I left Suntrust for the very same reasons I see most people have complaints about. They encourage you to use the online banking to help you keep track of your account (without informing you how inaccurate it is), and the only reason they change the order of your transactions is for their benefit.
My problem with their "policy" is that its not clear. They show you two balances, the actual (what is actually in the bank) and the available (what will be in the bank after the transactions go through). If you go to the teller or atm it gives you the actual balance, but they go by the available balance for all their fees (which shows pending charges but not pending deposits).
When I went to dispute all the NSF charges, the man I talked to really couldn't explain it. The way it showed on the print out he gave me was like this... I made a charge then went straight to the bank to deposit money to cover it. They took the money from the available balance (not from the actual balance bc they hadn't really paid anything yet). This charged showed up as pending right away but not my deposit... Even though they were made within 30 minutes of each other.
Earlier charges actually went through that same day and weren't covered (by the available balance) bc they took the charge out from that day, so they all got NSF charges. This whole time my actual balance was in the positive. It didn't go into the negative until the NSF charges. Then the next day the charge from the day before actually went through and I got another NSF charge for that. Oh and my deposit went through but the account was already negative by that time bc of NSF charges. Now right before this last charge went through, the available balance changed. Not because of the deposit i made, but bc they deposited my charge back into the available balance right before taking it out again... This time from the available and the actual balance.
According to the customer service man, the pending charge was taken out and couldn't cover previous transactions bc it was committed to the charge I made that day. Fine. But then I still got charged NSF for that charge. Now if they take it out and 'commit' (his words not mine) this money to something, shouldn't that at least be covered? The reason I had NSF for the other transactions is bc they took that money from the available balance on the day of the purchase.
Basically they are double charging. They take the money for the pending purchase from the available balance immediately and "commit" it to the purchase. This way they can get you with NSF fees right before they put your "committed" money back in the available balance just to take it out of the actual balance. But by now you're already in the negative so you can no longer cover the charge that was previously covered.
Now I keep a register. Thats how I knew to stop by the bank right after making the purchase. I knew I would be about $30 short once all the pending transactions went through. However, I knew that once the last purchase actually went through, my deposit would have gone through and everything would be covered. I didn't know that they went by the available balance for the fees since I was always told my actual balance when I asked.
I didn't use the online banking to see how much money I had. I used it to keep track of what had gone through and what hadn't. If something is pending, then the bank hasn't paid it yet and therefore its still in my account and my money. Pending charges should not be counted against you. I have had mystery pending transactions that just vanished instead of actually going through. If they want to go by the available balance to determine how much they will allow you to withdraw, fine. But until your actual account goes into the negative, they shouldn't be allowed to charge you NSF.
The bank I'm at now, my deposits go through immediately and the transactions go through in the order they are made. They aren't collected and then taken out largest first so all the small transactions won't be covered.
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