Ask the Readers: What If Somebody You Know Steals Your Identity?
Published on - April 18th, 2008 (by J.D. Roth) Recently in the Get Rich Slowly discussion forums, SouthernGent posted a perplexing problem. Here’s his story:
My wife and I have been debt-free for over three years now, meaning no credit card debt and only our mortgage. When I ran our credit report the other day (which I do annually), I noticed three cards under my wife’s name with balances of $2,000, $3,000, and $12,000. This shocked and worried me for obvious reasons.
My wife said she did not open them, so she asked her mom and sister. They admitted to opening the balances under my wife’s name! My wife was still receiving credit card offers at her mom’s house, so they took advantage of the offers and of my wife’s excellent credit.
They have been making payments and have never been late. (Yet.) We want them out of my wife’s name ASAP, but therein lies the issue. They can’t open any credit cards in order to transfer the balances into their names, plus my wife thinks if I report this as fraud/stolen ID, they will go to jail. She doesn’t want this to happen due to our four year old niece.
I really want to get this resolved, but am at a loss how to handle it. (They also really need financial advice/counseling, but that can wait.)
Stories like this highlight the need to check your credit report regularly. You are legally entitled to receive one free report from each of the three credit bureaus every year. You can obtain your free credit report from AnnualCreditReport.com.
By checking his credit report, SouthernGent was able to catch suspicious activity. But what does he do now? If this had been a random stranger stealing his wife’s credit, the answer would be obvious. But the fact that the identity theft was committed by family members adds a nasty wrinkle.
During the discussion in the forum, Googoo pointed to an article at the Identity Theft Resource Center. “When You Personally Know the Identity Thief” explains the options, addresses frequently asked questions, and provides some letters for addressing the situation. From the introduction:
Identity theft is a complex crime at best. When the impostor is someone known to you, the impact of the crime magnifies dramatically. How do I prosecute my own mother? What kind of father would I be if I allowed the police to arrest my son? Should I practice “tough love?” What will the other family members think of me? What will my friends say?
You basically have three choices:
- Proceed as if this was a regular case of id theft:
- Make a police report (this is not the same as pressing charges against the person).
- Cooperate with law enforcement’s investigation.
- Working with the creditors to see if a resolution can be made without police involvement.
- Paying the debt and living with the consequences.
This guide will address some of these choices and possible solutions.
Have you had your identity stolen before? By a family member or a friend? How did you handle it? Would you do anything differently if it happened again? Do you have any advice for SouthernGent?
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Wow, that’s pretty low. I would be *pissed*. SouthernGent and his wife should not be obligated at all to pay that debt. Try option #2 and have them talk to the creditors. If that doesn’t work, file a police report. Then promptly disown everyone but the four year old niece. And sign up for the no junk mail registry.
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I would give my mom and sister one month to get the debt out of my name. If they failed to do so I would call the police.
Family or not, the consequences of their actions belong to you right now. Right now YOU are $17,000 in debt! That is the price you will pay in addition to destroying your relationship with these people.
As for the niece, this child will grow up learning that it is okay to do things like this. I think that would be more harmful in the long run.
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That’s awful…
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@LM: SouthernGent and his wife are not obligated at all to pay the debt – they are victims of ID theft.
@SouthernGent: Sorry to sound cold, but if I were you I would report it. Your mother-in-law and sister-in-law are criminals, plain and simple – there is simply no other way to put it. Would you not report it if a murderer were in your family? Or a pedophile? Or a (fill in the blank)? I would report any of that.
Perhaps there is room here for mercy, but IMHO that would only be if they were to transfer the debt out of your wife’s name and into their own names, but as you say that is not possible.
Regardless of what else you do, I would highly recommend you freeze your wife’s credit IMMEDIATELY so that the outlaws….er … inlaws … can do no further damage.
I’m very sorry to hear of this – it is a terrible thing that you are going through.
