Consumer complaint received 2020-12-01
Product: Checking or savings account — Savings account
Issue: Closing an account — Funds not received from closed account
Company: TRUIST FINANCIAL CORPORATION (VA)

I'm writing to complain about the refusal of SunTrust Bank to honor the payable on death beneficiary arrangements that were made on my mothers accounts. My mother passed away in XX/XX/2020. The accounts include both a certificate of deposit and a savings account, although the CFPB web site user interface only allowed the selection of one type of account. To reiterate, there are TWO accounts, and one is a certificate of deposit. 

We believe SunTrust Bank is acting in bad faith. 

Im writing on behalf of myself and my XXXX sisters, the XXXX of us being all of of my mothers children as well as her three intended POD beneficiaries. 

Our efforts to resolve this issue with SunTrust include two meetings over several months with SunTrust representatives as well as telephone conversations and email correspondence. We have primarily dealt with XXXX XXXX of the XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX branch of SunTrust Bank. 

I understand that SunTrusts refusal is based on some technicality within SunTrust, that perhaps some document ( s ) are missing from the bank 's files or were never properly collected and that the bank now insists, after my mother 's passing, on such document ( s ) having existed retroactively I am not aware, however, that any notice was provided by SunTrust to XXXX or to the POD beneficiaries prior to my mothers passing that the POD arrangement at SunTrust was somehow not entirely in order. 

We believe that the explicit titling of the SunTrust accounts by SunTrust to my mother and the three POD beneficiaries ( which titling appeared on my deceased mothers bank statements, an excerpt of which is attached ), represents prima facie evidence that adequate arrangements were in place to facilitate distributions to POD beneficiaries. Hence our expectation that SunTrust would make POD distributions of my deceased mothers account balances as other local banks have done, including SunTrusts affiliated bank, BB & T. ) Should not my mother and her beneficiaries be able to rely on the information that SunTrust Bank itself puts on the bank statements it sends to customers? If the arrangements were not satisfactory, why did SunTrust send my mother bank statements that very explicitly encouraged her and us to believe that the POD arrangements were in order? ( And is there other information on SunTrust 's bank statements that customers should regard as suspect? Account balances, for example? ) Why should SunTrust, based on some technicality, subvert the intent of their customer when the customers intent was acknowledged by SunTrust in writing on each of the customers bank statements? Is it fair for SunTrust to disavow the beneficiary arrangement the bank acknowledged in writing on each bank statement -- over some technicality that was no fault of the customers or the customers beneficiaries? Is SunTrust acting in bad faith? 

The remedy SunTrust Bank has proposed, that the beneficiaries go through probate and create an estate account ( and pay the associated taxes and expenses ), is just the scenario that my mother sought to avoid through her estate planning. I note that I have shared with the bank a copy of my mothers will in which she explicitly expressed her intent that all her bank accounts be POD to her XXXX children to avoid probate. 

For the second time a SunTrust representative promised a response by a certain date and once again that date has passed with no response. 

I have omitted personal information from this description in accordance with the instructions on your web site : Do not include personal information, such as your name, account number, address, Social Security number, etc. 

Thank you for your assistance with this matter.