Bank refuses to close fraudulent business account opened with my EIN
Banks often refuse to close or investigate fraudulent business accounts if only the EIN was used rather than the owner's personal Social Security Number. This leaves business owners exposed to severe liability and unable to stop ongoing activity on accounts they never opened.
What the numbers show
Counted from the threads quoted below. How we count
- The most recent one is from October 2026.
- This comes up 21.6× more often in r/smallbusiness than across the site as a whole.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1filing a police reportDid this help you?
- 2sending a letter to the bank's legal departmentDid this help you?
- 3reporting the bank to the state banking regulatorDid this help you?
- 4reporting business identity theft to the IRS via CPA paperworkDid this help you?
- 5paying the balance out of pocket to avoid credit damageDid this help you?
- 6making at least the minimum monthly paymentDid this help you?
- 7trying to work out repayment with the family memberDid this help you?
- 8informing the lender about the fraudDid this help you?
- 9looking into legal guidanceDid this help you?
- 10calling customer serviceDid this help you?
- 11checking credit reportsDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“my mom surprised me with a credit card.”source ↗
“i noticed that my balance was damn near maxed out and i only had 17 cents of credit left”source ↗
“Well, the payment was due September 1, and she missed it.”source ↗
“I genuinely do not know what to do in this situation. I am very distressed and betrayed by my mother.”source ↗
“I can’t close the account with a balance like that.. what do i do guys?”source ↗
“Everything was fine until I got a bill for $980. It didn’t show up on my account so I called Verizon and they said it was probably a scam and not to pay it.”source ↗
“I looked on my credit report and it was on there as derogatory.”source ↗
“So I called the number on the credit report for Verizon and they said that after I opened my new account, about a month later another account was opened and the new account was my current account and that since a new account was opened I lost out on the promotional credits.”source ↗
“I did not open the new account so it was someone from Verizon but now I am stuck with the bill.”source ↗
“So a few weeks ago I received a letter addressed to my business with a very odd second name on it indicating "Person X" now had online access to my Wells Fargo Business Checking. The only problem is I don't bank with Wells Fargo.”source ↗
“Today I get told: * The account was not flagged for fraud or frozen * They did open an identity theft case, but since my name and social security number were not used, it has been closed * They would not close the fraudulent account or take any other actions”source ↗
“I am obviously unhappy about this since I really feel it carries a huge liability for my business.”source ↗
“A credit account appears to have been opened using my company’s EIN, and it has been negatively reporting on my business credit for over four months.”source ↗
“Yes, we applied for a loan during Covid only to find out that “we” already got a loan. Some fraudsters used our company and got an EIDL loan using our name.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 2Family opened credit cards in my name when I was a minor
- 3How to stop fake orders on cheap digital products
- 2What to do after your bank account is hacked
- 27How to stop fraudulent chargebacks on online stores
- 3How to prove business partners are stealing money without tipping them off
- 2How to handle a loan taken out in your name without permission