Consumer complaint received 2016-09-08
Company: SUNTRUST BANKS, INC.
State: VA
Product: Bank account or service
Sub-product: Savings account
Issue: Account opening, closing, or management

Complaint:
After reading that the XXXX XXXX XXXX was fined for XXXX dollars for unauthorized opening of bank accounts, credit accounts, etc., I feel I need to share that my own bank did the same thing to me. The bank is Sun Trust. The way it happened is as follows : 1.On XX/XX/2016, I went to deposit our rental checks to our join checking account through the drive thru of Sun Trust Bank . 
2. A teller came on through the camera and told me that there is a money market account that gives much higher interest than ours. She asked whether I want to transfer the fund to a new money market account. I said okay. She sent a form to sign, and I signed it. 
3. Later, I checked my online banking, and saw that the old money market account was closed and new one has the money from the old. I was okay with that. 
4. On XX/XX/2016, I was doing another deposit through the drive through, and the same lady came on the camera. She said since the money market account was n't active for last 3 months, I should deposit the checks to the money market account instead of the checking account so that the high interest will become active. I did n't quite understand it, but I said okay to depositing the checks to the money market account instead of the checking account. That is all I gave the permission to do. 
5. A week of two later, I logged on to the online banking to check the balances. I was horrified to find that there was only the checking account and no money market account. That is over {$50000.00} missing. I searched more thoroughly through the website, and saw that my money market account was closed. And money was still missing. 
6. I told my husband and next morning, he called the Sun Trust Bank customer service. He explained the situation to the agent. The agent looked at our accounts and found that the money market account was closed and another new one was opened. But that new one was not showing on our online banking. He fixed it so we can see the balance. And he said the account should n't have been open without our permission. He said he will make a report. 
7. The next day, my sister and I went to see the manager of the branch where I bank. He checked his computer and saw that there was no " Signed Card '' that authorized opening a new account. He said that ca n't be allowed. He called the teller who did this, and the lady acted like it was someone else. She left the room, and the manager said he will make sure that person who did this will be disciplined. We left. 
8. The next few times I went into the bank to make the deposit, I did n't see the teller. So I assumed that she was fired. 
9. Then a few months later, I saw her at the same bank. And she has been promoted to a loan officer! At least that is what I assumed since she was sitting behind the loan officer section of the bank. I was furious. I wanted to report to someone about this, but did n't know where. I also found out that when a new bank account is opened each time, our credit score gets a hit. 
So there you have my story about the illegal opening of the bank account done by the Sun Trust. I read online that the account that has over {$50000.00} is considered a gold mine because the person who processes it gets the highest possible commission. I hope this gets known to the officials who investigate these problems. Thank you for reading this long complaint.

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