‘You’re Not Bankrupt? Our Bad’: Fifth Third Bank Accidentally Reports Customers As Bankrupt

How does go about accidentally being listed as bankrupt? Doesn’t seem possible, what with all the paperwork and such, right? Unless, of course, your bank takes the initiative and does it for you. And that’s just what happened for several Fifth Third Bank customers recently.

A number of Fifth Third Bank customers received letters notifying them of an error in which the “bank inadvertently reported that you had filed for bankruptcy” to the major credit bureaus, including Equifax and TransUnion, Cincinnati News Channel WLWT reports.

The problem occurred late last fall during a systems change and affected a “limited number” of customers, officials at the Cincinnati-based bank say.

The error was corrected in December through updated reporting to credit bureaus and steps have been taken to insure the problem does not recur. Bank officials say customers do not need to take any action on the issue.

“The accuracy of our customers’ credit history is important to us and we will insure that no customer will suffer negative impact,” bank officials said in a statement released on Tuesday.

Although the bank said there was no impact on customer’s credit scores some Fifth Third Bank customers are still worried.

“It would have been nice if they automatically sent off for my credit report so that I would have had the peace of mind at the same time because at this point there’s no proof that it’s been fixed,” a bank customer tells WLWT.

5/3 Bank accidentally reported some customers as filing for bankruptcy [WLWT]

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist