Consumer complaint received 2018-02-23
Product: Checking or savings account — Other banking product or service
Issue: Managing an account — Funds not handled or disbursed as instructed
Company: SUNTRUST BANKS, INC. (FL)

I'm a young senior and have excellent credit. In addition to this Suntrust decade old home improve. loan ( XXXX XXXX ), I also have had a perfect payment record on my 20+ yr old mtg. held by another bank. In early XX/XX/XXXX I opened a Suntrust account when I was attending XXXX  school through XXXX XXXX. Suntrust allowed the account to be permanent after obtaining my degree. In XX/XX/XXXX, I applied for a home improvment loan through Suntrust. I was impressed by the very easy online process and was told that my loan interest rate would be reduced by a % of a point if I had the payments automatically deducted from my Suntrust checking account. As with my other banking accounts, I requested and received bounce-proof option on the account up to {$500.00} which was subsantially higher than my loan payment. However, several times over the 11 years that I've had the loan, Suntrust has not only failed to pay the automatic XXXX XXXX payment but added late fees and return check charges. The first time that this occurred, I called and was told that I did*not have bounce protection and that I would have to go to the bank in person to add that option. When I arrived at the bank branch I was told I *did have bounce protection. I demanded that the late fee be then removed on my XXXX XXXX acct. Instead, the fee was left on the account but not automatically deducted from my suntrust bank account even though there were sufficient funds available to pay it. However the manager refused to waive the charges resulting from the returned items that should have been covered by bounce protection. After that experience I rarely used this Suntrust acct as I received better service from my other banks. I continued the acct for only the supposed % discount on the loan. The final straw was after I accidently wrote a deposit into the account with a Suntrust check instead of my main bank account. I noticed when I checked the online deposit and the balance showed negative. I called the bank and they informed me of my error. I laughed, apologized and immediately corrected it by depositing a check from the correct bank. Then I began several weeks later to receive rude calls from a '' call center asking for information about me and my account. This occured at my place of employment. When I checked my account I noticed that not only had they charged me a return fee which was to be expected for my error ( {$36.00}. ), but they did not activate the bounce protection and pay my loan payment. My checking account therefore reflected the positive funds amount that would have coverered my loan payment, less {$3.00}!! With a {$500.00}. bounce protection, my payment should have been automatically transferred/crediting to my loan acct. In addition, they added a late fee to my loan account - which would not have been late, had they transferred the payment from my account utilizing the bounce protection feacture I'm supposed to have!? 
Instead, their lazy employees bother me and threaten my credit. No wonder they are having to close branches of this bank! I am providing documentation reflecting that in fact my account has had bounce protection since XX/XX/XXXX and that this bank has intentionally failed to provide these contracted account features in order to churn up fees for the bank at a detriment to me. Any savings on the loan are cancelled out by the aggravation, lazy Suntrust employees have dealt out. I'm sure I'm not the only unhappy customer, but it's not right or acceptable regardless of whether they are on the way to going belly up or not. Better customer service would have saved them. I won't even bother to describe what expereince I had attemping to get foreign exchange from this bank.