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I saw this all the time, unfortunately, when I worked for the credit card company. I can tell you that, fraud or not, unless a police report is filed, his wife will be held fully liable for the debt and any consequences of nonpayment. The view is that unless you are willing to file the report (and open yourself up to prosecution for perjury if you are in fact lying), that the debt is either yours or you approved of it.
While you could try to have them pay off the debt without filing a report. in my experience most of the time when an informal agreement was made to have the people who actually opened and used the cards pay the debt, payment stopped in short order. Now that his wife knows about the debts, there is no obligation for her mom and sister to pay the debt to prevent discovery. Cold, but so is stealing a relative’s credit.
If it were me, hard as it is, I would file the police report. If nothing is done, there are no negative consequences; what’s to stop these women from opening credit in the niece’s name? And is his wife willing to sacrifice SouthernGent’s and her credit, reputation, and finances? If no police report is filed, and the debt goes to collections, they will be on the hook for seventeen thousand dollars. Enough to make it worthwhile, if it comes to it, for the credit card companies to file suit.
Odds are, from my experience, jail time will not be an option, especially if they are cooperative and willing to make restitution. Fines and probation are more likely. It’s difficult, but you have to protect yourself and your spouse.
And it goes without saying that they both need to institute a credit freeze on their credit reports – no other accounts can then be opened without contacting them personally.
Best of luck to you.
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Any crime that is committed that can directly influence one’s life should be reported immediately. I would report my own family if they were doing illegal activities that warranted action. This situation may never be resolved due to complicated circumstances. First, the mother-in-law and sister-in-law know the womans social security number. Second, the family has done little to stop this kind of action. I would take action immediately to put them in jail where they belong.
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Wow.
The NERVE of some people. I bet they bought her Christmas presents on those accounts. Wow. That’s a lot of debt to rack up in one year (if it wasn’t on last year’s credit report).
I would file a police report, like JD states above, because I’d want my credit, just like if my car was damaged, I’d want the proof if it was not my fault. I’d call the credit companies and tell them what happened and provide the police report to them for their records.
I would even go so far as to file a claim in small claims court and get their wages garnished. Usually small claims would allow you to represent yourself to avoid legal fees for both parties. The filing fees are relatively small.
If they actually NEEDED the money for a real emergency, they would have asked his wife for the loan, not steal her identity and credit reputation to rack up debt (for apparently no reason).
I WOULD DEFINITELY MAKE SURE TO CHANGE MY ADDRESS (again!) TO MAKE SURE NO MORE CREDIT OFFERS GO TO THAT ADDRESS TO AVOID FUTURE PROBLEMS/TEMPTATIONS!
My dad has identity protection so no accounts can be opened under his SSN without a representative calling him at home and speaking with him personally before they’ll even allow the CC company to run his credit. There are several services that provide this protection at a low cost.
I’m not so sure I wouldn’t press charges. The 4-year-old’s parents/elders need to be setting a better example for her instead of lying and stealing and deceiving.
I would require a payment from them every week. I would require credit counseling, shopaholic therapy, whatever it takes, maybe more than one kind.
AND I WOULD MAKE THEM READ THIS BLOG EVERY DAY SO THEY LEARN THEY DON’T HAVE TO LIVE LIKE THAT ANYMORE!
PS- Make sure to get any “agreements” on payments, confessions, etc., in WRITING and WITNESSED so that they can be exhibits in Small Claims or for the police later. Judges like hard copy evidence.
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I had a friend whose mother opened up a credit card under his name and rang up $15k. What he did was force her to pay it all off and told her that if she did this again, he would press charges which would ruin her career (she is a CPA). As soon as it was paid off, he closed the account.
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I just had another idea: get your and your wife’s names removed from the marketing lists so that you and she no longer receive credit card offers.
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I used to work in fraud/chargebacks for a 3rd party credit card processor. Most identity theft cases were what we called, “friendly fraud,” meaning the victim knew the suspect. In most of those cases it was a family member. Unfortunately, many customers were upset to learn that the bank could do nothing without an affidavit of forgery and police report. Until you submit those documents the assumption is those are your charges and you are responsible.
