Banking Identity Theft: Carrefour Banque Loses on Appeal and Is Ordered to Compensate the Victim (Bourges Court of Appeal, 15 May 2026, No. 25/00209)

Discovering overnight that a bailiff is seizing your bank account to repay a loan you never took out. That is what our client experienced in October 2024, when €16,089.90 was taken from his account under a judgment handed down three years earlier, without his knowledge, by the proximity court (tribunal de proximité) of Saint-Amand-Montrond. At the end of appeal proceedings in Bourges, the Court has just overturned the judgment in its entirety, dismissed all of Carrefour Banque's claims and ordered it to compensate our client for his non-material loss.

A €3,800 Revolving Credit Taken Out Without His Knowledge by an Impersonator

In August 2019, Carrefour Banque accepted electronically a €3,800 revolving credit agreement in our client's name. The agreement was supposedly "signed electronically" by the mere validation of an email address, accompanied by a copy of an identity document, a payslip, and the bank details (RIB) of our client's bank account (used solely as a direct debit mandate). Within 12 days, the entire credit was used up through purchases and withdrawals made with the PASS card, without any funds ever passing through the client's personal account.

As the first instalments went unpaid, Carrefour Banque sued the client before the proximity court of Saint-Amand-Montrond. Our future client was never informed of these proceedings: he does not live, and has never lived, at the address the bailiff visited. The summons was served at the bailiff's office (à étude) on the basis of Article 659 of the Code of Civil Procedure (Code de procédure civile).

A Judgment Discovered Belatedly Through a Bank Account Seizure

On 3 November 2021, a judgment deemed adversarial (jugement réputé contradictoire) ordered our client to pay €13,545.54 to Carrefour Banque, together with interest at the statutory rate, €300 under Article 700 of the Code of Civil Procedure (CPC), and costs. The client knew nothing of it for almost three years.

On 16 October 2024, an attachment order (saisie-attribution) was executed on his bank account for €16,089.90 (principal, interest at the statutory rate and enforcement costs). It was while trying to understand this debit that he discovered the existence of a judgment issued in his name, based on a contract he had never heard of. He instructed us immediately.

By order of 28 January 2025, we obtained relief from the expiry of the appeal period (relevé de forclusion) from the First President of the Bourges Court of Appeal, which made it possible to lodge appeals on 12 and 27 February 2025.

Before the Bourges Court of Appeal: Proving the Fraud and the Lender's Negligence

Our strategy rested on two complementary lines of argument: primarily, to have the 2021 summons declared void because of the bailiff's insufficient efforts; in the alternative, to demonstrate that the contract had not been concluded by our client and that the bank could produce no proof of a contractual relationship.

The Court rejected our first procedural argument: since the bailiff had made contact, even if only by letter, with the employer identified in the file, his diligence was held to be sufficient.

But the Court fully accepted our arguments on the merits, noting a body of anomalies that Carrefour Banque, as a credit professional, should have detected:

• The client's surname is misspelt on the contract (a final 's' omitted), a glaring anomaly that a professional should not have let through.
• The payslip produced shows obvious inconsistencies: it indicates that he was hired by the company at the age of 16 for a consultant software engineer position requiring several years of post-baccalaureate study, and a salary (€5,994.92) almost double the one declared by the borrower in the income and expenses form (€3,200).
• The identity document bears the handwritten word "tenant" ("locataire"), a clear sign of a document diverted from a rental application file, which should have immediately alerted the bank to possible fraud.
• The electronic signature rests on a mere email address, the creation of which requires no proof of identity.
• No funds ever passed through the client's personal account: the sums were used directly via the PASS card, in purchases and withdrawals, for an amount exceeding the contractual limit within 4 days.
• No instalment was ever repaid: every direct debit attempt failed from the very first due date, which rules out any partial performance by the client.

The Decision: Judgment Overturned in Full and the Bank Ordered to Pay

By judgment of 15 May 2026, the Bourges Court of Appeal:

• Overturned in full the judgment of the proximity court of Saint-Amand-Montrond of 3 November 2021;
• Dismissed all of Carrefour Banque's claims, including its counterclaim for €13,545.54 in damages;
• Ordered the removal of the client's entry in the National Register of Credit Repayment Incidents for Individuals (Fichier des Incidents de remboursement des Crédits aux Particuliers, FICP) within 15 days;
• Ordered Carrefour Banque to pay €5,000 in damages for the non-material loss suffered by our client;
• Ordered Carrefour Banque to pay €4,000 under Article 700 of the Code of Civil Procedure;
• Ordered Carrefour Banque to bear all costs of the first-instance and appeal proceedings.

In total, €25,089.90 obtained for our client: €16,089.90 of seized funds to be returned (the judgment on which the seizure was based having been overturned), €5,000 in compensation and €4,000 in irrecoverable costs. And, impossible to quantify, the end of three years of unjustified FICP registration.

What to Remember If You Are a Victim of Banking Identity Theft

This decision recalls several essential principles for anyone faced with a credit they never took out:

• An electronic signature given by simply validating an email address has only very limited evidential value. On its own, it is not enough to establish the real identity of the signatory.
• The lender, as a credit professional, is subject to a heightened duty of vigilance when checking the documents produced, particularly where the contract is concluded remotely and it cannot check the counterparty's identity in person.
• Any anomaly that a diligent professional could detect (spelling of the name, inconsistent payslip, suspicious annotation on the identity document) must trigger further checks. Failing that, the bank incurs liability.
• A FICP registration based on a fraudulent debt can and must be removed, on the order of the judge.
• The non-material loss caused by the belated discovery of an unjustified judgment and the need to bring appeal proceedings to restore one's rights give rise to compensation.

If you discover the existence of a credit, a judgment or a FICP registration that you dispute, do not wait: the time limits for appeal may still be open through relief from the expiry of the appeal period (relevé de forclusion), as in this case.