When I moved from South Carolina to take a new job in Kentucky, I looked for a branch of my credit union. With none here, I opened a new account with BB&T in Louisville, KY. They were extremely friendly, extremely helpful, and treated me very well.
I was impressed and deduced from that that they were a great place to bank. Boy, was I ever wrong! They called and told me to come by and pick up the new checks they had ordered for me when I opened my account. When I got there that afternoon, they said the checks were "lost" and had to be ordered again.
Everything went fine for about 2 months, other than the checks they lost. Seeing that my direct deposits were flagged as "available" on Wednesday morning, I verified that the funds were indeed available. I was told that yes, the deposit is pending on Tuesday and is credited to the account at 12am Wednesday morning, and indeed the funds are available for use at that time.
As I transferred all of my direct deposit to BB&T instead of a small part of it (due to my family finally getting moved up here with me), I started seeing problems. My wife and I would typically fill our gas tanks on Wednesday mornings, about 50 bucks each. With plenty of money in the account (a direct deposit of 1500.00 to 2000.00, depending on whether I put in overtime the week before or not), I started seeing NSF fees.
Along with the NSF fees, right next to them on the statement was an "Overdraft Charge," in the same amount as the NSF fee charged. I looked over their fee schedule and terms and only saw that NSF charges were 34 dollars for each item. It also stated that if an item was presented with insufficient funds in the account, and I had overdraft protection, either as a line of credit or as a savings account, there would be no NSF charge nor an overdraft charge for the item.
It also stated that if the overdraft account was a savings account, as long as a minimum of 300 dollars was kept in the account, there would be no service fee for the overdraft protection. In light of this, I contacted the branch manager, Meijil. I explained what I was seeing and asked how a charge of 50 bucks could be considered NSF when there was over 2K in the account.
She pulled up my account, said that was strange, and immediately credited back the NSF and overdraft charges, apologized, and wished me a good day. I decided at that time to also open a savings account for overdraft, just in case the checking ever got low. I opened it with $500.00.
Several weeks later, after paying deposits for the house, utilities, a massive amount of groceries, etc., the checking account was down to about 100 dollars. On Wednesday morning, my direct deposit was there, all available when I checked it at 7am before work. I filled up my tank (over 60 bucks), went to work, bought lunch for around 10 bucks, the wife filled her car for about 40 bucks, and then did the weekly grocery shopping (about 200 bucks).
On Friday, I received an NSF notice in the mail showing 5 NSF "items" nailed at 34 bucks each, presented on Wednesday (all check card purchases). I got online and checked my account, and not only were there 5 NSF charges, but again there were 5 overdraft charges for 34 dollars each, and my savings/overdraft account was untouched at 500 dollars.
I again contacted Meijil, the branch manager. She looked over the account and, in a semi-rude manner, told me that my direct deposit "may come in Tuesday, but we don't make it available or post it until Thursday." I reminded her of our earlier conversation, where she told me that it showed pending Tuesday and was available Wednesday. She then told me they "had the discretion to decide when a deposit posts or not." I then asked why the funds were not taken from the overdraft savings account she had opened for me several weeks earlier. She again looked up more info on the account, apologized, reversed the charges, and said it appeared she had forgotten to "link" the 2 accounts.
Several days later, the NSF and overdraft charges were taken back out of the account, and for the last several weeks, even with plenty of funds in the account, every check or debit card purchase that hits, regardless of the day it hits, is being nailed with an NSF and overdraft charge.
I have tried to contact their corporate offices, and they have not responded to my calls or emails. I have taken it upon myself to open a new account elsewhere and am transitioning my direct deposit over to it, but BB&T has illegally taken over 1200.00 in NSF and overdraft charges from my account in the last 2 weeks. My account finally hit negative 13.64 yesterday. I have taken money out of the savings and manually transferred it to checking to try to get them to stop with the charges, but that hasn't worked either.
I am at the point of filing a lawsuit against BB&T for fraud. I am also looking to find out if there is a federal bureau I can go to with my complaint to have these fraudulent practices stopped and get my charges refunded.
Stay as far away from BB&T as possible. They are criminals!
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