Stephen had an account at Suntrust, and decided to leave that bank behind and start a shiny new credit union account with his wife. He left the Suntrust account open instead of withdrawing all of his money and transferring it to the new account, spending it until it was empty, then going in to close it. This plan would have worked beautifully if Suntrust had actually closed the account when he asked them to.

I have been having a problem with the particularly large bank, Suntrust.

For years as a state worker I had a very cheap account with suntrust. However recently I got married and my wife and I decided to start a joint account with a credit union.

Since I still had money in my suntrust account, I simply decided to divert my paychecks going forward to the joint account, spend down the suntrust account and then close it out when done.

I did this over the course of a year or so and spent it down to around $5.00. Sometime along that line, a creditor decided to charge my suntrust account, causing an overdraft. Hitting myself for never following through, I called them, talked them into removing one of the late fees (by the time I got the first notice in the mail, they had already charged a second).

On December 23rd I went into my local branch at [redacted] and paid the rest in cash to get the account back to 0.00 and then spoke with a Branch employee named [C]. I very clearly stated i wished to close this account, freeze all assets (there were none) and that I did not approve any further charges to the account. He stated that while he couldnt close the account until after the CASH deposit cleared (apparently cash isnt immediate), then they would close my account.

Well my account was not closed. Apparently on January 14th, they approved a charge from paypal (which I did not approve and have no idea what it was for), and then are charging me further fees to the tune of $76
and counting. Further, when calling Suntrust they informed that because i had done “prior business” with paypal, the charge was not fraudulent and therefore [J] (Employee ID# [redacted]) could not submit a case to the fraud department because it would be “submitting false information”. I then asked to speak with a manager, and after a 3 minute hold, [J] came back and informed me she could not find a manager. I was irate most of the time and simply said either submit a fraud claim, or let me speak to a manager. She then apparently “submitted” a report with a false reason and added my aruments in the notes.

I called back to file a complaint on C., and this employee would only give me her first and last name and not an employee ID.

How can I fight this? I dont want retribution, I merely want the charges I didnt approve (anything after December 24th when the account was paid down) reversed and the account actually closed, without a serious hit to my credit.

Escalate. Instead of calling front-line customer service, walk into a Suntrust branch and ask to speak to a manager.

To prevent the zombification of your account when you move banks, make sure that you’ve checked off all of the items on Consumers Union’s bank-switching checklist.

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.