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I had an annoying run in with them. It happened because I didn't know Suntrust didn't take out charges in the order they occurred. They take out the largest cha

by jeffool 15y ago

I had an annoying run in with them. It happened because I didn't know Suntrust didn't take out charges in the order they occurred. They take out the largest charge first, and each charge as they decrease in value. One day I had had a few small charges, and realizing it was a week intl payday, I figured I'd run to the grocery store and make a large precise of groceries, to ensure I had food taken care of, expecting to make s single overdraft. Suntrust had other plans. They took out the large grocery bill first, meaning a quick lunch at Taco Bell cost over $40, shipping a small box cost over $50, and a Slim Jim and cream soda cost almost $40. In addition to the overdraft on the groceries. It's a very easy trap to fall into if you're living check to check and make even the slightest mistake.

eridius 15y ago
All the banks do this. They treat overdrafting as a way to make money rather than as a "service" for consumers (which is how they present it), and the way to do that is to ensure they charge as many overdraft fees as possible.
bherms 15y ago
Yes, most banks do this now as a way to take advantage of their customers and generate more revenue. I had it happen once on a road trip -- you know, the type where you stop frequently and purchase $2-$3 of junk food or drinks all the time -- and ended up with hundreds of dollars in overdrafts on what would have actually only been about $20 of overdraft. Several banks are being sued at the moment in class action suits for this behavior if I recall correctly. It's an unfair tactic that takes advantage of customers.
esrauch 15y ago
Banks do this but they will easily reverse all but one of them if you call without even arguing. If you argue a bit, I think they would reverse even the legitimate one.
- ceejayoz 15y ago
  Not KeyBank. I had a situation like this in college. Several levels of escalation finally got two of six overdraft charges lifted, but I was told that two reversed charges was the limit per year, no matter what the reason.
  - bherms 15y ago
    Same here... I was with KeyBank for a while too and had this happen. Fifth Third is even worse about it.
  - wnight 15y ago
    They were lying. There are no limits like that because that wouldn't make sense. I really wish we threw managers like that in jail though. They know they're enough of a roadblock that their denial to help will squash most legitimate complaint, letting them keep most of their stolen money. A 5-8 years sentence for fraud for them and coworkers who aided and abetted this would do wonders to stopping this kind of thing.
- xbryanx 15y ago
  I was able to get fees like this reversed once, but not before I got a very demeaning, public, and personal lecture about personal responsibility from the banker. To quote from the BankSimple article, "After that, I said some bad words."
bdhe 15y ago
It's a very easy trap to fall into if you're living check to check and make even the slightest mistake. In each such story online, I've heard a claim that they specifically have algorithms to maximize the penalty fees on these mistakes. Its another instance of a practice that disproportionately affects the poor. Unless you're living paycheque to paycheque, you would never even bother looking into such niggling details.
- noahth 15y ago
  and when you are living paycheck to paycheck, you don't often have the time or energy to wander the maze of niggling details.
  - dodedo 15y ago
    Time and energy? Perhaps. I think the primary issue is math and accounting illiteracy. Most Americans have no financial education whatsoever.
  - jm4 15y ago
    I disagree. Living paycheck to paycheck is not necessarily exclusive to lower earners or those short on time. Personally, when I did live paycheck to paycheck I had nothing but time. For most Americans, more money means bigger bills. Got a raise worth $300/mo? Let's go get a new car that's going to cost us $400/mo! I understand that some people work multiple jobs, take care of kids, etc. Those people barely have time to breathe, let alone manage finances. Even so, managing finances is a fact of life. Time, more money or whatever else you can think of will not break the cycle of living paycheck to paycheck. It requires a change in attitude and habits. The first simple fact is you have to spend less than you earn. It's a basic concept that so many people fail to grasp. If it's payday and you have leftover money from the last check you have savings. Don't go out and spend it like it's found money. Set it aside. Do this over and over again and you have an "emergency fund". Guess what? Now you are not living paycheck to paycheck. The second is that you have to take on an active role in managing finances in order to accomplish this. That means planning, budgeting, tracking and adjusting. The most difficult part is making the decision to start and then taking the first step. There a hundred excuses one could come up with for living paycheck to paycheck, having debt or some other financial mess. Predatory banks, too little money (when still earning more than a reasonable amount), not enough time. None of it changes the fact that you are still living paycheck to paycheck. The only thing that changes that is planning your own finances instead of letting these other things plan for you.
fletchowns 15y ago
This practice should be illegal, just like processing withdrawals before deposits is now illegal, which was also done to maximize overdraft fees (at least I'm pretty sure it's illegal now). Our government needs to make it easier to switch to a different bank. Tons of people would leave these awful banks for credit unions and such if it was easy to do. I mean it's possible to switch banks, it's a big headache though. People just have too many other things to worry about right now to deal with headaches like that.
- younata 15y ago
  This is precisely why I have USAA as my bank. I was originally going to get a Wells Fargo account, but that changed when I decided to go to uni in Florida - before the wachovia merger happened. My father decided that not being able to keep tabs on my account was a dealbreaker, so I ended up getting a USAA account. Worked out for the best, because USAA has some of the best customer service in the industry.
  - ww520 15y ago
    Is there an easy way to get into USAA for non-military people?
    - dkokelley 15y ago
