Consumer complaint received 2019-07-05
Company: SUNTRUST BANKS, INC.
State: GA
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Managing an account
Sub-issue: Banking errors

Complaint:
Generally, Suntrust has failed to timely respond to my disputes of merchant charges on this account, and erred by losing or mishandling paperwork. 

I submitted the following six disputes between XX/XX/XXXX and XXXX, XXXX ( a ) Case XXXX - XXXX XXXX - {$23.00} - filed on XX/XX/XXXX. ( *Merchant has refunded {$19.00} and remaining dispute is regarding {$4.00} shipping fee. ) ( b ) Case XXXX - XXXX ( suspected fraudulent merchant in XXXX, XXXX, who never had any intent of sending merchandise ) - {$100.00} - filed on XX/XX/XXXX. 

( c ) Case XXXX - XXXX ( suspected fraudulent merchant who never had any intent of sending merchandise ) - {$99.00} - filed on XX/XX/XXXX. 

( d ) Case XXXX - XXXX - {$9.00} - filed on XX/XX/XXXX. 

( e ) Case XXXX - XXXX  - {$33.00} - filed on XX/XX/XXXX. 

( f ) Case XXXX - XXXX  - {$18.00} - filed on XX/XX/XXXX. 

( 2 ) As part of these disputes filed online, I attached several pieces of supporting documentation. 

( 3 ) I waited several weeks and received no communication or notification from Suntrust regarding any of my claims. All this time, I believed Suntrust was working on my claims. 

( 4 ) Suntrust claims to have sent emails to me requesting additional information on the date that each claim was respectively filed, but I did not receive them. I searched my email using keyterms and they are not there. I informed Suntrust on XX/XX/XXXX that their emails are not being received by customers and asked that this be looked into at a management level. 

( 5 ) On XX/XX/XXXX, I called Suntrust and was informed they were waiting on me to complete six forms for the six cases. They emailed me the forms and agreed that I could bring them to a Suntrust branch to be faxed. 

( 6 ) On XX/XX/XXXX, I traveled to the Suntrust branch in downtown XXXX and faxed all six forms. They provided me a confirmation number for all six pages being sent and received by Suntrust. 

( 7 ) I still have received no communication or notification or provisional credit regarding any of these six disputes. 

( 8 ) On today, XX/XX/XXXX, I called again to check on the six cases. I was advised that the forms were only received on five out of six of the cases and that if I did not submit the form AGAIN within a few days that the claim would expire! XXXX XXXX, supervisor, provided no solutions, despite me explaining to him that there have been two bank errors, including ( a ) the mishandling of my faxed materials and ( b ) the company 's failure to send notifications or requests for information. XXXX XXXX did not take any responsibility on behalf of Suntrust or even so much as apologize for any inconvenience caused or undue burden places on me as a customer. 

( 9 ) Some of these merchants including the fraudulent merchant have been able to hold on to my money for literally months, and now Suntrust is saying it will take an additional sixty days to resolve the matters even though they are responsible for both delays. 

( 10 ) On today, XX/XX/XXXX, I called back and spoke with XXXX who agreed I could email a photograph of the claim form. I emailed the form to her as an attached photograph and she accepted it for the case saying it would be satisfactory. 

( 11 ) I asked for my claims to be escalated. She said she would forward the request but could not say either way. 

( 12 ) I asked for the merchant " XXXX '' be investigated as a fraudulent merchant and to see if other customers have reported not receiving merchandise or responses from this purported merchant. 

( 13 ) Suntrust makes it very difficult for customers to resolve merchant disputes, fails to communicate, seems to conspire to hold on to its customers ' money for as long as possible, has no sense of urgency, does not provide provisional credits, unnecessarily burdens the customer by requiring the same information online to file the claim and then in writing, does not seem to be concerned with its inability to send notification emails or properly process facsimile. 

( 14 ) I filed a seventh merchant dispute with Suntrust recently and, just for the record, Suntrust is still not sending notification emails requesting documentation. I still did not receive one ; so the problem has not been fixed since I brought it up. Customers have to call in to check on their disputes to find out that Suntrust is waiting on documentation. Only then are they able to receive the form, when it is sent directly from the email account of a Suntrust employee.

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation