Complaint Review: Branch Banking and Trust Company - Luray Virginia

BB&T's Online Banking website is set up to intentionally trick and cheat its users. Once logged in and having selected your checking Account History, the page displays what should be accurate and complete information. It does not!

The 1st and most notable block in the upper left corner displays 2 items. Your "Available Balance" (bolded text) with the dollar amount and just below is the "Posted Balance" (un-bolded text), followed by that current dollar amount. The difference in the two values are presumably that the "Available Balance" includes pending transactions that will post by the end of that day and show up in the register below under the "Daily Posted Balance" column.

At the top of the register, are 3 tabs. The 1st one labeled Posted Transactions" is opened by default, and shows the list of all the normal recorded transactions down the page. The 2nd tab labeled "Pending Transactions" when clicked on, informs you that it "reflects transaction activity and holds affecting your Available Balance." Great, no problem (yet), as calculating the pending debits, credits and the "Daily Posted Balance" from the previous tab, equals the "Available Balance" still being displayed at the upper left corner of the screen.

But here comes the deception. Any thinking person would now believe he has all the required knowledge of his checking account to know whether or not he has sufficient funds to make additional debits, either by making online payments or using his debit card at the store. However, this is where the fraud, treachery and the OVERFRAFT TRAP come into play. The false, misleading and incomplete information provided gives the user no reason, and just as importantly, no indication that he should look behind door #3, the 3rd tab labeled "Bill Payment Checks." If your doing online banking and not writing any checks, and you've already just been assured that you have viewed your current posted balance and all the pending transactions, there's no logical reason for you to click on the "Bill Payment Checks?"

As it turns out, these crafty b**tards apparently send out "hard" checks to some of your payees. And this tab is where those pending transactions are HID. Not only do they NOT get included in the "Pending Transactions" they typically languish under that tab, for many days longer than your other electronic payments. So now you continue your normal spending and depositing only to find out that those hidden transactions have now posted! So now you unknowingly have sent out maybe a dozen other payments, many of which have now overdrawn your account.

So now BB&T has tricked you by providing you with false account information that is intentionally incomplete, luring you into a false sense of security, for the sole purpose of slamming you with up to four, $35 overdraft fees per day. Those overdraft fees have now put your checking account even farther into the red, causing more overdrafts, more $35 fees etc., etc., and you are getting systematically ripped off while they greedily steal your money.

There must be tens if not hundreds of thousands of other BB&T Online bankers who have been and are continuing to be ripped off by BB&T. I would love to spearhead a class action law suite. Are there any lawyers reading this? Contact me please.