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SunTrust Savings Account Review
SunTrust bank savings account review 2024: fees, APR/APY interest rates/high yields. New client promotions, service, cons/pros.
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One of the most well known and most often used sources of personal savings accounts are with local and national banking systems. One such respected company is SunTrust Bank, also one of America’s largest financial holding companies.
Although SunTrust has a history that started over 100 years ago, there seems to be considerable negative feedback from current customers (as of 2024) regarding everything from customer service to enormous over draft fees to inadequate banking on mobile applications.
SunTrust Savings
Building a sound financial plan begins with a savings strategy. Getting into the habit of setting aside savings to pay yourself is an excellent approach to begin using your money to make money. A personal savings account is one of the easiest routes to take in the beginning of your investment process. SunTrust has designed savings accounts to work with any budget. They offer automated deposits starting at just $5 to keep your goals on track. You also have the convenience of managing your accounts in person, by phone or via online services. All accounts are FDIC insured to protect your investments as well.
SunTrust Money Markets
Money Market Accounts (MMA) are a type of savings account. They normally require a higher minimum balance to be maintained but in conjunction they present higher yields on their annual percentage rates. There is also a limit to the number of transactions you can preform on a MMA a month without incurring a banking transaction fee.
In a SunTrust Money Market Account, the higher your account balance the higher your return interest rate will be. There are no monthly fees if you maintain the minimum balance. You can access your funds at anytime with a SunTrust MasterCard, and again, manage your accounts online, with a mobile app or at a branch location.
SunTrust CD’s
Another option when looking into various methods of savings accounts is with a Certificate of Deposit (CDs). A SunTrust CD will offer guaranteed fixed interest rates that are competitive with other institutions in the market. Maturities range from 7 days to up to 10 years. SunTrust CDs require a smaller investment than a MMA, with just a $2,000 minimum deposit to open an account. They also allow the interest earned on the account to be applied back into the principal CD or to be transferred to your checking account.
Customer Feedback
In evaluating various online review sites as well as customer chat rooms allowing for feedback on experiences with SunTrust Bank, the overwhelming tendency tends to be less than positive. Most of the complaints mention the vastly disproportionate fees, fees on top of fees often compounding mistakes rather than solving them. So much so the SunTrust has been negatively nicknamed “FeeTrust”
Other areas that were mentioned again and again had to do with inadequate online systems, with mobile applications often failing, even going as far as to losing entire accounts. Application processes contained multiple errors, taking several weeks to process with many missed commutations from multiple departments. General company cohesiveness seemed to be missing.
On top of that it appeared time and time again, across multiple states and branches, customer service lacked professionalism and was entirely unwilling to work with long standing customers in dealing with issues.
Largely the overwhelming commentary was to take your savings elsewhere.
SunTrust vs Discover Savings
When looking into another well-known and trusted financial institution in the industry, Discover Savings is a respected choice.
Discover, like SunTrust, offers personal savings accounts, Money Market Accounts as well as CDs. Another benefit that they have that SunTrust does not is IRA accounts, both Traditional and Roth. An additional difference is that all their services are online meaning you do not have to option to visit a branch location, although they do have more than 40,000 fee-free ATM locations across the country.
Feedback
Using the same online forums to distill customer comments on baking with Discover services, the overall sentiment was marginally better than SunTrust. Customer service was rated higher, with technicians taking more of a personal interest in efforts to correct issues. There seems to be more ‘perks’ and cash back type of deals offered in addition to excellent interest rates and low fee charges.
Capital One 360 vs SunTrust Savings
The only service Capital One 360 offers is a savings account. There are no options for MMAs or CDs. But their savings accounts have quite a few advantages:
- Multiple accounts-you can open up to 25 different accounts for various savings goals, all free of charge
- There are no fees at all
- There is no minimum balance
- Set up automatic investments linked to your checking accounts
- Accounts are FDIC insured
- Online service is available 24/7
Feedback
Although most feedback forums are used for people to air their grievances, there looked to be a mostly neutral feeling in regards to Capital One and their banking services. Online transactions were rated with ease; customer service had both positive and negative results. The only consistent negative comment seemed to be the extended time and duration it took to retrieve ones assets from their accounts or when transferring between accounts.
With multiple choices presented, it is left to you dear reader to make the selection that best fits your savings goals.
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