      USAA banking is available to everyone. Some nicer services (deposit by phone, insurance) are for service members only. For what it's worth, my brother (Air Force) sold me on USAA after he signed up with them. I worked at Wells Fargo at the time, so I had the best accounts. I'm happy I made the switch. Also, their web interface and iOS apps are excellent. By far the best I've seen.
      - chris11 15y ago
        Their customer service is amazing too. I've never had a bad experience with them.
      - eru 15y ago
kstenerud 15y ago
Which is why you shouldn't be using such a dangerous service when living check to check. Go to a bank machine, inquire about your current balance, and then extract cash to make your purchases with. Banks may be predatory with fees, but really it's your own responsibility to avoid this trap, and it's not even that hard to do. You can also join a credit union.
- kstenerud 15y ago
  Downvote all you like, but so long as your response to getting screwed is "I always get screwed by these evil people" rather than "Shit, they got me. I'm going to take steps to protect myself.", you'll forever be a victim. I used to suffer the same mentality until I finally woke up and started to take responsibility for my own future. Things happen to victims. Victors make things happen.
  - mkr-hn 15y ago
    You're being downvoted because it looks like you're blaming the victims. Everyone would seek out good information for making decisions in a perfect world. But we don't live in that world. Sometimes it's necessary to protect people from the worst tendencies of corporations.
    - kstenerud 15y ago
      The fact that banks collected 38 BILLION from customers in overdraft fees would seem to suggest that people AREN'T choosing to change their habits, even on such a simple thing as this. Yes, by all means, make the banks stop gouging people like that (especially maximizing fee collection by ordering largest-to-smallest). But really, once you've suffered overdraft fees once, there's no excuse for suffering it again and again; especially not when there's such a simple solution as cash. As George W. Bush once said, "fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — You can't get fooled again."
      - deleted 15y ago
        [deleted]
impendia 15y ago
Please tell me that you called them, or walked into the nearest branch, and demanded that they reverse all but one of the charges, and, either (1) They agreed, or (2) You promptly closed your account.
- jc4p 15y ago
  I had a similar situation happen at Bank of America except in my situation I wasn't relying on a single overdraft, I wasn't expecting any. They put in a transfer from my savings to my checking a day after they said it would go through and did the exact same sorting of large purchases to charge my multiple fees. It took me two and a half hours to get the charges reversed, 30 minutes of which were spent in the nearest BoFA location until I learned I had to commute around town to go back to the original place I opened my account to even discuss the situation.
  - impendia 15y ago
    +1, thanks for sharing. Should I move, I now know two banks I should not dream of doing business with.
  - jeffool 15y ago
    heh, my phone conversations ended much the same. They told me to go to the branch where I opened my account as well. A state away. (As I mentioned elsewhere, I got them wiped off eventually.)
  - daemin 15y ago
    There has been a few situations in Australia where contractors / self employed business people have invoiced the banks for making them wait to be served in line. From memory the banks have paid those invoices, not sure that would work in the USA but if they wasted 2-3 hours of your time for which you can bill serious amounts on, then it might be worth a shot.
- jeffool 15y ago
  After a long while of phone conversation, they told me "no". I went into the branch and talked to someone there. They also told me "no". Then their spouse walked in; I'd known their spouse for years it turned out! They wiped the fees out for me. That actually pissed me off a little more... But I certainly wasn't going to tell them that. I've not overdrafted since.
bullseye 15y ago
Bank of America is currently facing a potential class action lawsuit for this very practice. I have no idea where it is at, or if it will be successful, but one can hope.
agosnell 15y ago
I had a bizarre overdraft charge from Suntrust, as well (although I got them to reverse it.) It happened this summer when I was closing my checking account with them. The closing date was set to the day that the last scheduled charge was going to hit, and so they gave me my cashier's check with all the funds except the $25 for the last scheduled charge. But there was also going to be a credit for $0.10 in interest on the account (which was necessary to pay the $25 charge.) Apparently the system was able to calculate all of that properly so that the debit matched up to the funds left in the account on the closing date, but on that day the debit was processed before the 10-cent credit. So they wanted to charge me $75 in fees because of a 10-cent overdraft that their system created!
dminor 15y ago
Another trick: some banks count the purchase _authorization_ against your funds, rather than the _capture_, when you buy online. But the merchant may reject your order if the address verification failed. If you mistype your address multiple times, you've got multiple holds on your money. Even if the merchant voids the authorization, they conveniently don't process the voids immediately. So you can end up with overdraft fees despite having enough money in your account!
- protomyth 15y ago
  This is especially nasty with charges made at the gas pump where places like Holiday will authorize $75 and take their sweet time removing the auth after the actual charge.
gscott 15y ago
I found out the hard way that Citibank when they put a hold on funds processed by credit/debit until they clear (say I bought a candy bar for $1.50) they do not pay out of those funds. They release the funds back into the account, where if I was 1 cent short they would charge an overdraft even though the day before they were holding those funds which I thought innocently would go to pay for the candy bar. The good news now even though they send me overdraft notices they stopped charging the overdraft fees for at least this type of transaction.
rdtsc 15y ago
No only that. SunTrust presents it to you as an "advantage" -- "We don't want your largest bills to be unpaid". Somebody in the marketing and PR department got a bonus for making that shit up. It is like they slap you in the face, then smile at you and ask you how your day is going.

