Consumer complaint received 2016-12-08
Company: SUNTRUST BANKS, INC.
Product: Bank account or service
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Account opening, closing, or management

Complaint:
My wife and I opened an account with SunTrust Bank XXXX, XXXX branch in XX/XX/XXXX. We intended to use the account to purchase a property in XXXX. Unfortunately, we were unsuccessful with our bids and therefore we did not use the account. In XX/XX/XXXX I contacted Suntrust via my online account and asked what was the best way to close my account and get the balance on the account sent to me. I was advised that the money could be either transferred electronically or paid by check. When I tried to transfer electronically the system did not allow me to do so and so I requested a check and was advised that this could take up to XXXX weeks to reach me. My online access was cancelled at this point and I waited for my check. During XX/XX/XXXX I received a change of address card from SunTrust Bank which had international postage paid and contained the address originally given in XX/XX/XXXX. I then heard nothing more. I contacted the XXXX in XX/XX/XXXX and asked for the status of my check as I had not received it. A gentleman called XXXX said he would look into this and email me with the details. He did not do this and so I phoned him again. He said he would send me an email. This did not arrive and so I phoned the XXXX again to be told that XXXX had gone home and would not be back at work for a couple of days. I then phoned the XXXX of SunTrust and I was told that the check had been sent out at the end of XX/XX/XXXX but had been returned as undeliverable in XX/XX/XXXX. I could not understand at the time why this had happened as I was told it was sent standard mail and would not therefore require a signature. The Bank had already successfully sent me the change of address card and so I was confident they had my address. On XX/XX/XXXX I was then told that because the check had been returned I would have complete an indemnity form which they would send to me. I was not happy with this as I would have to wait another XXXX weeks to receive this. At this point I raised a complaint about XXXX at the XXXX for not getting back to me as promised. My wife and I spent in excess of XXXX hours speaking to either the XXXX or the XXXX being passed from XXXX to the other because the account is a closed account. In a subsequent call to the Helpdesk I asked about the complaint I had raised and was told that there was no record of it on their system. At the beginning of XX/XX/XXXX I received a letter and the indemnity form. The letter said that we had to complete all the areas highlighted, including, Description of the XXXX XXXX, Approved by and XXXX XXXX XXXX ) [ Executed under penalty of perjury ]. Given that we had never seen the check the only section of the form we could complete was our signatures. On close examination of the envelope, I believe I know why the check never reached me. The standard mail postage paid was {$0.00} which I presume is domestic mail. The envelope shows that the indemnity for got as far a XXXX XXXX where the French postal service put a sticker over the original XXXX franking and re franked the letter so that it would reach me. I suspect that the check was franked similarly in the XXXX and was rejected by the postal service somewhere because insufficient postage had been paid. I received a call from XXXX who works on the Research Team at SunTrust as a supervisor called XXXX had passed our case to the Research Team. I explained to XXXX that there was little I could complete on the indemnity form and that it is rather ridiculous that we have to pay to have our signatures only notorised when the Bank have a copy of our signatures on file. XXXX said she would check with another department and ring me back in about XXXX minutes. The following day XXXX phoned to say we need to sign the form and get it notorised. The money will not be released until this form is returned.

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