Georgia customers who held SunTrust Bank accounts and were hit with overdraft fees on small ATM or debit card transactions may be eligible for payouts of up to $1,000 under a $240 million class action settlement, but the filing deadline is approaching fast.
Truist Bank, the successor to SunTrust, agreed to the nine-figure payout to resolve allegations that it unlawfully charged overdraft fees on certain ATM and debit card transactions over an eight-year stretch. The bank has not admitted wrongdoing, but the settlement fund dwarfs most consumer banking resolutions and covers a class of Georgia customers who kept accounts open through at least June 1, 2010.
The core allegation is straightforward: plaintiffs say SunTrust charged overdraft fees that violated Georgia's usury laws, the state statutes that cap how much a lender can charge on certain financial transactions. The fees in question were tied to ATM or debit card overdrafts of $500 or less, The Sun reported, and the bank allegedly failed to return the money even after the charges were disputed.
For customers who lived through the nickel-and-dime grind of unexpected overdraft charges, the settlement is a rare chance to recover some of what they lost.
Eligibility hinges on three conditions. A claimant must have held at least one SunTrust Bank account that remained open until at least June 1, 2010. That account must have produced at least one qualifying overdraft, meaning an ATM or debit card transaction of $500 or less, between July 12, 2006, and April 15, 2014. And the claim must be filed by September 14.
Individual payouts range from $5 to $1,000, scaled to the total qualifying overdraft fees each customer paid during that window. The final amounts are not locked in. They are subject to change depending on how many eligible customers file successful claims against the $240 million fund.
That math matters. If a flood of claimants files before the deadline, each individual share shrinks. If relatively few customers come forward, as often happens with class action settlements, those who do file stand to collect closer to the upper end of the range.
The SunTrust overdraft settlement is one of several large banking resolutions that have moved through courts in recent years, each underscoring a pattern: financial institutions collect fees that regulators or courts later deem excessive, then settle without admitting fault.
SunTrust Bank rebranded as Truist Bank after a merger, but the name change did not erase the legal exposure. The qualifying overdraft transactions all occurred under the SunTrust name, between 2006 and 2014, yet Truist as the successor entity bears the settlement obligation.
Truist operates branches across 11 states and the District of Columbia. But this settlement is limited to Georgia customers, because the lawsuit hinges on Georgia's usury laws. Customers in other Truist states are not covered.
Several details remain unclear. The specific case name, court, and presiding judge have not been identified in available reporting. The lead plaintiffs and the law firms representing the class are also unnamed. Whether the court has granted final approval of the settlement, or whether this remains a preliminary agreement, is not specified.
Those gaps matter for anyone considering whether to file. Class members typically receive notice by mail or email, but customers who changed addresses or closed accounts years ago may never see it. The burden falls on individual consumers to track down their eligibility and meet the September 14 deadline.
Overdraft fees have been a flashpoint in consumer banking for more than a decade. Banks have long profited from the practice of reordering transactions, processing the largest debits first to maximize the number of smaller transactions that trigger overdraft charges. Lawsuits challenging those practices have produced settlements at banks across the country.
The Truist case fits that mold. Customers allege they were charged fees on small ATM and debit card transactions that, under Georgia law, amounted to usurious interest. The bank's decision to settle for $240 million, without admitting wrongdoing, suggests the legal exposure was significant enough to make a fight in court more expensive than writing the check.
Major banks have faced scrutiny on multiple fronts beyond overdraft fees. Some institutions have explored ways to sidestep debit card fee caps, raising questions about whether the industry's compliance with consumer protection rules is more cosmetic than substantive.
And overdraft disputes are hardly the only category of large settlements hitting consumers' mailboxes. Block Inc., the parent company of Cash App, recently agreed to a $120 million fraud settlement covering consumers in 45 states, another case where a financial services company paid a nine-figure sum without conceding liability.
The September 14 claim deadline is firm. Georgia customers who believe they qualify should check whether they held a SunTrust account that was open through at least June 2010 and whether they incurred any ATM or debit card overdraft of $500 or less during the 2006, 2014 window.
Similar deadlines in other financial settlements have caught consumers off guard. A Union Bank and Trust data breach settlement recently neared its own cutoff with eligible customers still unaware they could file. The same pattern has played out with a Fidelity data breach resolution that left tens of thousands of customers racing to submit claims before the window closed.
The lesson is consistent: banks and financial companies settle, regulators move on, and the only people who collect are the ones who file on time.
When a bank charges fees that a court says crossed the line, $240 million sounds like accountability. But accountability only works if the people who got charged actually get paid, and that requires them to know the deadline exists before it passes.