I am a college student and have been banking with SunTrust for about a year. I have my utilites account setup to automatically withdraw from my account every month. This past month [Nov. 2007] I informed the utilities company that I needed to push the date back a few days, as I didn't have the money to pay for the bill. All was set and ready to go, so it seemed.
This morning I woke and checked my account balance and was shocked to see that it was in the negative. I called SunTrust and asked the girl [named Melissa] why my account was charged $105 in fees and she said, "You have overdrafted your account and have received a $35 fee per overdraft." I then told her that I can't understand how this could have happened, she snapped back with, "This is why you need to keep a bank ledger and responsibly manage your account" [the nerve]! After snapping back at her, I hung up the phone and reviewed my online statement with more detail. I then realized that my utilities company have accidentally charged me twice for the same bill. I contacted them and they agreed to refund the money to me, but it would take two weeks for me to receive a check.
I then contacted SunTrust and told them about the situation and explained what had happened, had the Customer Care Representative look at the two charges, and then asked if it would be possible to have the $105 in SunTrust fees removed so that my account wouldn't be in the negative. Nope, nope, nope, nope, and nope was all I heard. As a college student living on a VERY tight budget, these kind of setbacks are devastating. I am so shocked that a corporate company can't refund $105 dollars in fees to a customer when the overdraft wasn't my fault. I would totally understand if the overdraft was due to my negligence, but from my statement alone they could see that wasn't the case. Even my parents were shocked. They bank with Space Coast Credit Union and had a similar issue and SCCU completely refunded all of the overdraft charges to them that very day. I guess some corporate heads have better knowledge about pleasing customers than others.
I'm off to find another bank, quickly remake rent money, and spread the word to avoid SunTrust...
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