Consumer complaint received 2018-02-28
Company: SUNTRUST BANKS, INC.
State: FL
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Problem caused by your funds being low
Sub-issue: Overdrafts and overdraft fees

Complaint:
Suntrust Bank is charging overdraft fees when no actual overdraft occurred. 


On the afternoon of XX/XX/XXXX I had {$58.00} in my Suntrust checking account and I charged {$11.00} at the grocery store. Suntrust charged me a {$36.00} overdraft fee on that transaction despite the fact that my account never dropped below XXXX. 


Suntrust has justified the fee by claiming that a " Pending Transaction '' resulted in a hold to be placed on some of my funds before the grocery store processed the transaction. Suntrust acknowledges the funds held for pending transactions still belong to the customer and are still in the customers account. So pending transactions do not change the actual cash balance in the account and my actual cash balance was sufficient to cover all of my posted transactions. 


Suntrust acknowledges that overdraft fees are assessed based on the order transactions are posted to an account. Since none of my pending transactions were posted to my account prior to posting the {$11.00} transaction there's no way the {$11.00} could have resulted in an overdraft fee. If the pending transaction had posted later that day then the pending transactions could have resulted in a negative balance and an overdraft fee but since {$11.00} transaction was posted when there were still sufficient funds in the account to cover that transaction the bank would not be entitled to overdraft fee on the {$11.00} transaction. 


Suntrust acknowledge that a pending transaction may not post to an account for several days and/or may never actually post to the account at all. Suntrust also acknowledges that a customer may have additional  deposits or credits posted to their account between the time they receive a pending transaction and the time that transaction is actually posted. In my case the pending transaction did not post to my account until the XX/XX/XXXX and I had additional deposits prior to the transaction posting so my account never had a negative balance and no transactions were ever posted without sufficient funds in the account to cover them. If the actual cash balance on my account was never negative then why am I being charged fees for " borrowing '' money? 


Suntrust also acknowledges that a pending transaction amount may be substantially higher than the amount actually posted to a customers account ( a gas station might reflect an {$80.00} pending transaction even though the customer only bought {$10.00} worth of gas ). 


I respect Suntrust 's right decline transactions based on pending transactions but I believe overdraft fees should be based on actual overdrafts rather than speculation. Suntrust believes they should be able to charge their customers overdraft fees even if an overdraft never actually occurs. Their contention that an arbitrary amount of money may or may not be debited from the account at some unknown point in the future is irrelevant as long as there are sufficient funds in an account to cover a transaction at the time that transaction is posted. 


The CFPB has stated that " An overdraft occurs when a consumer doesnt have enough money in his or her checking account to cover a transaction, but the bank or credit union pays the transaction anyway '' and has referred to overdraft fees as interest on funds that are loaned to a consumer by the bank. In this case I had sufficient funds to cover the transaction at the time the transaction is posted so I don't believe the transactions meets the CFPB 's definition of an overdraft. And since I never actually borrowed any funds from the bank I believe I'm being charged interest on funds that were never actually borrowed. I hope the CFPB will treat this as a blatantly abusive and arguably fraudulent practice instituted by a financial institution for the sole purpose of increasing their fee revenue. 


Prior to submitting this report I attempted to resolve this issue with Suntrust. I spoke a customer service rep by the name of XXXX and then a manager by the name of XXXX XXXX. Both representatives told me that they couldn't help me and XXXX XXXX said that it was my fault for opting out of overdraft protection and for relying on Suntrusts online banking rather than keeping a separate ledger that reflects transactions that might come out of the account in the future. When I asked to speak with someone else XXXX XXXX promised that someone would call me back on Monday ( XX/XX/XXXX ) but I never received that call.

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