Fifth Third Fake Accounts Lawsuit: The CFPB Settlement

The Fake Accounts

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau alleged that, driven by an aggressive cross-selling program, Fifth Third Bank employees opened deposit and credit-card accounts in customers’ names without their consent between roughly 2010 and 2016 — enrolling people in products they never asked for and, in some cases, harming their credit. Staff were evaluated and paid partly on how many accounts they opened, the same sales-pressure dynamic seen in other bank scandals.

Opening accounts in a customer’s name without consent is a straightforward consumer-protection violation, and the sales incentives are what the regulator faulted.

The Settlement

Fifth Third litigated the case for years before settling in 2024. It agreed to pay $20 million — about $15 million tied to the fake accounts and $5 million over separately alleged overcharging for force-placed auto insurance that in some cases led to wrongful car repossessions — and to compensate roughly 35,000 affected consumers, including about 1,000 whose vehicles were repossessed. The CFPB also barred the bank from sales goals that incentivize unauthorized accounts.

The ban on unauthorized-account sales goals is the structural fix meant to stop a repeat.

What Customers Should Know

Check your credit reports for accounts you did not open — you are entitled to free reports and can dispute unauthorized accounts. If a bank opened something in your name without consent, that is reportable to the CFPB. Watching your statements and credit is the practical defense against this kind of practice.