Most small-dollar cases were not prosecuted because both parties agreed to make payment and clear the debts. A few were occasionally prosecuted and the perpetrators were ordered to pay restitution to the bank, and occasionally to the victim.
In this case, the mother and sister committed criminal fraud and it should be a matter between them, the bank, and the legal system.
If this happened in my own family I may give them three or four days to try to secure a loan to pay off the debts before filing charges, but gut reaction would be to report it immediately. Be sure to freeze your wife’s credit and add a fraud victim statement with each of the three major credit reporting agencies.
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SouthernGent & wife should not feel guilty about being upstanding citizens by reporting these crimes to the proper authorities. They would report any other individuals guilty of the same crimes, and can do the same here, and they could even flat-out tell the family that! They need to know that the wife is not a push-over, that there are consequences, that this is not how you get easy money! This has to be one of the hardest lessons they’ll ever learn, and I would have no problem letting the proper legal authorities take care of some of that learning! They need to feel ashamed of their actions. They need to know that this is never an option. They need to be scared of what the 4-year-old would do if they did get thrown in the slammer.
It is only then, when the selfishness shifts, that they will realize that their actions were very harmful to everyone involved.
I think they should proceed as though they are dealing with any other criminals, and treat every plea for mercy with complete shock and disbelief.
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That’s a tough situation but I don’t see how you could just let it go on without reporting it. The personal consequences are just too great.
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@Daniel – they may actually be liable for the entire amount. Now that they know the cards have been opened if they don’t report the cards they can be liable for anything charged. They need to follow the procedure required by the law and the credit card company. If not they are liable for at least a portion of the debt (anything charged after they became aware of those cards)
I’d report it to the police and the credit card companies, as well as all three credit reporting agencies. Then I’d get my name of the junk mail list. It sounds harsh, but if SouthernGent wants to protect his own family it’s probably the only way. Also, just because they found the three cards doesn’t mean that the MIL and Sister haven’t done something else with his wife’s identity.
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I concur with the “report it” votes. I used to see a lot of this as well – if SouthernGent wants to keeps his and his wife’s credit pristine, they have no other choice. If these family members can’t open cards to transfer the balances into, this is just a nightmare waiting to happen.
So sorry that you have to deal with this – it’s most unfair that family members would put a “loved one” in this situation.
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Report it. If it was anyone else you’d report it
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The mom and sister will never learn unless Southern Gent and his wife report this. Call it tough love.
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The only thing to do is file the police report. There is no other way around it. If you don’t report it, you will be held responsible for any unauthorized charges, etc.
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I’d first try working with the credit card companies themselves and the credit reporting agencies. And no matter what happened I’d make sure the cards were cut up and never used again while the mother/sister pay off the balance.
I don’t know what their relationship is, but I’d probably keep the authorities out of it.
-Wayne
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1. Freeze your credit like everyone else says. If you do file a police report like you should then you can freeze your credit for free.
2. Make sure you’re checking one credit report every 4 months. (3 bureaus divided by 12 months = 1 check every 4 months) It should help you catch issues more quickly.
I can understand it would be hard to report them but what they did really is a crime.
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I guess I would contradict major vote in comments. At first I would not report it. Money come and go but family is always there. We all have sins. People do slip once in awhile. Question is what do they learn from that.
That’s what happened here. This issue could be resolved by signing repayment agreement between SouthernGent and his in-laws. And SouthernGent should put in place triggers to prevent that from happening again in the future. I.e. credit report watch from Expirian for example costs only $9.99 a month and would have prevent this whole thing from happening. Properly changing address also must be done.
But all-in-all money is not everything is this world. I’d say 5 years from now money will be forgotten but if their in-laws go to jail that will be remember forever. And SouthernGent might not necessarily fell proud of putting in-laws in jail 5 years from now.
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I have to agree to reporting it also, they did not think about the consequences for you and your wife when they opened the accounts I think that pretty well proved their so called love for the 2 of you. Also, I would be willing to write off or work out payments if there had been just one of the small ones, crediting it to maybe a broken down car or a needed house repair, but come on – 3 credit cards and they are escalating in balances. There are no instant $12,000 emergencies, anything that big (let’s say medical) they let you make payments or the community would come together to help out this family in their time of need. My guess is that these charges are not emergencies they are “wants” and the fact that they have managed to open 3 in a year indicates that they do not take this seriously and that they were emboldened by not getting caught the first time and then the second….serial murderers are the same way. If you don’t report them, this is the lesson that they will teach your 4 year old niece, it won’t stop I promise you. Best of luck, SouthernGent you are in a terrible situation.
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Well Dearie, THEY STOLE THE WIFE’S IDENTITY BECAUSE THEY KNEW SHE WAS A PUSHOVER, A PROFESSIONAL VICTIM WHO WOULD MEWL ABOUT FAMILY TIES, THE FOUR YEAR OLD NIECE (who is learning to live a life of crme from her deadbeat family) and how she could not have “family” arrested. Do everyone a favor, report the crimes, prosecute, PUT A FREEZE ON YOUR CREDIT REPORTS AND YOUR WIFE’S CREDIT REPORTS, and teach the four year old that crime doesn’t pay!
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I would be inclined to do pretty much what commenter 8, Chris’s friend did:
1) Stop any further charges on these cards
2) Let them know in no uncertain terms that they need to pay off the debt ASAP.
3) Let them know that if they miss a payment, or stop paying, or do anything more that would adversely affect my credit rating (or any other criminal act), I would report them to the police.
People make stupid mistakes. Give them a chance to make good while still showing the real consequences of their actions.
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A little jail time would teach a lesson. Family shouldn’t do this to family, and yet it happens precisely because folks are willing to look the other way because they share some DNA with dishonest thiefs.
File the report. Beg with the police or DA not to press charges. But under no circumstances should the money be paid by the victim. That’s just enabling the problem.
Oh, and freeze the credit reports. I should go do that now, too.
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By the way, Alicia has a pretty good point — that there is a legal principle supporting that, since you now know of these accounts and you failed to remedy the situation immediately, you tacitly acknowledge the validity of the debt and your willingness to accept responsibility of payment.
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Wow. My deadbeat older brother has stolen money from my Mom’s purse, but 17 grand, that is big time! How would the wife feel if she found out her mom and sister took 17K from her savings account, it’s about the same thing.
It’s even worse than stealing from a stranger, because the perp is using/leveraging the relationship she has with the victim with the hopes that will prevent the victim from calling the police. With friends like that, who needs enemies?
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With family like that, who needs enemies??? This CRIME — and this southern gentleman’s wife needs to be reminded that this WAS a crime — needs to be reported to the police. If this were my family, I would immediately report them to the police, and press charges for identity theft. I am a teacher currently and I agree with all the others that unless this occurs, that little 4-year old is going to commiting grand theft by the time she is 10. So many kids I have in my charge have parents who lie for them….what is this doing for future generations?? Zippo…they need to be incarcerated for the crime they commited, the audacity they had to do it in the first place, and their incredible selfishness in not thinking how this would affect their own relative.
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Report it. This gentleman’s wife is enabling her family’s behavior, and giving them permission to take advantage of her good name and hard work. In trying to be “nice” she’s just going to screw herself.
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A crime is a crime, regardless of who commits it. I would report the crime IMMEDIATELY to the police. If the guilty parties ( relatives or not ) end up in jail, then so be it. It is not acceptable to steal someone’s identity in any case, even if they are family.
Besides, if you just “let it go”, who’s to say it won’t happen again, and worse?
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@Alicia, you are correct – I was not clear in my statement.
