape.

“We couldn’t know. We didn’t know,” the boyfriend, Brion Longberry, said Tuesday on NBC’s “Today” show.

In comments to the local newspaper, district superintendent Dan Roberts acknowledged this week that there was a problem.

“The persons involved fell short of our mission,” Roberts told the Washington Court House Record Herald, which first reported the story. “We’re sincerely sorry for that and we will work very hard to never let that happen again. We need to provide proper training and restate our expectations of how we treat children so that this never happens again.”

In an email to a social worker in April, Roberts said he had looked into similar complaints from the boyfriend earlier in the year and found that the girl was lying. “It came to a point where I had to remind the man that his continued false accusations were bordering on harassment and slander,” the email says.

The lawsuit alleged verbal and emotional abuse and inappropriate comments by the aide and the teacher, as well as failure by school officials to report suspected child abuse. It also said the instructors put the girl on a treadmill if they were not satisfied with her work.

The school has said the treadmill is used strategically to help students focus.

Chaffins resigned, and the State Board of Education on Tuesday accepted her decision to give up her educational aide permit “based upon her inappropriate comments to students,” according to board documents. That prohibits Chaffins from getting another job as an Ohio teacher’s aide.

After a confidential investigation, the board decided to suspend Wilt’s license as an intervention specialist for one year because of “conduct unbecoming to the teaching profession.” Under an agreement with the board, Wilt can avoid that suspension if she remains in good standing with the district and completes eight hours of training focused on bullying awareness and reporting child abuse.

Messages left Tuesday for Roberts, Chaffins, Wilt and their attorneys weren’t returned.

The Fayette County prosecutor’s office reviewed the case but didn’t pursue criminal charges.