Joan Caton Cromwell sent a message to William H. Rogers, Jr. - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of SunTrust Banks - Email Address that said:
Dear Mr. Rogers:
After more than thirty years as a SunTrust customer, I have reached my breaking point as your customer. I will be closing my account and moving to CItibank within the next week.
Please allow me to share with you some of my frustration with my local SunTrust Branch as follows:
1) I set up a HELOC a few years ago. I signed all of the documents at the branch but later received a notice that all of the documents were not in order. I needed to re-sign some documents and have them notarized. I returned to the bank to sign and have the documents notarized. I turned them in. A few weeks later, I received another notice saying I had not signed and returned the documents. I returned to the branch and went through the routine again. A few weeks after that I received a notice that my HELOC had been suspended because I had not returned the documents. I went to the branch a third time and this time mailed said documents. At this time, I was told that the internal delivery systems at SunTrust were in such a state of disarray that I should not have depended on my branch to get the documents where they needed to go. As you can imagine this was not confidence inspiring.
2) I brought a legal document to my local branch to be notarized. This document was an estate document that would bring me a rather large sum of money. Your employee insisted upon reading the legal document before she would notarize. I am also a notary I know that I am only saying that the person signing the document has proved themselves to me as being the person signing the document. It is not my business to read the document. Your employee then began calling me to ask me if I had received my money yet and would I let SunTrust invest it for me. As SunTrust cannot even keep their own documents straight, why would I entrust SunTrust to manage my money?
3) A neighbor used SunTrust online banking to have a check sent to me. I attempted to deposit a SunTrust issued check through the ATM and it could not recognize the check as a valid check so I had to wait in line at the branch to deposit. This has happened many times with other computer generated checks but to not recognize your own checks is beyond ridiculous.
4) Recently, I attempted to deposit checks through the ATM and the ATM just took the checks and cancelled the transaction. I had to go into the branch and they had to open up the ATM to retrieve my checks. Again, this does not inspire confidence in SunTrust.
5) Today I went to my branch to deposit a $5200 check and cash a $1200 check. I gave the teller my ID but she insisted on a second form of ID. This has been my local branch for 16 years and your teller treated me like I am unknown to your bank.
In 1979 I was a teller at a local DC area bank. I know what is involved in being a teller and I can tell you that the glacial pace at which your tellers perform never would have been tolerated in the pre-ATM era. And not knowing a long-time customer would not have been okay either. Your branch manager supported the teller and suggested that I take my business elsewhere which I a happy to do.
Just so you know, I am a local real estate agent. I sell about $20M to $30M annually. I used to refer all of my mortgage business to Ray Hrabec at SunTrust. After 2008 SunTrust was in such a state of disarray that I began referring my mortgage business elsewhere. And now today I am prepared to take my account to Citibank. I run about $350,000 to $500,000 per year through my SunTrust account but clearly that is not of value to your organization. I strongly encourage you to review your local management in the DC area as it is not placing any value on your customers.
I should have moved my accounts ages ago but hung in because the bank is a block from my house. I will now choose to walk two blocks to Citibank
Id be interested to hear your defense of the abominable service I have tolerated for the last several years.
Regards,
Joan Caton Cromwell
5020 Nebraska Ave NW
Washington DC 20008
joan@joancromwell.com