Since these are fraudulent charges, they would not liable for them, but SouthernGent and wife will be held liable for the charges unless they report them as fraudulent, which will require contacting the police. Once they do that, they will not be held liable for the charges.
@Jon, you have a good point – SouthernGent needs to move quickly on this.
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I have to cast my vote with Slava. While this was a terrible thing to do, it is important to take the relationships into account.
Obviously, the mom and the sister have violated trust in this family, and that does make you wonder how their relationship is otherwise. But do you really want to do permanent damage to ther relationship by sending the mom and sister to jail, or is there a way to firmly and lovingly restore things — saying, “This is not okay, and I am going to help you make it right”? I believe that would be option #2 from the Identity Theft Resource Center.
The second thing to keep in mind is that this can affect Southern Gentleman’s relationship with his own wife. I know that if one of my in-laws did this to us and my husband wanted to pursue an option that would not send the in-law to jail, my insisting on something harsher rather than trying to work things out would not be beneficial for our marriage.
I’m not making light of what happened. I just believe that restoring the relationships is the most important thing.
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I can understand their catch-22, it’s easy to say “press charges!” afterall it is the right thing to do since these two are criminals, but then there’s the family factor that is making this difficult.
My take, in situations were someone exploits a relationship is to consider this: It’s just as much their responsibility to protect this relationship as it is yours. They essentially ‘sold’ the relationship for $17K. If their willing to do that then they can pay the consequences.
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Yeah, you have to report this. I think you could probably raise the 4 yo niece while mom is in prison, and then she might grow up with some values. What is worse, having your mom in prison, or being raised by someone who thinks it is okay to steal from her siblings? I would report my family members if they did something like this. In fact, I have for lesser crimes.
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Since jail time might not even be an issue here, I’d look into filing a police report. And if/when it goes to trial, I’d explain that I didn’t want them to go to jail, but I wanted full restitution made. If this is the first time for them, hopefully it won’t be a problem.
Unless there’s a way for them to settle it quickly, I think that’s really the only option. These are clearly not people who can be trusted.
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Never had mine stolen. But in the past I got to watch irresponsible parents destroy their kids credit before the kids even knew what credit was. Parents that can’t get utilities turned on in their own name anymore because they owe money sometimes put it in their kids name(s). One lady had three kids and all of them had wrecked credit before they were 18.
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Although my inclination would be that of everyone else’s – just to report them – I acknowledge it’s much easier to say that when it’s not your own situation, so here are some alternatives you could consider:
–if you have the money to pay off the credit cards, see if your mom/sister would sign a legal contract (drawn up by a lawyer) for a loan from you for the same amount. Then pay off the cards and close them and put a freeze on your credit so no one can open anything in your name again. Then at least you have some additional legal protection (the contract) and no one else has control over your credit rating/social security number.
–if you don’t have the money, tell them they have a set amount of time (two weeks or something) to obtain a loan from a bank (tell them to try prosper if they think they won’t be approved by a bank) to pay off the cards and close them. tell them you are going to the police and filing a report if it hasn’t been done by the end of the time period. then if you do have to report them, at least you gave them a chance to do the right thing and take care of it first.
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I just posed this to DH, and we agreed that we’d file, even when we talked about specific siblings. We’d file the police report. We have always been generous with well-thought-out requests for family loans (gifts), so we would be very angry if anyone felt that they had the right to steal from us.
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Isn’t it somewhat sad that the credit card companies do not appear to have any responsibilities in this situation for not verifying the application came from the right person in the first place? Clearly something needs to change in our laws.
I have to agree with everyone else that there is no choice here except to file a police report and follow the legal course of action. I don’t think money, even $17,000, is more important than family, but I would not allow myself or my husband to be treated this way by a family member.
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I would be furious! I would actually be less mad if it was a complete stranger because you would expect that, but not from a family member or friend.
Wow…
Throw the book at them Gent, they deserve it. The Credit Card company should also be held responsible for the balance for not doing a better job of confirming identity before issuing a CC to a person. I know this would require longer waits to get approved, but that would curb alot of this abuse I think.
