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Sorry, I made a mistake again on my checking and savings accounts at National City Bank (PNC Bank) several days ago. This time, I was charged $105 overdraft fees by National City Bank. I’d like to share my experience with you on how to get the money back.

My popular posts on getting overdraft fees back from Chase and Bank of America might be also helpful to you if you have similar problems with your bank.

• Get Overdraft Fees Back from Bank of America by Writing to Their CEO
• Get Insufficient Funds Fees Back from Chase Bank

Well, the story is very simple, I wrote a big check ($1000) to my friend using the check from National City Bank. And I also scheduled several small payments using National City checking account without knowing  that there is not much money left in this account (Now, the direct deposit goes to Chase for the $100 bonus.). Then the disaster happened. 3 overdraft fees with $30 each and a $15 savings protection fees.

Then I went to my local National City Branch and asked to talk to the branch manger directly. He was very helpful. After review my account, he offered to refund $75 to me. I accepted at the moment. It seems that National City Bank will also offer overdraft fees back. See attached banking activities for your reference:

PNC Bank is offering $150 sing up bonus for celebrating its first branch entering the New York City. (WE has seen similar promotion from WaMu before.) Usually, PNC bank (and National City Bank) is offering $75 bonus. This $150 bonus is twice of what we typically can get. Since this promotion is available at the new branch only, there is no online account opening options. This address of this new PNC branch is located at 340 Madison Street between 43rd and 44th Street. Of course, direct deposit is required to get the bonus.

There are 3 checking accounts that are eligible to get the bonus: Free Checking, Performance Checking and Performance Select Checking.

Branch Location and Hours:
PNC Bank Madison Branch
340 Madison Avenue
Telephone: 212-661-1064
Hours: Monday – Friday: 7am-7pm

Attached is a scanned flyer of this promotion.

Famous PNC Bank now is offering $75 bonus for opening a new checking account with direct deposit. The financial situation of PNC Bank is pretty good. We did not hear anything about possible collapse of PNC Bank. National City Bank was acquired by PNC Bank. We can always receive the promotion offers from PNC Bank although the bonus amount is typical $75. For a limited time from now on, PNC Bank is offering $75 bonus for new customers.

Details about this promotion can be found at the promotion page at PNC Bank.

To get the $75 bonus, you have to open a new checking account at PNC Bank. Eligible accounts are: Free Checking Account, Performance Checking Account, Performance Select Checking Account and PNC Virtual Wallet. After open the account, you have to set up direct deposit of at least $500 to you new account before 06/30/2009. The $75 bonus will be credited to your new account within 7 days.

The time is limit: 04/26/2009-05/09/2009.

Fine print:

The payout of $75 will be credited to the eligible account within 7 days of the first Direct Deposit, which must occur before 6/30/2009. The payout will be identified as “Direct Deposit Reward” on your monthly statement. A qualifying Direct Deposit is defined as a Direct Deposit of a paycheck, pension, Social Security or other regular monthly income electronically deposited into a Free, Performance, Performance Select Checking account or the Spend account for Virtual Wallet. The minimum amount of any single Direct Deposit must be at least $500. The Direct Deposits must be made by an employer or an outside agency. Transfers from one account to another or deposits made at a branch or ATM do not qualify as Direct Deposits. Offer available to new PNC Bank checking account customers only. Offer may be extended, modified or discontinued at any time and may vary by market.

National City Bank is now a part of PNC bank. I reported two huge banking bonuses from National City Bank back to 2008. One was offering $200 and another was offering $150. Now the situation of National City Bank has been stabilized and the bonus they are offering right now is only $75.

The promotional link to this $75 bonus can be found here. National City will give you $75 visa gift card for opening a new checking account and do required banking activities. Following is how to get the bonus:

Details about this promotion:

1. Apply online or call 1-866-844-0056 to open your checking account by 03/31/09.

2. Set up direct deposit of your entire paycheck (of at least $250) into your account within the first 60 days – click the tab below to see how our Switch Service can help.

3. Get a free National City Visa CheckCard^** and make at least 10 purchases within the first 60 days.

This promotion ends on March 31, 2009.

National City has a lot of checking account products like Elite Checking, Free Checking Plus, Interest Checking Plus, Interest Checking or free checking.

Actually, PNC Bank was also offering $75 bonus for opening a new checking account and make required direct deposit. But the offer was ended on 02/28/09. Link is here.

