Consumer complaint received 2022-12-12
Product: Checking or savings account — Checking account
Issue: Problem caused by your funds being low — Overdrafts and overdraft fees
Company: TRUIST FINANCIAL CORPORATION (GA)

Complaint:
Truist charged overdraft fees on debit card transaction that did not exceed the accounts positive balance. 
Truist charge overdraft fees even though I had sufficient positive balance at the time that the transaction was authorized by the bank. 
Imposing overdraft fees in an Authorize Positive/ Settle Negative situation is unfair, because it causes injury that I can not reasonably avoid. 
I have no control over or involvement in the settlement and presentment of debit card transactions ( which typically take place days after the transaction occurred ). 
When Truist authorizes a debit card transaction on my account with sufficient funds to cover the transaction, I reasonably expect that I will NOT incur an overdraft charge on that transaction. 
Truist is intentionally reordering debits and credits in a way that creates scenarios to cause additional/multiple overdraft fees out of thin air ( typically transactions that accumulate between Friday and Tuesday ). 
This has happened more than 60 times between my accounts since XX/XX/XXXX, resulting in more than {$2100.00} in undeserving overdraft fees. 

I am a XXXX XXXX to XXXX children, and this has impacted my ability to feed my children more than once. These practices are immoral, and certainly do not fulfil the company moto of " financial wellbeing ''. I spent more than a week begging the company to reverse this latest round of fraudulent overdraft fees, but the company is hiding behind a XXXX disclosure saying that I agreed to allow them to charge/change/authorize/post fees to transactions at their discretion. 

All of the transactions made were transfers from Truist acct to Truist acct and XXXX debits. It is impossible to transfer funds from one acct to another if there are not funds available, and it is impossible to send funds to XXXX  if there are not funds available. It is safe to conclude that Truist has created these situations intentionally to generate more revenue from overdraft fees, out of scenarios that absolutely can not be in an overdraft situation. Truist is # 4 in the Nation for collecting Overdraft Fees. I'm curious what the ratio is compared to other banks per personal account/business account. 

The largest occurrences of this happening were in XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX but this has happened throughout the last year and a half, with the latest being XX/XX/XXXX, XXXX, XXXX of XXXX ( oddly enough directly behind the heels of a production issue that created multiple duplicate transactions ). 

It is a shame that banks do not have to pay damages when they negatively impact clients/employees. These instances of made-up fees have really hurt my family of XXXX. The most recent occurrence has set me back so far that I can not buy food, gas, or XXXX gifts. Before I ran out of gas, I had gone to 3 food banks in search of someone that can help me feed my children for the next month due to this outrageous abuse and misuse of power. This is unreal.

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