Suntrust Bank Marsha Walker Lifelong customer singled out and publically interrogated for trying to deposit a foreign check Charlottesville, Virginia

Suntrust Bank is a bank with a troubled real estate portfolio, bad management, and poorly paid non-management ranked workers, making for a bad brew for customers.  I imagine it's especially bad in a place like Charlottesville, Virginia where traditions, good breeding, manners, professional work, and money combine to hopefully insulate oneself from the horrors of the vice-versa.  I worked at the Medical School of the University of Virginia for a number of years before moving South.  You did the exact right thing.  You tried to get satisfaction and failing that, you moved your account to another bank or credit union.  Each of these banks must learn that they are NOT indispensable.

While I don't think this gentleman you initially dealt with inside the branch was as good at providing service as we'd like, understand a few things.

I don't work for Suntrust, but I do work in banking. He was probably new and had never personally seen what you deposited before. Should he have looked? Probably. However, in essence he did the right thing. One thing consumers rarely realize (why would they if they haven't been bankers) is that bad checks are held against the branch, and, often, the employee that deposited them if they come back bad and the employee didn't follow guidelines. A guideline might say "hold XXX types of check deposits for 11 days." Now, a manager CAN override that, however, if it DID turn out bad, he could be repirimanded, or fired, for going outside of policy. That is true even if he "called to verify" the check, since a person's statement on the phone of a bank across the Atlantic Ocean can't be easily verified.

It's true that YOU'd be out the money, however, if it were a situation where your account went negative and you never paid it back, THEY'D be out the money too.

He could have used some common sense, but in and of itself, he didn't do anything wrong. What he did wrong was not offer to call the other branch himself, or at least offer to take you into a private area (all branches have SOMEWHERE you can go) to discuss it. He seemed to be a bit too green to handle the situation but let's face it, ALL of us were new at our jobs once.

To your later bolded comments: It didn't "clear" overnight. They made it AVAILABLE overnight. Big difference. Let me offer you a secret - check clearing is done on an exception basis - banks are only notified when a check DOESN'T clear, they have no way of knowing automatically or through any sort of system that an individual check you've deposited has cleared the financial institution it was drawn on. The only way to know a check HAS cleared is to contact the other bank, and even that's not foolproof as it could still be disputed for fraud or improper endorsement after that fact.

Oh, and #3 comment - the ATM deposit is still handled by an individual the next day, they still could have asked her to come in or put a hold on it.

I have a PhD and do sophisticated, real-world work. You seem far more interested in analyzing my psyche than looking at facts. This public inquisition was embarrassing and had I not pursued it, I would not have discovered the true nature of the corporate entity I use dealing with. And as one of the commenters below points out, and you would have seen if you read closely, I knew from prior experience this was not a fake check.

I have to say I too feel that you probably took this a bit far with all the calls and complaining, however saying that I guess I too would have been a little upset had this happened to me, however as someone else said I would have simply taken the check back and gone to my regular branch where I was known.

Now having said that, I must also say to the person who is basically saying your an idiot that considering you knew who this check was from and had acepted checks from them in the past that you knew this not to be a fraudulant check, not to mention most of these check scams involve the victim to deposit and cash the fake check the same day they recieve it, then turn around and western union the excess funds back to the scammer, being a breeder of cats I see this all the time and in my 13 years of breeding I have recieved my fair share of these fake checks with the instructions to cash the check as soon as I recieved it and although the kitty they were buying was only $1,200.00 the check was for $5,000.00 so I was then to turn around and western union the excess funds to their shipper because after all they couldn't just cut them a seperate check, that would after all be stupid!

Unfortantly over the years I have had many people fall for these scams and loose thousands of dollars because after all the customer of the bank is on the hook for the bad or fake check, therefor the person claiming the bank looses and never recovers their money is wrong because most people who have this happen to them are honest people therefor they do pay the bank back. I had a very close friend have her daughter fall for a scam like this, the only difference was they were money orders and the person sending the money orders didn't ask for any of the money, therfor their main concern was just to hurt someone and the bank allowed this girl to open a brand new account with these 4 $800.00 money orders, deposit only 1 and cash 3 of them, then 10 days later the girl is notified that the money orders were in fact fake and now she is on the hook for $2,400.00 and if she doesn't pay them back she will go to jail and the police were notified and she had to set up payment arrangements with the bank to pay them that money back. Now this would have been the perfect chance for the bank to ask those all important questions, such as do you know the person who sent these to you and the answer would have been, not really and a red flag would have went up. I was even surprised when I learned of this considering she opened a new account just to cash them, it wasn't like she had been a long time customer with the bank or anything, that alone should have given the bank cause for caution.

