I have finally finished closing my account with BB&T and opened a new one with a credit union. I should have done this a long time ago and I would have money. BB&T seems to fee you to death. I was with BB&T for a few years. They bought out First Virginia Bank, which I had been with for ages and absolutely loved, and I was never once overdrawn or charged a fee. At first, BB&T was friendly and I didn't have any problems. But in the last 6 to 8 months, it seems like they just want to fee you to death.
First, I have my paycheck direct deposited into my account. It gets sent on Wednesday to the bank, and the actual payday is Friday. Well, BB&T doesn't actually let me have the funds until the following Monday. Their system doesn't run on the weekends. In checking with several other people who bank with other banks in the area, I found that their banks would make the funds available on Thursday. What BB&T would do is process the things that I had coming out of my account and charge me a fee to cover the amounts before making the money available on Monday. The new bank I am with makes my funds available on Thursday morning.
Second, if you become overdrawn and don't make a deposit within 7 days, they charge you another fee. But they don't tell you this up front.
Third, their online banking is just plain awful. I could never figure out what my true balance was: was it the current balance or the available balance, and was it the balance after all the items shown were taken out? I tried every which way to figure out how their system works. I do know they take out items before they make the deposit if it's on the same day, which could cause a fee, instead of making the deposit first, which would avoid fees. The new bank I am with gives me a line-per-line balance. It shows a balance, then the item taken out or deposited, with the balance.
Finally, there is the ATM machine/deposit. It has a sign stating that any deposit made before 8:30am that day would be credited to your account that day. A lie! It happened to me 3 times where I dropped the deposit off on my way to work at 8:15am and the deposit was never taken out of the machine that day. It was done the next morning and credited that day. I called and spoke to the manager about it, who insisted I was lying and said that the workers had collected the deposits after 8:30am that morning. Funny, I was on my way to work with my son, who was a witness to the time. I have to be at work at 8:30am (I work about 10 minutes from my home).
I have talked with several people who say the same things I do about BB&T and who are in the process of closing, or have already closed, their accounts. I would like somebody to look into their banking processes to see if what they are doing is legal. It just makes me wonder why they have to fee people to death. I will never deal with this bank again and I am sorry I didn't change sooner.
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