Phone up the CC company and give them a piece of your mind too for their role in this fraud.
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It’s easy to say to report it when it hasn’t actually happened to you. The exact same situation happened to my wife and I a couple years ago. We had just recently paid off all of our debt and after 12 years of marriage were finally debt-free. My wife checked our credit reports and discovered several credit card accounts with the combined balance totaling around $12K. She already had some suspicions that her mother had a gambling problem, so when she saw this, she confronted her about it and discovered her mom had taken the accounts out in my name using credit card offers that went to her house. Needless to say, we were pi**ed off and we essentially cut her out of our lives right then and there, and let it be known that we were considering reporting her. Within a few days, her mother emailed us to say that she was borrowing money from her boyfriend to pay the cards off and that she was entering gambling addiction treatment. I’m not sure if it was the threat of legal action or the fact that she would likely never see her daughter and grandchildren again that made her face up to it and take responsibility. We set up online access to those accounts and checked for payments daily until after a week or two, all the accounts were paid, and we immediately called and closed the accounts. If she hadn’t taken the initiative to pay us back, we almost certainly would have filed a police report. One of the consequences we didn’t expect and that I still don’t really understand is that other family members (my wife’s siblings) were actually more upset with us than their mother. I don’t know if they thought we were overreacting or whatever, but the point is that how you react may affect other relationships in addition to those directly involved. Even after it was resolved, we didn’t have any contact with her for several months. My wife and her were very close prior to that, usually talking on the phone every day. We are now back on speaking terms with her, but once the trust is gone, the relationship can never be the same.
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Just finished reading “Stealing Your Life” by Frank W. Abingdale (from “Catch Me If You Can”). According to the book, relatives are involved in 9% of all ID thefts!
A few other things I wasn’t aware of are:
- your debit card PIN can be recorded by the merchant! And if you live with someone, your bank will deny your claim on the basis of someone’s accessability to your wallet!
- if you’re a small business using online banking and hackers get hold of your $$$, then you’re out of luck. It’s your business’ duty to protect your PC!
- but, even if you’re a consumer using online banking, you’re also screwed if you use third-party software like Quicken or Microsoft Money! (check your agreement)
- your credit report may be fine, but your credit report’s SUBFILES may be NOT! Those subfiles may also reveal that you owe IRS a few more $K, because Jose is using your SS# to get employed.
It’s about time we started talking about scams! One can grow rich slowly all her life and loose everything in an instant due to her lack of basic scam education.
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How do you get yourself off of marketing lists????
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Wow, great comments. Prior to reading the comments, I was somewhat ambivalent as to what I might advise, but a lot of the comments have really convinced me. What I would do:
1. Meet with the family and let them know that what they did was not just wrong, hurtful, and deceptive, but criminal, and that you are going to file a police report, because otherwise in the law’s eyes, the assumption is that SouthernGent’s wife is okay with having the debt in her name (and she had better not be!). Put it to them this way — if something tragic were to happen to them, and payments stopped coming, SG’s wife would be the one responsible. (Wouldn’t they feel bad about that?) Since they are family, I think it’s important to calmly let them know all of this ahead of time. Also let them know what comment #5 said: if they are cooperative, they likely won’t face jail time, but they’ll just have to do what they would theoretically end up doing anyway: pay back the debt.
2. Do it. No matter what excuses they come up with, file the police report. They were warned, and any fears they have about it, they should have thought of that *before* they decided to commit i.d. theft.
3. Obtain a credit freeze.
4. Make sure you’re on the opt-out list (1-888-5-OPTOUT), so that random credit card offers stop being sent. This has decreased our mail by quite a bit.
5. Let us know how it goes!
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How did you even think of asking your sister and mother in law? It wouldn’t have crossed my mind that just maybe this mysterious $17,000 debt came from my own family. That really says something.