I do believe this guy who handled this woman the way he did was very unprofessional and he should have taken her to a closed office to discuse the issue, no one wants their business out there for anyone walking by to hear and I disagree that those walking by listening was just more in her head then reality because people can't help but to listen to situations like this so I do believe everyone who came in and heard the conversation being a bit hostile did tune in. Do I believe the bank owes her for used cell phone minutes or long distance calls? No because as already pointed out she could have handled the situation differently and simply taken her check back and gone to her normal branch and problem probably would have been solved, but I don't think anyone has the right to treat another as a criminal for no good reason.

I'm sorry to hear that this happend to anyone but I am also glad to know that you have severed your relationship with this bank and have found another youare more comfortable with.

You think because you are a middle aged woman you are so smart that you could NEVER fall for any of these check scams, and as such you don't ever want to be asked any questions. Okay well let's hope you never do become a victim of a scam. But if you do I would be willing to bet that the first thing you would do is to blame the bank that they should have done more to protect you.

Could the manager have been more "tactful"..possibly. But I think that you inferring that because people were passingby you that they were listening to the converstation was more "in your head" then "in reality".

If the other branch didn't give you any problems, why didn't you just go back there? After all even the "manager" gave you that option to take the check back.

It would be great if there were not scammers out there, and there were no bad checks. But that is not the case. You basically "went off the deep end" and probably shouldtake a step back. In that everytime someone asks you a couple of simple questions they are not accusing youofbeing some major criminal.

I think you put way too much time and effort into this. Even I would have just snatched the check and the paperwork out of that punks hand and just went to my own branch.

Or, you should have walked out the door and done an ATM deposit! Then they would have to take it and just deal with it, no paperwork!

The problem here is that this punk obviously was too young and inexperienced to be left "in charge". And, most banks don't pay anything so they cannot attract the smartest people in the world. This kid was obviously just a robot.

And, banks will NEVER admit wrongdoing of any kind as it opens the door for lawsuits. They are taught to never admit fault.

This kid just didn't have any common sense, or business "tact". He should find another line of work.

Sir, you are missing the point. This checks have always been handled routinely by other branches. This was one employee who behaved inappropriately. So yeah, "the banks can't win" -- when they have poorly trained employees who have never seen a foreign check and have zero interest in customer care.

I'm in my mid 50s but it's not like I brought in a Publisher's Clearinghouse "Sample" check.

- Since you are a middle aged woman(a fact you mention several times), you know that was not the problem. Because all they would have had to say in that case is "Do you know it is not a real check". In fact if the bank did try to deposit it, you would have a very valid complaint that they are clueless.

He brought me in because he thought I was trying to pass a bad check or I had been given a fake check and was too stupid to know it. Pre-screening deposits? Really? After all, if the check had been worthless, I would be the one to lose out and they would no doubt collect fees and make money from that.

-Wow...When banksdeposit checks that are scams, by people who are "too stupid to know it", the banks get accused of doing that just to gain overdraft fees.Yet whenthey actually ask some questions then otherpeople complain that they don't want to be asked, and are more than willing(they say) to accept the consequences.

Oh and if you actually did research on thesescams you would realize that quite often it is the bank who looses. Because part of the scam is to send money by a Money Gram to a FOREIGN COUNTRY. But by the time it is discovered it is a scam, the money is gone from their account and the person is left owing the bank anywhere from a couple hundred to a few thousand dollars. With a high probability that the bank will never recover that money.

These scamsinvolve checks that appear very real. Why? Because they are very often real checks that have been stolen, or high quality counterfeits. So as much as you don't want to hear it those were very logical questions and IF in fact it was a fradulent checkyou would probably be very thankful.

Based on your reaction to this, I'd hate to be the person who tells you left your car headlights on. You would probably think that was some covert attempt to accuse you of stealing a car.