Wells Fargo was found guilty of doing exactly this. They were opening fake CC accounts, mortgages and car loans a few years back. Apparently they had some quota system in place and the staff and middle managers were all in on the ploy.
During the big short leading up to 2008 in the US, tons of mortgages were issue with no back ground checks or documentation.
Anything is possible if there's a will to do it.
in this situation there may have been some type of data breach and scammers are involved. They could be linked to the account and use it to siphon off small amounts repeatedly. Under a certain threshold those charges are just written off and filed against their insurance.