Posted on 11/03/2011 7:29:17 AM PDT by Vigilanteman
Effective November 2, 2011, SunTrust will no longer be charging a check card fee on any consumer checking accounts. If you received notice that your account would be subject to this fee, please disregard it. If you have previously been charged this fee, you will receive a full refund within the next 30 days.
I suspect that I'll now be charged in other ways to make up for the clowns who want to use their debit cards but not to pay for them.
It amazes me that there is this outrage over a $5.00 fee for use of a debit card. Guess the banks should provide all their services for free. These same whiners don’t mind at all spending four or five bucks for a cup of their favorite coffee from Starbucks.
Yup. Those debit cards aren't free, and the transaction costs are more than the allowable charges.
The revenue will come from somewhere: higher monthly fees, higher minimum balances, or higher overdraft fees.
It comes right out of her account and they make a small commission on every sale. I don't see how you or any other Sun Trust customer will be subsidizing her.
BTW, when she tried to close the account over this added fee, we were told that all signors would have to appear at a Sun Trust Bank in person to do it. The nearest branch to us is in Virginia. The other cosignor (my brother) is in South Carolina. How convenient is that?
I too am a Suntrust customer. I got a notice a month or so back which said they would begin charging a fee for check cards. I honestly didn’t realize that was the same thing as a debit card which I use regularly.
I guess it doesn’t make any difference as the last time I phoned to get an account balance there was a recording saying the fee had been abolished and refunds etc.
It comes right out of her account and they make a small commission on every sale. I don't see how you or any other Sun Trust customer will be subsidizing her.Someone will be paying the new, government-mandated fees for debit cards. If it's not your mother, then it's some other customer. Why should I help subsidize your mother's debit card?
The nearest branch to us is in Virginia. The other cosignor (my brother) is in South Carolina. How convenient is that?How dare they not open a new branch to accommodate your mother no matter where she moves!
I moved from Chicago to Orlando a few years ago, and my old bank was a local one, so I made sure to close out that account before I moved a thousand miles away.
Maybe you should start taking some personal responsibility for yourself and your mother, rather than whining about how unfair the bank is for not being located wherever you happen to be.
I got a notice a month or so back which said they would begin charging a fee for check cards. I honestly didn’t realize that was the same thing as a debit card which I use regularly.Right, they use one card for both ATM and debit transactions. Since I only used the card as an ATM card, the $5/month charge didn't apply to me.
I'm curious... why do you use a debit card? I don't see any advantage for the customer.
The debit card is much more convenient than writing a check. It has gotten to where it is very simple to use. Also checks are pretty expensive to buy.
If they still returned your cancelled checks, I probably would still be using them as I liked having my paper check as proof. I can still get a copy but that takes time and they charge for it.
Agree with you guys.
I have a wealthy cousin who was always b!tching about the $1.00 fee he’d pay when making a cash withdrawal at a non-member ATM.
I finally asked what the big problem was, it’s a buck!
It’s MY money, he said, why should I have to pay them to get it?
I told him, Then keep all your damn money at your own house!
The debit card is much more convenient than writing a check.I guess sit would be more convenient than a check. Why not use a credit card?
I don't pay any fees to use my credit cards, I get up to a month of free "float", and there are legal limits to my liability ($50, although generally it is actually $0). And since I pay the full amount each month, I never pay any interest.
None of those things are true with debit cards. You don't have the same legal protection (unless they've changed that recently) and you pay immediately instead of after a month.
Some people need to chill out. Geez. For the holier than thou folks that only use cash, I guess someone is paying for the ATM fees or the teller fees and the brick and mortar of the bank so you can go get your cash, just like there are fees for credit cards or debit cards. The liberals of this country are very happy that average Americans are turning on each other over stupid increased costs because of government regulations. It plays into their desire to pit people against each other.
That's not the point. Most banks I've ever dealt with will allow you to close or open an account without ever setting foot in a brick and mortar branch.
My main bank's nearest branch is about 2000 miles away. They've had most of my business since I was in college because they earned it. Loyalty used to mean something between customers and businesses. In a diminishing number of places, it still does. It was a two-way street.
Sun Trust wasn't jacking around with any of these asinine fees when we moved my Mom here. In fact, they were giving points to encourage debit card use, so we saw no reason to close the account.
Banks are private businesses. They are free to change their operating rules at any time. But if they do, those which are reputable should either grandfather in their current customers or not make it overly difficult for them to leave.
Well said! I do not recall anybody whining about debit card fees charged by banks and accepted by merchants before fedzilla got into the act.
Much like campaign finance reform, it was a solution in search of a problem.
I was overly harsh in my last message to you. Sorry!
If you replace the word “money” with anything else, that phrase sounds stupid.
“It’s my car, why should I pay to drive it?”
I don’t want to sound like a defender of the huge banks either.
I’ve never even heard of Sun Trust but I live in the sticks.
I do my banking at a couple small community banks where I know them (even where most of them live) and they know me, my family, and my accounts.
When I make a home loan there, as I have on a few occasions, they don’t sell the loan but keep it and service it in-house. They make their money off the interest I pay, not off the origination fees, which are negligible.
They have waved certain fees for me on occasion, they have charged me fees on others, but my basic activities are pretty much charge-free as long as I keep a grand or two in the account.
I don’t use ATMs if I can avoid it but I understand how the fees can rankle. On the other hand I know the banks also pay fees out the wazoo, to rent or maintain those ATMs, more so to accommodate preposterous legislation like Oxley-Sarbanes and the more recent Dope-F@gg Financial Recovery act.
As I say my banks keep their loans and make a good deal of their income that way but I’ve had the boss of one of them tell me lately that Dope-F@gg is so foolishly restrictive that they can barely make a housing loan unless the borrower is basically wealthy enough not to need the loan in the first place.
Most of these expenses and hassles are U.S.-government-made.
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