PNC Bank has finished the acquisition of National City Bank on December 31, 2008. National City Bank now is a bank of PNC Bank (On December 9, 2008 Shareholders of National City Bank have filed lawsuits to halt the sale of the commercial bank to PNC). PNC now is offering a checking account bonus which offers $75 bonus for opening a new checking account with required direct deposit.

The promotion page about this offer is listed on the website of PNC bank. This link leads to the promotion page directly. The free checking account qualifies for this promotion. This checking account requires a minimum $25 initial deposit. It has no monthly fees or minimum balance requirements. Online Bill Pay is also free.

According to the small print: The payout of $75 will be credited to the eligible account within 7 days of the first Direct Deposit, which must occur before 3/31/09. The payout will be identified as “Direct Deposit Reward” on your monthly statement. The direct deposit is clearly defined by PNC Bank:

A qualifying Direct Deposit is defined as a Direct Deposit of a paycheck, pension, Social Security or other regular monthly income electronically deposited into a Free, Performance or Performance Select Checking account. The minimum amount of any single Direct Deposit must be at least $500. The Direct Deposits must be made by an employer or an outside agency. Transfers from one account to another or deposits made at a branch or ATM do not qualify as Direct Deposits.

Free Checking Accounts at PNC Bank features:

• Free transactions at any PNC Bank ATM.
• Non-PNC ATM fees reimbursed with a $2,000 average monthly balance
• No minimum balance requirement and no monthly service charge
• Earn rewards with your enrolled PNC Bank Visa Check Card when you make a qualifying purchase
• Free Online Banking and Bill Pay

There are also PNC Performance and Performance Select Checking Account available which offer better benefits but require more balance on the account.

The new PNC virtual wallet checking/savings account is also qualified for this promotion. The virtual wallet account is a great banking product. I will give a brief review of this virtual wallet soon.

Although we may all know that National City Bank is to be sold to PNC Bank by the end of this year. It seems that this deal got some troubles. Rep. Steve LaTourette, an Ohio Republican wrote a letter to Henry Paulson and asked for an immediate investigation into PNC’s recently deal to acquire National City Bank. Even the GOP president candidate John McCain says he supports a probe as well. According to the latest news, a Delaware law firm has filed a class-action lawsuit against National City Corp., its board of directors and PNC Financial Services Group over PNC’s purchase of National City.

Although there is so many troubles out there, National City Bank is continuing to attract more new money from new customers by offering great sign up bonus opportunities. The previously reported $200 bonus for opening a new National City Checking Account onlie has expired on Oct. 31, 2008. But there is a new promotion just released: $150 National City Visa Gift Card for opening a new checking account. This time you can also open a new checking account at your local branch! And the promotion time has been extended to the end of 2008!

This is definitely a great opportunity to open a new checking account at National City Bank either online or at local branch. This sign up bonus is even better than the all-year-long Chase checking account bonus.

Here is how to get the $150 bonus:

1. Open any new personal checking account online, at a branch or by phone by 12/31/2008 with a minimum $50.
2. Set up a direct deposit to your newly opened checking account with at least $250 per month. Direct deposit must be received within 60 days of your account opening.
3. Make 10 check card purchases within 60 days of account opening.
4. Limit of one bonus per household and available only to households without an existing National City checking account.
5. Visa gift card will be mailed within 60 days after all conditions have been met.

The most important part is how to establish a direct deposit to National City Bank. Someone might not want to direct their payroll to National City. Some may have already had a checking account at Chase which also requires direct deposit. Actually, all ACH transfer will be counted as direct deposit. In this way, ING and PayPal should work. But I’m not sure.

Since National City branches located only in IL, MI, IN, FL, KY, MO, OH, WI and PA, only the residents in the above states can participate in the promotion.

The promotion page can be found at www.nationalcity.com/cash.

The subprime crisis has decimated large financial institutions and has ultimately transformed the current financial services market. WaMu was acquired by Chase, Wachoiva was taken by Wells Fargo, AIG is taken over by US government, and Lehman Brothers & Co filed bankruptcy.  National City is also in trouble now. However, one company that has withstood this market turbulence has been PNC Financial Services. (PNC is America’s 11th largest bank by deposits.)

I think you would be surprised to hear that only 2% of PNC’s $143 billion in assets is tied to subprime mortgages. So I think it’s OK to jump PNC’s checking account bonus right now. At least, we don’t have to worry whether this bank will be taken over by FDIC or not.

I reported that PNC offered $100 bonus in July 2008. The $100 bonus sign up page has been changed to the $75 sign up bonus page (link). This $75 bonus is given to new customers to PNC Bank with qualified direct deposit and open a personal checking account between Oct 6 and 18.

