SunTrust Overdraft Settlement: $240M, Claims Open

At a glance

Status

Approved, awaiting payment

Defendant

SunTrust Bank (now Truist Bank)

Settlement fund

$240,000,000

Claim deadline

September 14, 2026

No-proof cash option

Yes — Pro-rata share of unrefunded overdraft fees ("Account Total") plus 7% simple annual interest through 12/31/2025; no proof/documentation required beyond a signed Claim Form (SunTrust's own records identify the fees).

Estimated payout

Pro-rata share of unrefunded overdraft fees ("Account Total") plus 7% simple annual interest through 12/31/2025; no proof/documentation required beyond a signed Claim Form (SunTrust's own records identify the fees).

Administrator

Epiq

Official site

www.suntrustoverdraftclassaction.com

Court

Fulton County State Court, Georgia (Bickerstaff v. SunTrust Bank)

Case number

10EV010485

Last verified August 20, 2026

Key dates

Milestone	Date	What it means
Claim deadline	September 14, 2026	Last day to file for a payment
Opt-out (exclusion) deadline	April 20, 2026(passed)	Last day to leave the settlement and keep the right to sue
Objection deadline	April 20, 2026(passed)	Last day to object to the terms
Final approval hearing	May 26, 2026(passed)	When the judge decides whether to approve the settlement
Expected payout	Not yet scheduled	Payments are not sent until after final approval and any appeals

Where to file

SunTrust (Bickerstaff) Overdraft Fee Settlement is administered by Epiq. The only place to file is the official settlement website:

Verify on the official site

www.suntrustoverdraftclassaction.com

Filing is free. No legitimate settlement charges a fee to file a claim.

You cannot file on RecordingLaw.com. We are an independent publisher, not the settlement administrator, and we are not affiliated with any court, agency, or defendant.

As of July 2026, a Georgia court has granted final approval to a $240 million settlement over SunTrust Bank overdraft fees. The deadline to file a claim is September 14, 2026. This is not a data breach. No account numbers or personal information were exposed.

The case, Bickerstaff v. SunTrust Bank, argues that SunTrust's overdraft fees on small ATM and debit transactions functioned as illegal interest under Georgia's usury law. SunTrust, now part of Truist Bank, denies any wrongdoing. Here is what the case alleges, who the settlement actually covers, and what filing a claim requires.

What the lawsuit is about

Jeff Bickerstaff Jr., a SunTrust customer, filed the complaint on July 12, 2010, in the State Court of Fulton County, Georgia (Case No. 10EV010485). He alleged that SunTrust's overdraft fees on small ATM and debit card transactions amounted to unlawful interest under Georgia's usury law, and that SunTrust was liable for conversion and money had and received in charging and collecting them. SunTrust denies that its fees constitute interest and denies liability.

The case took an unusually long road. A 2016 Georgia Supreme Court ruling held that filing the class action lawsuit itself effectively opted the class out of SunTrust's arbitration clause, letting the case proceed as a class action rather than individual arbitration. The trial court certified the class in 2017, with the certification later clarified in 2024.

In February 2025, the Georgia Court of Appeals narrowed the case further. It ruled that customers who had closed their SunTrust accounts before June 1, 2010 must arbitrate their claims individually, and that no one can recover overdraft fees charged after April 15, 2014, because Georgia amended its usury law that year. SunTrust then asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the arbitration ruling; the Court denied that petition on January 12, 2026.

The named plaintiff, Jeff Bickerstaff Jr., has since died. Charles Daniel Bickerstaff, administrator of his estate, now serves as class representative, a detail that reflects how long this case has run.

Where this stands right now

As of July 2026, the settlement is approved, not pending. The State Court of Fulton County held a fairness and final approval hearing on May 26, 2026, and granted final approval that day, along with the requested attorneys' fees and an incentive award for the class representative. That followed the U.S. Supreme Court's January 12, 2026 denial of SunTrust's certiorari petition, which cleared the last open appellate question in the case.

The deadlines to exclude yourself from the settlement or object to it have both already passed; both fell on April 20, 2026. If you are reading this now, those choices are closed. The only remaining options for an eligible account are filing a claim, or doing nothing and receiving no payment.

