Consumer complaint received 2021-04-07
Company: TRUIST FINANCIAL CORPORATION
State: NC
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Problem caused by your funds being low
Sub-issue: Non-sufficient funds and associated fees

Complaint:
My husband and I share a joint account through Truist. This account was primarily used for our bills but we've since opened a separate account for them. This Truist account had very little money in it at the time that this issue occurred. This is mostly due to us being severely behind on bills due to the pandemic. My husband had a membership with Planet XXXX during our time with Truist. XX/XX/XXXX requires an automatic direct debit of $ XXXX to maintain a membership. We agreed to this and were okay with this term. However, XX/XX/XXXX XXXX rarely draws out the monthly charge on the same day each month ; but it is usually the XXXX or XXXX ; very rarely does it come out sooner than then. 

XX/XX/XXXX attempted to pull out {$10.00} from the checking account on XX/XX/XXXX but the payment failed to go through due to no funds being in the account. We never received notice of this attempt, from neither Truist norXX/XX/XXXX, but went to deposit some money the next day, XX/XX/XXXX, in anticipation of this draft and realized that we were already assessed the {$36.00} fee returned item fee by Truist. We asked to have this fee waived but this request was denied due to Truist only allowing 1 courtesy waive of fees every 2 years. They stated that I had already received a waiver in XXXX of XXXX. They never mentioned this policy to me originally but made sure that I knew this was the case after-the-fact. They wouldn't even allow my husband to benefit from the courtesy waive solely because I had already benefited from it via our shared account. 

I refused to pay the fee because we only had just about {$10.00} to our name and it was assessed unfairly during a time where COVID numbers were at an all time high. We had just XX/XX/XXXXfor XXXX ourselves a few weeks prior to this occurrence. My husband and I were out of work between XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX due to mandatory quarantining and XX/XX/XXXX from XXXX. This caused us to become a month behind on all of our bills. We explained this to Truist, yet they did not budge and refused to show us any grace. We even offered to send in supporting documentation such as ourXX/XX/XXXX and doctor notes. I spoke to several different representatives and even filed a complaint through the company ; but no one was willing to take our circumstances into consideration. They continuously referred to the agreement that we signed at the account opening ; however, this agreement was signed under the assumption that we would not have to face a global pandemic that affected our lives and financial means. 

We only had about {$10.00} to our name during this time, so depositing the money was not an option as long as our account was overdrawn by {$36.00} due to the returned item fee. We decided that the best option would be to go into the gym and pay the {$10.00} in person. My husband went into our local XX/XX/XXXXXXXX on XX/XX/XXXXand attempted to pay the {$10.00}. They told him he couldn't because the payment system is automatic and that it will try to pull from the checking account again anyway. Truist said that the only way they could waive the fee was if XX/XX/XXXX contacted them to say that the charge attempt was invalid. When we requested this of XX/XX/XXXX due to our circumstances, they refused to do it and stated that the charge attempt was valid. My husband went ahead and cancelled his gym membership that day. But we were stuck, again, and we knew that another {$36.00} fee would be assessed. A day or two later, our account was - {$72.00} dollars. A few days later, there was ANOTHER {$36.00} returned item fee. XX/XX/XXXXattempted to debit our account a total of 3 times for the same charge in the span of 2 weeks and Truist assessed a fee every time. I accumulated {$100.00} in return item fees during a pandemic because two companies decided to lose their compassion for those who were directly affected by it. Now our account is overdrawn and is faced with the possibility of a charge off, a credit history ding, and a XXXX ding because we couldn't afford to pay {$10.00} at the right time in the middle of a pandemic. If we couldn't afford to pay {$10.00}, we can't afford to pay {$100.00}. Truist just called me today to inform me that this checking account is scheduled to charge off on XX/XX/XXXX.

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