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Avoiding past mistakes
By TERESA BURNEY, Times Staff Writer SPRING HILL -- Ivette Gigante pulled out her Huntington Bancshares ATM card Thursday afternoon and pretended to cut it with her fingers. "That's it, tomorrow I cut this up," she said. "I've just made my last transaction here, after eight years." At 4:30 p.m. today, SunTrust Banks completes its buyout of Huntington Bancshares' Florida operations, a result of the Ohio bank's decision to pull out of the state. Customers such as Gigante will have to start using new bank cards and, in some cases, new branches. The $705-million purchase will boost SunTrust of Atlanta into the No. 2 spot in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties, behind Bank of America, in terms of deposits. In Pasco County, SunTrust will move from No. 3 to a strong No. 2. In Hernando County, it will consolidate its strong No. 1 position as its share of the county's deposits grows from about 37 percent to a whopping 45 percent. The next challenge will be to keep those customers. The process of switching one bank's accounts to another's is complicated and fraught with potential problems. Bank of America took a beating for poor customer service after glitches with its $15.5-billion takeover of Barnett Banks in 1998. Such changeovers are a familiar ritual to some customers, including Huntington veterans. Some of them had been Barnett customers until Huntington bought up their branches as part of its move into Florida. Some were customers of First Florida Bank before that. Gigante had already replaced her old Huntington cards with SunTrust cards in the tattered old Barnett sleeve she still uses to hold the bank cards in her wallet. She's not sure they will stay there. "I don't like SunTrust," she said. "I am going to come in here tomorrow and sit down with them and make sure that they give me my (same banking terms)." If not, she said she might move her accounts to Bank of America, which is across the street. She knows the manager there, who used to work for Huntington. "I can always go to her. Whenever I have a problem, she saves me," she said. Overall, SunTrust customers will gain 26 new branches in Pinellas, Hillsborough, Hernando and Pasco counties. There will be no added branches in Hernando and Citrus counties. SunTrust's growing presence in the region provided little joy for Gigante Thursday. She said she will miss going to her familiar bank branch. It is one of seven in the bay area that will close today. Their customers will be sent to nearby SunTrust branches. "It's like a family here," Gigante said. "It's nice when you go in and they know your name." It might help that most of the same people will be at the replacement SunTrust branch. Unlike many bank mergers of the past, SunTrust is promising few layoffs. When the bank purchase was announced last September, SunTrust was expected to gain 1,400 employees with the sale, said Carolyn Gosselin, SunTrust's spokesperson. When SunTrust opens its doors Tuesday morning, it will have added about 1,270 positions to its employee ranks. Of the 130 positions lost, 56 were included in a sale of six of Huntington's branches in Polk and Highlands counties to Florida First. The remaining 74 positions were lost to attrition, or involved those who turned down job offers at SunTrust or weren't offered such jobs. SunTrust has worked hard to make the technical aspects of the changeover as smooth as possible, Gosselin said. While the official sale will close at 4:30 p.m. today, the transfer of half a million Huntington accounts onto SunTrust's books is scheduled to occur over the long holiday weekend, including Washington's Birthday on Monday, to give workers more time to make the switch. "The theory is that we will open up on Tuesday morning and flip the switch and everything will be integrated," Gosselin said. "We have a bunch of people working on the weekend to make that happen. . . . I can't tell you how many thousands of hours it has taken to make this happen." Over the weekend, former Huntington customers should be able to use their new SunTrust ATM and credit cards, which were recently mailed out. But they will no longer be able to use their Huntington cards after 4:30 today. Internet banking will probably be unavailable for most of the weekend, but telephone banking should work, Gosselin said. Those who have problems may call 1-800-801-1706 for help 24 hours a day, seven days a week. "We hope that this will be totally seamless to the customers," Gosselin said. But some customers Thursday were already feeling some glitches. Ida and Jerry Buckstein walked out of a Huntington branch in Clearwater in a huff Thursday afternoon because they couldn't get any temporary checks. They didn't reorder because they figured SunTrust would send them new checks automatically. None came, and now they have bills due and no checks. "They told me I could come back on Tuesday and they would give me money orders," Ida Buckstein said. "I think it's horrible," she said. "If this is an example of customer service, forget it. I want no part of it."
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From the Times Business report
From the AP
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