I have banked with SunTrust Bank for years, since before it was even called SunTrust Bank. In just the last couple of years I have been ripped off by them so many times and in so many different ways that it would be hard to list them all here, but I will do my best.
Ripoff number one:
I have free banking and always have. I had a savings account with just a couple hundred dollars or so to cover any slight overdraft that might occur. When checking my accounts one day, I noticed that my savings account was completely cleaned out. When I investigated, it was because they had been charging me a $15 "maintenance" fee (free banking, remember). With an apology, the assistant manager told me he could only go back three months in his records, credited me $45 and put an end to the practice. Since then the practice seems not to have ended, because my account was cleaned out again and subsequently closed by them.
Ripoff number two:
I have a HELOC with them, and this requires that I have homeowners insurance. Three years in a row now they have put "forced" insurance on my property by adding it to my HELOC, to the tune of $1,450 (or so) for six months. That in itself is ridiculous, since it is less than a quarter of that for a year. My insurance company, State Farm, assures me that each year it sends the appropriate documentation to the bank and is furious that it has to deal with SunTrust this way every year. I get charged interest on this money, and it takes numerous phone calls, faxes and so on to get it straightened out, but only until the next year, when I have to go through it all again.
Ripoff number three:
Every month I go into the bank to personally pay my HELOC with exactly the amount the manager tells me. Each month I get a call from the main office (I assume) telling me that I owe more money (usually around $800) and need to pay it immediately. Each month I have to go to my bank to have them sort it out, and my branch keeps telling me that they "made a mistake," that I am all fine, and they apologize again. I just got a call from the bank's collections department telling me my account is in collection, my November payment was not paid, and I must pay it immediately over the phone. I went to my branch again, and of course they cannot figure it out, but they tell me I have to pay $625 to get current, even though every month my bank manager himself enters the exact payments necessary.
Ripoff number four:
SunTrust's ATMs are always out of order, and they assured me that I do not have to pay other ATM fees and that they will reimburse any that are charged. Not true, not happening.
I have so many more stories to tell, but this makes me so angry. Some may ask why I do not change banks. I am in the process, but I have so much set up with direct debits and online bill pay that it is a major ordeal to switch. I have given them so many chances to prove they are not ripoff artists, and they have failed miserably. And get this: my bank manager told me that they were taking advantage of me, that he did not know how or why, but that he would try to get to the bottom of it. This has yet to happen. Please, please do not open an account with SunTrust Bank. I guarantee you will be taken advantage of.
Thank you.
PS. I welcome any lawyer or media to contact me.
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