Cobb County

Truist customers complain of problems and no one to answer following merger completion

COBB COUNTY, Ga. — For a lot of long-time Atlanta residents, SunTrust was their hometown bank for decades.

The company merged with North Carolina-based BB&T to create Truist Bank in December 2019.

Over the long President’s Day weekend, SunTrust completed its conversion of all accounts and systems as part of its merger with BB&T to become Truist.

Several customers have reached out to Channel 2 investigative reporter Justin Gray over the past few days with similar stories of fraudulent activity on their accounts and that they can’t get anyone at Truist to fix.

It was almost a month ago that Marietta attorney Alan Manheim noticed a problem with his law firm bank account

“I noticed there was a withdrawal from my checking account of $3,620.90 for a check I did not write,” Manheim said.

It was a forged, fraudulent check.

Manheim said he thought it should be simple to get his money back.

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“You can’t get through. There’s nobody to answer questions. There’s nobody to take responsibility,” Manheim said. “There’s nobody to talk to.”

Complaint boards online show a long list of customers having problems with everything from accessing accounts to reaching customer service during and after the conversion.

A Truist spokesperson told Gray in an email:

“A small subset of our clients did experience individual challenges related to the President’s Day weekend conversion, including a delay in activating and using their new Truist debit card, which our teams have since addressed. This resulted in longer than normal wait times.”

A local branch manager told Manheim even they are experiencing the problems, according to an email he got back.

“I understand the wait times are outrageous as we’ve been dealing with the same hurdles in the branch,” the email said.

“There is no end in sight. Nobody can tell me anything. Nobody will tell me anything,” Manheim said.

A Truist spokesperson told Gray, since the conversion and the long customer service wait times it caused, the wait times are steadily getting better.

They also said they have escalated Manheim’s case, and someone will now be contacting him directly to fix the problem.

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