Now that it’s all in the open, don’t bother with the cops. Physically confiscate the cards and force them to sign a promissory note. You could probably base it on the one that Prosper uses to make sure everything is phrased right. Make sure you put a nice fat interest rate on there, at least a few percentage points above the credit cards!
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Report your loser, criminal family members. And put a fraud alert on your credit report. Unfortunately, your family members will not go to jail. District Attorney offices rarely prosecute such cases – they aren’t seen as a priority. Generating a report with the police is the only way to prove to the credit card companies that this isn’t your debt. Otherwise, you will be held liable if anything goes wrong with the payments. Plus, making a big stink about this (even if it doesn’t involve jail) is probably the only way to get these dysfunctional family members to stop engaging in such behaviors.
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Turn them in. This is toxic family.
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Leaches have more honor. They must go to jail.
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I apologize in advance for the lengthy comments to follow.
The fact that the mother and sister “could not open credit cards in their own names to transfer the balances” tells us that they already have problems dealing with finances even before they stole the wife’s name and credit history. Yes, stole. That is exactly what it is.
My husband’s first wife did the exact same thing to him – twice. After they had been married about five years, she ran up huge amounts on credit cards in his name, close to $25,000. When he found out, he believed all her “I’m sorry, I’ll never do it again”, etc. and paid off the cards. He trusted her to not do it again.Less than eight years later, she did it again, but was sneakier. She rented a post office box and had all the bills sent to that. She maintained a “real” checkbook and a fake one to show him. She figured out how to dummy up bank statements to show him and kept the real statements stashed away. This lady was intelligent and a loving, church going mother, sister, friend….not a “typical” criminal.
One day he received a call at work from a creditor looking for payment. He told them he didn’t know what they were talking about and hung up on them but he knew in his gut that she had done something. He left work, went home and confronted her and she finally broke down and admitted it. He went to the bank and got copies of his statements and found out to his horror that she had gone through nearly $90,000 and it was ALL gone. She took out a mortgage on his 100 year old family home and the mortgage company was starting foreclosure procedures. He still has no idea what happened to all that money — besides from their oldest daughter’s wedding, large bequests to the church, numerous useless knick knacks around the house and a “friend” who was always needing cash — he still figures that there is a lot of money still unaccounted for. Anyway, he told her that they were done and to pack her s#*& and get out. Then he left. One day later, she killed herself. That didn’t stop the creditors and bill collectors from calling day and night. He had to go and file a theft report with the sheriff’s department, arrange for his two younger daughters to stay with other family, explain to his bosses why he wouldn’t be at work for awhile and deal with co-workers, “friends”, family and complete strangers not knowing what had really happened and thinking that HE had “driven her” to kill herself. (And no, this is not just what he told me, I witnessed it all from a distance because he and I work for the same employer, in different departments.
The point of this whole sad and sorry tale is this: People who will steal from their own family like this will do it over and over again UNLESS and UNTIL they are held accountable.
Promising “never to do it again”, “I’ll pay it back” and other empty words are just words. If they had the means to pay it back or to get a loan to pay it back in the first place, they wouldn’t have needed to steal the credit/money. You have to report it for YOUR family’s sake and for the sake of your financial well-being. My husband is still dealing with the financial fall out from his former wife’s thievery. Family members that steal will continue to steal, it is a sickness, an addiction. The mother and sister have to be held accountable. If they are allowed any leeway at all, they will take all of that and much more. Please don’t let the fact that they “are family” influence the actions that you must take to protect yourself.
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I think it depends on how close you are with the family members. If you are close with them, even though they appear to be screw ups, I would give them the chance to pay the debt away. Not nicely though. Cars would need to be sold, second mortgages taken out, loans, second jobs…whatever they could do to make a good faith effort to show they will pay these debts off and fast.
If they didn’t agree to be aggressive (you decide how much) about paying the debts down, I would then report them.
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File the police report. Hopefully an agreement can be reached with the prosecutor to allow the guilty parties to take on the debt.
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