The fine print has specific requirement for the direct deposit (PayPal and ING will not work.):

The payout of $75 will be credited to the eligible account within 7 days of the first Direct Deposit, which must occur before 12/31/08. The payout will be identified as “Direct Deposit Reward” on your monthly statement. A qualifying Direct Deposit is defined as a Direct Deposit of a paycheck, pension, Social Security or other regular monthly income electronically deposited into a Free, Performance or Performance Select Checking account. The minimum amount of any single Direct Deposit must be at least $500. The Direct Deposits must be made by an employer or an outside agency. Transfers from one account to another or deposits made at a branch or ATM do not qualify as Direct Deposits. Offer available to new PNC Bank Checking account customers only. Offer may be extended, modified or discontinued at any time and may vary by market.

There are 3 kinds of checking accounts to choose from: Free Checking, Performance Checking, and Performance Select Checking Account. I strongly suggest you open a Free Checking Account to get the $100 bonus offer. The free checking account features:

• No minimum balance and no monthly service charge
• Non-PNC ATM fees reimbursed with a $2,000 average monthly balance
• Free transactions at any PNC Bank ATM
• Free PNC Bank Visa^® Check Card
• Free Visa Extras Rewards Program when you enroll your check card
• Free Online Banking and Bill Pay

There is no hard pull during the account opening process.

PNC is also running a visa card promotion. Any time you use your PNC Bank Visa Card for qualifying purchases between October 1 and December 31, 2008, you’re automatically entered to win a weekly prize of $500 or the grand prize of $20,000.

Please be advised that a “Qualifying Purchase” is any signature-based purchase, Internet purchase, phone or mail-order purchase, bill payment, or small dollar purchase for which you are not required to sign, made with a PNC Bank Visa Card, which is processed through the Visa U.S.A. Inc. payment system.

Any PNC visa check card, visa credit card, business visa credit card is qualified to enter the promotion.

PNC Bank usually gives out $100 bonus for their new banking customers. The latest promotion ended on June 14, 2008 which offered $100 checking account bonus to PNC new customers with qualified direct deposit. Yesterday, PNC Bank launched a new checking account bonus offer. According to the promotion page, you can get $100 bonus when you open a new PNC checking account with qualifying direct deposit. This promotion ends on July 19, 2008.

The minimum amount of direct deposit is $500. If you can split your direct deposit from your employer, you can choose to make $500 to the new PNC checking account. However, according to my “Use ING and PayPal to Make Direct Deposit” post, PNC counts the transfer from PayPal as direct deposit. However, this time they make a specific requirement about the direct deposit:

The payout of $100 will be credited to the qualifying account within 7 days of the first Direct Deposit, which must occur before 9/30/08. The payout will be identified as “Direct Deposit Reward” on your monthly statement. A qualifying Direct Deposit is defined as a Direct Deposit of a paycheck, pension, Social Security or other regular monthly income electronically deposited into a Free, Performance or Performance Select Checking account. The minimum amount of any single Direct Deposit must be at least $500. The Direct Deposits must be made by an employer or an outside agency. Transfers from one account to another or deposits made at a branch or ATM do not qualify as Direct Deposits. Offer available to new PNC Bank Checking account customers only.

Although PNC Bank requires the direct deposit from your paycheck, pension, social security or other regular incomes, some one reported that they used PayPal to make direct deposit and the $100 bonus was honored. There are three different checking accounts that you can choose from. Free Checking Account, Performance Checking Account, and Performance Select Checking Account. I strongly suggest you open the free checking account which doesn’t have monthly service fees and minimum balance requirement. The minimum initial deposit is $25.This checking account features:

• No minimum balance and no monthly service charge
• PNC Security Assurance
• Free PNC Bank Visa^® Check Card
• Free Visa Extras Rewards Program when you enroll your check card
• Free Online Banking and Bill Pay
• Ovedraft protection and AutoAlerts

This time, they also offer $100 checking account bonus for new business checking account customers. This $100 bonus seems to be easy to get. All you have to do is open a business checking account and then sign up online banking. Usually, to open a business checking account, you have to own a business. At least, the banker requires you to present some business documents.

There is no hard pull during the account opening process. Offer expires on July 19, 2008.

PNC Financial Services is a U.S.-based financial services corporation, with assets of $92.0 billion. PNC is America’s 11th largest bank by deposits and is the third largest bank off-premise ATM provider in the country.