by jeffool 15y ago

eridius 15y ago

All the banks do this. They treat overdrafting as a way to make money rather than as a "service" for consumers (which is how they present it), and the way to do that is to ensure they charge as many overdraft fees as possible.

bherms 15y ago

Yes, most banks do this now as a way to take advantage of their customers and generate more revenue. I had it happen once on a road trip -- you know, the type where you stop frequently and purchase $2-$3 of junk food or drinks all the time -- and ended up with hundreds of dollars in overdrafts on what would have actually only been about $20 of overdraft. Several banks are being sued at the moment in class action suits for this behavior if I recall correctly. It's an unfair tactic that takes advantage of customers.

esrauch 15y ago

Banks do this but they will easily reverse all but one of them if you call without even arguing. If you argue a bit, I think they would reverse even the legitimate one.

ceejayoz 15y ago
Not KeyBank. I had a situation like this in college. Several levels of escalation finally got two of six overdraft charges lifted, but I was told that two reversed charges was the limit per year, no matter what the reason.
- bherms 15y ago
  Same here... I was with KeyBank for a while too and had this happen. Fifth Third is even worse about it.
- wnight 15y ago
  They were lying. There are no limits like that because that wouldn't make sense. I really wish we threw managers like that in jail though. They know they're enough of a roadblock that their denial to help will squash most legitimate complaint, letting them keep most of their stolen money. A 5-8 years sentence for fraud for them and coworkers who aided and abetted this would do wonders to stopping this kind of thing.
xbryanx 15y ago
I was able to get fees like this reversed once, but not before I got a very demeaning, public, and personal lecture about personal responsibility from the banker. To quote from the BankSimple article, "After that, I said some bad words."

