BB&T holds every one of our business and personal accounts. I do not know what is happening there, but they are a plague on anyone trying to get by in these hard economic times.
Problem one: BB&T holds the mortgage on a house that my husband, who is a contractor, built as a model home. The rate is 8.75%. When the housing market collapsed, we contacted them to ask about refinancing at a lower rate, since theirs were about 4.25%. Their reply was that business customers are not offered that. We tried to sell, which proved impossible, then found a tenant, which left us with no model home, and we hung on hoping the market would recover. Six months ago we returned to the bank and it agreed to review the loan. It requested new tax returns, financial statements and more. We said we could no longer keep up the payments, and their collections department in North Carolina told us to pay $50 per week until a decision was made. We did exactly that. Later they said that if we brought the mortgage current, they would refinance. We did, but they applied the money first to late fees, next to interest, and last to principal, so with all the penalty charges the loan never got current. We phoned repeatedly to ask whether a decision had been made, and each time they answered that they were looking at it and would get back to us.
Then December came. Our branch manager left a message on our answering machine saying the bank was willing to refinance, BUT only if we first paid $25,000 in penalties, principal and interest, because things had dragged on so long. Are they out of their minds? Yesterday we got a letter from an attorney saying the bank is foreclosing.
Had they refinanced, the rent would have covered the mortgage, and bankruptcy would not be staring us in the face. My husband, who is in his late 60s, has worked in this business all his life, and he has never run into such greed and such reluctance to help a customer.
Problem two: my husband receives two retirement checks on the last day of every month, deposited by wire into our account. They always appear as pending funds that day. I pay my health insurance premium of $270.00 through BB&T Bill Pay. The two payments were wired as always on December 31. But BB&T chose to process the $270.00 payment first, when the account held $200, and to HOLD his wire until January 4. It cancelled my health insurance payment for insufficient funds. I wrote to the bank and it confirmed that the BillPay went through at 7:00 rather than midnight and did not process his wire until January 4. I went through the previous six months of account activity, and not ONCE had a deposit been held until the 4th of the next month.
I am grateful this website exists, because until I found it, I thought I was the only one. Stay away from BB&T at all costs!
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