On November 23rd, I bought plane tickets for a vacation to Australia. I looked to make sure it had gone through correctly, and it was only reflected as one pending transaction.
On the 28th, the transaction disappeared (as happens with SunTrust, which is very shady in my opinion and designed to trip up people who do not balance their checkbooks religiously), but then this morning the transaction was back in my pending list, two times. So I was overdrawn by about 1800 dollars.
I immediately called SunTrust to figure out what happened. I was told I needed to talk to the vendor and have them call back and indicate that they were only charging me one time, and it could be taken care of. After many, many long talks with various people at the vendor, I finally talked to someone who could help me. So we conference called SunTrust... And I ended up speaking to the least helpful representative on the planet.
She told me that the charges had already posted (they have not, they are pending) and that there was nothing she could do. She said it was the vendor's responsibility to issue me a refund (which can take up to 7 days to process, by the way) and that SunTrust could not do anything. I asked her what I was supposed to do in the meantime, like trying to pay bills and things. She said, "Well, even once the payment is reversed you only have 40 dollars, I'm not sure what kind of transaction you plan on doing for that amount."
...
First of all, I have more money being deposited over the next few days. And second of all, my bills are not that much (at least not the ones I am paying this week). But none of that should matter. What kind of ridiculous response is that? Instead of explaining how you are going to help me and what I can do to avoid a bunch of nonsufficient funds fees that are not my fault, you take a shot at how much money I have?
I really try to be nice to customer service reps when I call. I truly tried my very best to be patient with everyone throughout this process. I was patient throughout the stupid call-in system that does not understand anything I say or enter, I was patient through getting put on hold and then disconnected twice, I was patient through the automated system telling me I do not even have an account with SunTrust.
But that was too much. The second I get my money untangled, I am moving on to another bank.
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