bdhe 15y ago

It's a very easy trap to fall into if you're living check to check and make even the slightest mistake. In each such story online, I've heard a claim that they specifically have algorithms to maximize the penalty fees on these mistakes. Its another instance of a practice that disproportionately affects the poor. Unless you're living paycheque to paycheque, you would never even bother looking into such niggling details.

noahth 15y ago
and when you are living paycheck to paycheck, you don't often have the time or energy to wander the maze of niggling details.
- dodedo 15y ago
  Time and energy? Perhaps. I think the primary issue is math and accounting illiteracy. Most Americans have no financial education whatsoever.
- jm4 15y ago
  I disagree. Living paycheck to paycheck is not necessarily exclusive to lower earners or those short on time. Personally, when I did live paycheck to paycheck I had nothing but time. For most Americans, more money means bigger bills. Got a raise worth $300/mo? Let's go get a new car that's going to cost us $400/mo! I understand that some people work multiple jobs, take care of kids, etc. Those people barely have time to breathe, let alone manage finances. Even so, managing finances is a fact of life. Time, more money or whatever else you can think of will not break the cycle of living paycheck to paycheck. It requires a change in attitude and habits. The first simple fact is you have to spend less than you earn. It's a basic concept that so many people fail to grasp. If it's payday and you have leftover money from the last check you have savings. Don't go out and spend it like it's found money. Set it aside. Do this over and over again and you have an "emergency fund". Guess what? Now you are not living paycheck to paycheck. The second is that you have to take on an active role in managing finances in order to accomplish this. That means planning, budgeting, tracking and adjusting. The most difficult part is making the decision to start and then taking the first step. There a hundred excuses one could come up with for living paycheck to paycheck, having debt or some other financial mess. Predatory banks, too little money (when still earning more than a reasonable amount), not enough time. None of it changes the fact that you are still living paycheck to paycheck. The only thing that changes that is planning your own finances instead of letting these other things plan for you.

fletchowns 15y ago

This practice should be illegal, just like processing withdrawals before deposits is now illegal, which was also done to maximize overdraft fees (at least I'm pretty sure it's illegal now). Our government needs to make it easier to switch to a different bank. Tons of people would leave these awful banks for credit unions and such if it was easy to do. I mean it's possible to switch banks, it's a big headache though. People just have too many other things to worry about right now to deal with headaches like that.

younata 15y ago
This is precisely why I have USAA as my bank. I was originally going to get a Wells Fargo account, but that changed when I decided to go to uni in Florida - before the wachovia merger happened. My father decided that not being able to keep tabs on my account was a dealbreaker, so I ended up getting a USAA account. Worked out for the best, because USAA has some of the best customer service in the industry.
- ww520 15y ago
  Is there an easy way to get into USAA for non-military people?
  - dkokelley 15y ago
    USAA banking is available to everyone. Some nicer services (deposit by phone, insurance) are for service members only. For what it's worth, my brother (Air Force) sold me on USAA after he signed up with them. I worked at Wells Fargo at the time, so I had the best accounts. I'm happy I made the switch. Also, their web interface and iOS apps are excellent. By far the best I've seen.
    - chris11 15y ago
      Their customer service is amazing too. I've never had a bad experience with them.
    - eru 15y ago

kstenerud 15y ago

Which is why you shouldn't be using such a dangerous service when living check to check. Go to a bank machine, inquire about your current balance, and then extract cash to make your purchases with. Banks may be predatory with fees, but really it's your own responsibility to avoid this trap, and it's not even that hard to do. You can also join a credit union.

