Suntrust Bank Charges overdraft fees with funds in account Richmond Virginia

is available right here at Ripoff Report.

Brownsong,

You would have a valid point if SunTrust and all the other banks did not market the debit card as same as cash. SunTrust states that card purchases are same as cash; meaning automatic deductions from your checking account at point of sale. This is the reason people use a debit card rather than carry cash or checks.

The problem is the lie. When people use debit cards they expect that the purchases will be deducted immediately. This is a lie that SunTrust uses to game the account holder.

What SunTrust and other banks do instead, is hold back debit purchases and falsify remaining balances often by not including pending debits in the available daily account balance. The banks use algorithms to determine the most amount of fees they can make on a given account to determine which order debit charges should be put through regardless of when they were purchased or when a bill was paid. In fact, SunTrust often likes to put through large debit purchases regardless of when the purchase or bill was made in order to increase the likelyhood that small purchases like McDonald meals of $6 or $7 dollars will incur an additional overdraft fee of $35.

You have admitted that you are an old person who knows how to use a check register. You should be proud of your wrinkled dusty butt.  Saying that, you probably are charged fewer account (free checking, transfer etc,) fees and receive more interest on your savings accounts than the younger generation just coming up.

However, don't tear down a customer that is told a blatent lie from the bank that uses that lie to ensnare a customer.

I don't know how old you all are, but I am in my forties and when I was young and had my first checking account, I had never heard of the internet. It didn't exist. So I was diligent about recording every single transaction I made in my register. The solution is simple. If you honestly don't think you can balance a checkbook (did one of you say you were in college?) then you should not have an account. Close it up. Pay cash. There is no other answer. You cannot make ten transactions per day and then come home and go online and think that you are going to remember them all. It doesn't matter how long it takes for the bank to process them. I once wrote a check as a gift and it didn't go through for a year because they had lost it. Then they moved and found it and cashed it. Once you write it, it's gone. Don't worry about when it goes through. I have dealt with Suntrust for many years. My son who is twenty, opened an account with them and had the same problems you all are having, but I didn't sympathize. I told him to stop crying and dust off his checkbook register and use it. For his birthday, I paid all of his stupid fees off under the condition that he balance his checkbook. He has had no problems since. I may sound cruel, but, hey, if I could make money off of fools who can't use a calculator, I would. Who can blame Suntrust?

I had a similar problem with Sun Trust in early January 2010. I Keep a very close eye on my bank records as I am in college and cannot afford to go under much. With the Christmas season I did spend more then I should of and as I check and recheck my online bank account daily I recognized that I was going to go over on my $39 best buy credit card bill. When that occurred there were NO PENDING CHARGES on my account the two big spenders in my account was a 750 school fee and 483 in rent I actually went under to the point where when all of my charges cleared I only had 473 for rent and had to get my girlfriend to spot me $40 so at least my rent check would clear. Well fast forward 1 week to January 4th I went to the bank to deposit 400 dollars knowing all well that I was going to have about a $60 overdraft due to going under about $30 for the Best Buy credit card bill (I had not even used my account in over a week) when I deposited my money they said OK good your still -$20 in. I looked at my bank records and what Sun Trust did was when my credit card bill went under they moved 8 smaller charges ranging from $1 to $8 from over a week prior to AFTER my credit card bill. So my credit car bill did not make my bank account fall into the negative it was 8 small charges after that made me go -$420 in the hole. I went to Sun Trust to complain and all I got was a 30 minute speech on how pending charges worked and no matter how many times I told them that all of those charges were not pending a week ago I still got that speech. I didn't take legal action against them due to the fact that I didn't have any proof of their fraud which if I would of taken screen shots from December 28th onward I would of had such proof. For example when my $750 school bill cleared it showed that both my available and current balance was $473 (as the reason to why I had to borrow and deposit $40 for my rent check) but when I look at that charge on January 4th it showed that my current and available balance was well over $473 somewhere around $600. I complained and they said they would take off only 2 of the 7 overdraft charges along with another speech on pending charges and how they work (I requested that they take off only 7 of the 8 due to I actually did go over with my credit card bill).

I have also been hit with these crazy charges (though not as much as my friend here) and I've figured out their game (or should I say scam). Allow me to explain I use my card a lot to make purchases for my business and many of them are under $30 (usually internet related software etc) and I monitor my account online every single day The problem is that I might make 10 purchases one day, then a few more a week later, and when I go to check my online reports - only 3/4 of them have gone through so the balance they show me is actually much higher than what I actually have The way they arrange it on the page makes it all seem easy to understand, but the truth is that out of 20 purchases I might make within the span of a couple of weeks, only 15-17 of them are actually processed. The rest are held until you have a low enough balance that they can bombarded you with charges. Ive even seen charges that appeared one moment and gone the next day, only to reappear later. SunTrusts online systems have held reporting on purchases for as long as a week and a half! What I notice after is that once my account is low enough - BAM - they put the rest of the original charges through. I make very small purchases and I've been hit with fees as high as $70+ for a purchase valued under $20 (my web hosting account for instance) because they use this method. I have been trying to start up a small business for almost a year now and I don't have the money to put thousands of dollars into my account, so I try and manage it the best I can. But with their online tools that's impossible. Whats even better is when they tell me No we didnt pay it, but you still owe the overdraft fee. For what? Being POOR?! If they had paid the charge Id almost understand the fee, but they charged me a fee because I was poor and didnt have enough to pay it. They charged me to decline a purchase I made. Thanks SunTrust! This has only happened to me a couple of times (trying to be extra careful), but it JUST happened to me again last week. This makes it 3 times now in one year. This time I realized their trick though. Im changing bank accounts after the holidays! UPDATE: Now get this. I bring two separate client checks (a few thousand each) into my SunTrust account this week in hopes of buying a few extra Christmas gifts for my 3 boys, but they have placed a hold on them until the 7th of Jan. Their reason? Because you have over drafted 3 times! The teller at the bank said it was because of the amounts (Ive deposited larger checks from the same state mind you), but when I called their office I was told it was because of my overdrafts. Theyre holding it for 16 days. This is simply no way to treat the people that help support you. My point is that YES you are right and its the customers responsibility to keep a register and track everything, but were only human. Just because YOU have a big brain doesnt mean that everyone has the same advantage as you. Some people simply have trouble processing information like this, but it doesnt mean they deserve to be ROBBED like this. There are always two sides to every story. Were both just looking at the same story from different angles ?