CFPB’s tactics in Fifth Third lawsuit called ‘pretty aggressive’
CFPB’s tactics in Fifth Third lawsuit called ‘pretty aggressive’
Abstract
Fifth Third customers began complaining soon after the CFPB sent them an email this March with the subject line "Your Feedback Requested for Fifth Third Bank Lawsuit." Fifth Third sought an emergency intervention in federal court, saying the bureau's actions had interfered with its customer relationships. The clash, detailed in court filings, shows the lengths the CFPB is willing to go to litigate claims, Fifth Third and outside legal experts say. "Everything from the way the questions were framed to the way it was set up, it's incredibly prejudicial," Ryan Scarborough, a partner at Williams & Connolly who represents Fifth Third, told a federal judge in objecting to the CFPB's email query of bank customers. "To just kind of receive an email survey like this that frankly has a lot of the hallmarks of spam, or phishing expeditions, or other things, so I'm a little surprised that CFPB would think it was a good idea." The CFPB has alleged that Fifth Third understated the number of fake accounts and refused to cooperate with the bureau by providing the names and contact information of former employees. Fifth Third says that the CFPB has not informed the bank of a single unauthorized account or an alleged incident of customer harm beyond the roughly 1,900 that the bank claims it has identified and voluntarily resolved. "The CFPB's tactic of surveying current and past customers further solidifies their lack of proof of the allegations," said Joe Alter, a Fifth Third spokesman. The bank has said that the majority of phony accounts occurred in Chicago in 2010 - one year before Congress transferred enforcement authority to the CFPB. Fifth Third alleges the vast majority of bad conduct in the opening of fake accounts happened before the CFPB opened its doors in July 2011.
