We have had all of our business and personal accounts with BB&T. I don’t know what is going on, but they are a curse to anyone trying to survive in these tough economic times.
Issue One: We have a mortgage with them on a house my husband built as a model (he is a contractor). The mortgage is at 8.75% and when the bottom fell out of the housing industry, we contacted them and asked if we could refinance at a lower rate (they were around 4.25%). They said “we don’t do that for business customers”. We attempted to sell (impossible!), found a renter (which left us without a model) and held on hoping things would turn around. We went back to the bank six months ago and they agreed “to take a look at it”, asked for new tax returns, financial statements, etc. We told them we could not continue to make the payments, and talked with their collections department in North Carolina who told us to make payments of $50 per week until they made a decision. Okay – so we did that. They told us to bring the mortgage current and they would refinance; we did which they first applied to “late fees”, then applied to interest, then principal. That, of course, didn’t bring it current because of the “penalty” charges. We kept calling and asking if they had made a decision; they said “we’re looking at it and we’ll get back to you.”
Fast forward to December, 2009. We received a call from our branch manager who left a message on our telephone answering machine stating they were willing to do the refinance BUT would require we pay $25, 000 in penalties, principal and interest before they would do the refinance because it had taken so long. It TOOK SO LONG because BB&T kept stating they were "working on it". What, are they crazy? If I had $25, 000, the mortgage would be current. Yesterday we received a letter from an attorney stating the bank was foreclosing.
If they had refinanced, the rental payment would have covered the mortgage and we would not be faced with bankruptcy. My husband is in his late 60’s, has been in this business his entire life, and has never dealt with such greed and unwillingness to assist a customer.
Issue 2: My husband receives two retirement checks on the last day of the month which are wired into our account. They always show as pending funds on the last day of the month. We pay my health insurance payment with BB&T Bill Pay – the payment is $270.00. On December 31, 2009 the two checks were wire transferred as usual. However, BB&T decided to process the check for $270.00 first (there was $200 in the account) and HOLD his wire transfer until January 4, 2010. They cancelled my health insurance payment stating there were “insufficient funds”. I wrote to them and they confirmed the processed the BillPay at 7:00 instead of midnight, and didn’t process his wire transfer until the 4th of January. I checked our account activity for the prior six months and never ONCE have they held the deposit until the 4th of the following month.
Thank you for having this website – until I stumbled on it, I thought it was just me! Avoid BB&T at all costs!

Are BB&T customers aware after 2 calls to customer service within a billing cycle that they charge you $2.00 per call to speak to a customer service rep.? I got one on my statement for a 3rd call to find out why my new debit card had not arrived. I was told that one had not been ordered according to their records. Can you imagine getting charged for following up on a mistake made by the bank itself? The rep had to clear with a supervisor in order to refund the charge.

I am calling local credit unions today to compare charges. BB&T advertises that they are the favorite community bank. That is a very hard promise to live up to especially when the bank employees have attitudes that make it hard to like anything about them.

I was charged two overdraft fees on the 3rd of November totally $70. I called to complain as I felt that I did not deserve the charges. On the 5th, I was told that there was a bank error and $35 would be refunded to me. Also on the 5th, I was charged two more overdraft fees that would not have been charged had the $35 they replaced been available on the 3rd when it was initially removed. Due to those two overdraft fees of $70, was then overdrawn again and charged another $70. So I sent them an email complaining about the unfair charges to my account due to their error. I did not get a response so I went to the main branch on the 17th to clear this matter up. After approximately 30 minutes of explaining myself, I was told that the $140 would be returned to my account. I left the bank satisfied...until I received a phone call today, the 18th, and was told that the $35 that was refunded to me was a mistake by the representative that refunded it. In other words, it shouldn't have been refunded. She had mistakenly refunded money that shouldn't have been, therefore I would not get my $140. I should have known that they would find a way to keep that money. This is not the first time I have had this problem with this bank. They have unfair fees and should be put out of business. I am notifying the commission and making sure that this bank does not continue to steal people's money.