Claim Forms went out by mail and email starting July 14, 2026. The deadline to submit one, online or by mail, is September 14, 2026. No payout date has been set; the settlement administrator has said checks and Zelle transfers go out after the claims window closes, so expect any payment to arrive sometime after mid-September 2026, not before.

Who's actually in the class

The settlement defines a 'Settling Class Member' as someone who meets all of the following: was a Georgia citizen on July 12, 2010, and remained a Georgia citizen continuously through October 6, 2017 (a U.S. citizen who called Georgia home for that whole stretch); held one or more SunTrust deposit accounts that were not closed before June 1, 2010; and, between July 12, 2006 and April 15, 2014, had at least one overdraft of $500 or less from an ATM or debit card transaction, paid a related fee because of it, and never received a refund. If that describes your SunTrust account history, you may be eligible for a payment.

An 'overdraft fee' here covers an overdraft fee, insufficient funds fee, NSF fee, or extended overdraft fee; it does not cover a case where SunTrust covered the overdraft by transferring money from another of your own accounts. Roughly 463,000 eligible accounts have been identified from SunTrust's records, and 158 people who previously opted out of the case are excluded.

Two groups are notably left out, both because of the 2025 Court of Appeals ruling. If you closed your SunTrust account before June 1, 2010, you are not part of this settlement; any claim you have must go to individual arbitration instead. And no overdraft fee charged after April 15, 2014 is covered, regardless of your account history; only fees from July 12, 2006 through April 15, 2014 count.

If you received a Claim Form by mail or email, that is because SunTrust's own account records already identified your account as eligible. If you believe you qualify but never received one, contact the settlement administrator before assuming you are covered.

How much you can realistically expect

There is no flat payout, and the $240 million figure should not be read as describing an individual check. A significant piece of that fund never reaches claimants: the court approved a $200,000 incentive award for the class representative, attorneys' fees equal to one third of the $240 million settlement amount, and roughly $1.75 million in costs and expenses, all deducted before anything is divided among the class. What remains is called the Net Settling Class Member Fund.

Each eligible account gets an 'Account Total,' which is its unrefunded overdraft fees plus 7% simple interest per year, running from when the account first went positive until December 31, 2025. Every account's Account Total is divided by the sum of all Account Totals across the class to get that account's proportional share, and the proportional share is multiplied by the Net Settling Class Member Fund to produce the actual payment. If that math comes out below $5, the account still gets a $5 minimum.

In practical terms, your payment scales with how much you were charged and how long ago, not with any fixed dollar figure, and it is a genuine pro rata calculation: the more valid claims that come in, the smaller everyone's proportional share becomes. For a joint account with more than one Settling Class Member, whoever files first and alone gets the full account payment; if more than one person files for the same account, the payment splits evenly between them.

No claim filed for an account means no payment for that account, and unpaid funds tied to unclaimed accounts stay with SunTrust. They are not redistributed to other claimants.

What proof you need to file

This is a no-documentation settlement. SunTrust's own account records already identify who is eligible and how much each account was charged in unrefunded overdraft fees, so there is no need to dig up old bank statements or receipts.

What you do need to do is complete and sign a Claim Form for each eligible account, affirming under penalty of perjury that you were a Georgia citizen for the required period. That signed affirmation, not supporting paperwork, is what stands between an eligible account and a payment.

How filing works

A Claim Form must be submitted separately for each eligible account, either online or by mail, postmarked by September 14, 2026. Claim Forms were already mailed and emailed to known Settlement Class Members starting July 14, 2026, and any form you received should already reflect your account-specific information.

If you never got a notice, or you're reading this after the deadline

If you believe you qualify but never received a Postcard Notice, an email, or a Claim Form, contact the settlement administrator directly at 877-239-8765 and ask them to verify your eligibility and update your mailing address. Do not wait until close to September 14, 2026 to sort this out; without a matching Claim Form, there is no way to file.

This case does not involve exposed personal data, so the credit freeze and IdentityTheft.gov steps that make sense after an actual data breach are not the relevant next move here. If you are unsure whether your SunTrust account history falls inside the covered period, the official settlement website and FAQ are the authoritative source, not a rough guess.

For other verified, currently open settlements, see RecordingLaw's data breach and privacy settlement tracker.