kstenerud 15y ago
Downvote all you like, but so long as your response to getting screwed is "I always get screwed by these evil people" rather than "Shit, they got me. I'm going to take steps to protect myself.", you'll forever be a victim. I used to suffer the same mentality until I finally woke up and started to take responsibility for my own future. Things happen to victims. Victors make things happen.
- mkr-hn 15y ago
  You're being downvoted because it looks like you're blaming the victims. Everyone would seek out good information for making decisions in a perfect world. But we don't live in that world. Sometimes it's necessary to protect people from the worst tendencies of corporations.
  - kstenerud 15y ago
    The fact that banks collected 38 BILLION from customers in overdraft fees would seem to suggest that people AREN'T choosing to change their habits, even on such a simple thing as this. Yes, by all means, make the banks stop gouging people like that (especially maximizing fee collection by ordering largest-to-smallest). But really, once you've suffered overdraft fees once, there's no excuse for suffering it again and again; especially not when there's such a simple solution as cash. As George W. Bush once said, "fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — You can't get fooled again."
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]

impendia 15y ago

Please tell me that you called them, or walked into the nearest branch, and demanded that they reverse all but one of the charges, and, either (1) They agreed, or (2) You promptly closed your account.

jc4p 15y ago
I had a similar situation happen at Bank of America except in my situation I wasn't relying on a single overdraft, I wasn't expecting any. They put in a transfer from my savings to my checking a day after they said it would go through and did the exact same sorting of large purchases to charge my multiple fees. It took me two and a half hours to get the charges reversed, 30 minutes of which were spent in the nearest BoFA location until I learned I had to commute around town to go back to the original place I opened my account to even discuss the situation.
- impendia 15y ago
  +1, thanks for sharing. Should I move, I now know two banks I should not dream of doing business with.
- jeffool 15y ago
  heh, my phone conversations ended much the same. They told me to go to the branch where I opened my account as well. A state away. (As I mentioned elsewhere, I got them wiped off eventually.)
- daemin 15y ago
  There has been a few situations in Australia where contractors / self employed business people have invoiced the banks for making them wait to be served in line. From memory the banks have paid those invoices, not sure that would work in the USA but if they wasted 2-3 hours of your time for which you can bill serious amounts on, then it might be worth a shot.
jeffool 15y ago
After a long while of phone conversation, they told me "no". I went into the branch and talked to someone there. They also told me "no". Then their spouse walked in; I'd known their spouse for years it turned out! They wiped the fees out for me. That actually pissed me off a little more... But I certainly wasn't going to tell them that. I've not overdrafted since.

bullseye 15y ago

Bank of America is currently facing a potential class action lawsuit for this very practice. I have no idea where it is at, or if it will be successful, but one can hope.

agosnell 15y ago

I had a bizarre overdraft charge from Suntrust, as well (although I got them to reverse it.) It happened this summer when I was closing my checking account with them. The closing date was set to the day that the last scheduled charge was going to hit, and so they gave me my cashier's check with all the funds except the $25 for the last scheduled charge. But there was also going to be a credit for $0.10 in interest on the account (which was necessary to pay the $25 charge.) Apparently the system was able to calculate all of that properly so that the debit matched up to the funds left in the account on the closing date, but on that day the debit was processed before the 10-cent credit. So they wanted to charge me $75 in fees because of a 10-cent overdraft that their system created!

dminor 15y ago

Another trick: some banks count the purchase _authorization_ against your funds, rather than the _capture_, when you buy online. But the merchant may reject your order if the address verification failed. If you mistype your address multiple times, you've got multiple holds on your money. Even if the merchant voids the authorization, they conveniently don't process the voids immediately. So you can end up with overdraft fees despite having enough money in your account!

protomyth 15y ago
This is especially nasty with charges made at the gas pump where places like Holiday will authorize $75 and take their sweet time removing the auth after the actual charge.

gscott 15y ago

I found out the hard way that Citibank when they put a hold on funds processed by credit/debit until they clear (say I bought a candy bar for $1.50) they do not pay out of those funds. They release the funds back into the account, where if I was 1 cent short they would charge an overdraft even though the day before they were holding those funds which I thought innocently would go to pay for the candy bar. The good news now even though they send me overdraft notices they stopped charging the overdraft fees for at least this type of transaction.

rdtsc 15y ago

No only that. SunTrust presents it to you as an "advantage" -- "We don't want your largest bills to be unpaid". Somebody in the marketing and PR department got a bonus for making that shit up. It is like they slap you in the face, then smile at you and ask you how your day is going.