Once BB&T took over Republic Bank, we got our new cards and our new statements and terms and conditions. Things seemed to be going fine with the transition. Then out of the clear blue our statements stopped coming to the house. When I called the bank to find out why we were not getting them, I was informed the postal service was returning the mail due to an incomplete address.
For weeks I fought with the postal service to find out why we were not getting our mail, but they saw no problem on their end and said the address must be wrong, because they saw no other reason for them to return mail. I called the bank again, now getting $5 fees apparently for my statements being sent back to them.
I confirmed the address on the account repeatedly and was told everything seemed fine and my statements should appear on time the following month.
Yet again, the same problem. Again I called the bank, first the 24hr line and then the branch. Again I was assured the address matched what I was telling them, and I should get my statement the following month.
This apparently did not resolve the issue, as I continued to get $5 charges, eventually totaling $19.20. My husband and I had a bad week and were only able to keep $4.20 in our account, knowing we had a direct deposit going in on Friday, which at the time was only 3 days away. We had gotten direct deposit the entire time we had the account, so we had no worries at the time.
Fast forward to April 18th. Another returned statement, and this time, because we only had $4.20 in the account, that is what they charged us for getting our statements back. Regardless of my countless phone calls confirming the address, and regardless of that being all we had in the account, they took that money, leaving us with a zero balance and closing our account.
For reasons I still do not understand, when our direct deposit was sent to be deposited into our account, it was rejected, and we were told they would most likely return the money to the company because we no longer had an account with BB&T, since we were carrying a zero balance for 3 days.
I do not remember the terms stating that they will close our account if we have a zero balance for 3 days, and that any deposits made would be rejected. Apparently I missed that when I read the terms. I assumed no minimum balance was just that. I could understand if we had gone a month with a zero balance, but 3 days?
Anyways, I called the 24hr line again, because obviously now we had no money for the week. The 24hr line told me to call the branch. The problem with that is that it was now Friday evening, and the branch was closed and not available for Saturday work. Now we had no food and no money for food. We had no choice but to wait until the branch was open.
I called the 24hr line and a branch 2hrs away, in Orlando, that is actually open on Saturday. I was still chasing down money that should have been in our account on Friday. However, nobody seemed to know where the money was. The 24hr line said the account was closed, and the branch in Orlando said it was open, but there was still no deposit in the account. I had no choice but to wait until Monday. In the meantime, our family did not eat this entire weekend, thanks to the bank.
If the $4.20 had not been taken from our account to begin with, for the returned mail that I called repeatedly to confirm the correctness of, then our account would not have appeared at a zero balance, the deposit would have gone in as it always does every Friday, and we would all be happy campers. However, the story does not end there.
Monday rolled around, and the company that makes the direct deposit had not gotten the money back, meaning the bank still had it. Regardless of our countless phone calls, and our family being without food for 3 days, we found out the bank had the money the whole time and just did not give us access to it because they closed our account.
As for the statement problem, apparently because it is a joint account and I am not the primary, they were changing the address on my side of the account but not on my husband's side. Therefore my countless phone calls months prior were apparently for no reason. Never once did my branch say to me, "Your husband needs to add the apartment number to your address so you can get your statements." With all the assurance they kept giving me that the address was fine, never once did anyone suggest or explain that just because my address was correct, his was not.
We are married with a joint account, so why are there 2 sides to the account? Why didn't someone say, "Your word isn't good enough, we need your husband's word"? No, instead they continued to charge us for returned mail, causing this entire mess, and again leaving our family with no food for 3 days.
But it does not end there. I spoke to a representative at the branch. She insisted that they will always close an account that reaches a zero balance, regardless of how long it is at a zero balance. And she stated, and I quote, "If you had kept a dollar in the account you wouldn't have this problem." No. If someone had corrected the address and stopped charging us $5 every month, and had not taken out the $4.20 we DID have in the account for yet another returned statement, we would not be in this mess. She proceeded to laugh. And I do not mean chuckle, I mean a good hard laugh at what I was saying.
She said there was nothing she could do until Tuesday. That left us on day 4 of no food and no money to pay our water bill, and she refused to credit the account for the address problem, even though it was their fault it was not corrected.
I would have been more than happy to hand the phone to my husband if anyone there had asked to speak to him to simply add the apartment number to our address, which obviously is what was missing, since they were getting our statements back saying so. If anyone there had made even a subtle hint that my calling every month to add the apartment number was not going to correct the problem, I would have put him on the phone.
Apparently a supervisor at the 2hr center felt the same way I did, since she was eventually able to credit our account accordingly so that our family could finally have food and water. However, because she was going above and beyond her call of duty while our branch was not doing anything, we still did not see a dime until almost 4pm Monday afternoon.
But it does not end there. For the $19.20 for the returned mail, the branch said they could not credit the account unless we went into the branch. How do we afford to make direct deposits if we are taking an entire day off of work to correct, again, what the bank got wrong?
Well, guess what: the 24hr supervisor called the branch to give them instructions on how to credit the account. However, the branch refused to do so, leaving the 24hr supervisor holding the bag and having to call managers in other places to get the credit adjusted correctly. If that is not bad enough, when I tried to file a complaint, I was told they had spoken to the branch and they feel the problem was handled. At the time it was not handled, as we still did not have money that the bank had in its possession, that had arrived on time to be available to us on Friday, and we never had access to it until late Monday.
In the meantime, 3 charges have been denied, causing fees that I have to pay to other companies, because the bank did not want to accept my direct deposit on Friday, regardless of us meeting the required time frame to have that money available to us.
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