In the month of September I was charged overdraft fees for a 57cent item on my account and a $3.55 item on my account. This came to a total of $70 in overdraft fees. That also led to us being charged another overdraft a few days later. I spoke with a Christina Owens in customer service and explained the minor situation and asked her what the chances were that she could help me out. Her response, "zero to none" I was lit up and let this person have a piece of my mind. I then spoke with a customer service manager after many tries to explain how poor their customer service was. She was wonderful and apologetic and seemed to be the only person that had any sympathy with my situation. This was not resolved but I was satisfied that at least I had someone that understood my situation.

BB&T has changed their policy on overdrafts effective Jan. 1st. I showed up at the local branch to discuss the issue. The branch manager Amy Hildebrandt was rude and disrespectful and would not even admit that their was a change in policy and kept referring to the current policy but wouldn't admit that the policy had changed.
She stated she knew nothing about it. I was insulted by her demeanor.

I then ask for the number of a supervisor and she stated that person was Mildred Elliot, the branch operations manager. I asked for her phone number but Amy stated that she was in and out of branches all week. I explained that if she was a person to get hold of she must have a phone number where I could leave a message. Amy finally conceded there was a phone number and she gave it to me.

I then came home and called Mildred Elliot to leave a message. I also looked up the article I found online that was in a Winston-Salem newspaper. Being a lover of sarcasm and feeling that I was being lied to by Ms. Hildebrandt I called and left her a message as to where she could find the article as I thought she should be informed of her banks policies.

I received a phone message from Ms. Elliot returning my call but I am a teacher and I was unable to get to the phone. I gave her some available times that she could contact me. That was a Tuesday and I had not heard from her all week after that. I called on Friday afternoon and she was available. I asked her why her own branch manager wouldn't know about a new policy change and got a round about way of being told that the policy was not in effect yet and they have all kinds of policies. This didn't answer my question and I then asked her to answer my question. She said it's obvious that I wasn't happy. I stated that I really get tired of the double talk and passing the buck when it comes to discussing the resolution of these fees. She ended up hanging up on me when I insisted on getting an answer to the questions that I was asking. She stated that she had answered the questions to the best of her ability. She then stated that she was ending the conversation. I kept her on stating I had not been rude and expected some customer service. She just hung up.

I then got home to receive the kicker. A letter from a person who I spent 20 min. on the phone with stating that my accounts were being closed with absolutely no explanation as to why they were being closed. I went to the branch manager Amy Hildebrandt who just played dumb and stated that the letter was from the operations manager. I said, "yes, the same person I asked you about the other day. It is obvious that you are aware for the reason for this letter. You really shouldn't play dumb with customers, it's disrespectful." She stated, "well maybe it's because you keep asking about the overdraft policy." She was no help at all and I just realized she was a monster bitch and I wasn't going to get anywhere speaking with her.

So here I sit with bank accounts that are being closed against my will. Probably the best thing that has happened so far. I feel like the mob has come in and run this bank. This is well beyond loan sharking but I bet a guy named Vinnie from Brooklyn would treat you with more respect.

Burdensome fees for the un educated account holder. They pay the largest debit drafted first to get the proceeding multi NSF charges that follow. I actually asked a bank representative if: When presented with a deposit and a draft the same day, which item will they post first? The rep said they will post the drafts first and you guessed it (im assuming) to get the proceeding NSF's that follow.

Now the meat of my complaint: I heard a commercial by BB&T saying they are looking out for their account holders best interest, needless to say it made me sick to my stomach. Its is not in my best interest to create policies that will cause NSF by their actions not ours. Example, you deposit a check in the amount of $100, either counter or ATM, you have a debit scheduled to clear the same day, they will run the debit through before the deposit, thereby causing a trail of NSF's if they get lucky, which its why they do it, in the hopes of getting lucky.

If you like paying your NSF then that up to you, but if your sick of it like me, then complain online, in blogs, facebook etc. The only corse of action we have is to complain on the Internet provided media as the government probably get funding from said bank.