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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You can’t steal tens of thousands from your family, ruin their good name – THATS just wrong. Family values is sometimes spelled “tough love”.
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What they have done IS wrong, but as mentioned in the article, they have not missed a single payment. Reporting them would do much more to ruin the family name. Your ‘tough love’ in this case should be to freeze the cards, as I and many other people have suggested, make it clear to them that what they have done is wrong and that they are solely responsible for the debt. Warn them that any misssed payments will result in them being reported, but at least give them a chance to make things right.
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Family or not, with that amount of money involved I’d go straight to the creditors.
I’d let the creditors know the true situation, give them the correct name and address of the borrowers, and then they could freeze the cards and deal with getting the debts paid back. Effectively it’d be like the debtors had gotten a loan under their own identities.
No need to get personally involved in ensuring the debt is repaid.
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similar case here but allittle morbid.
My wifes mom is dieing of cancer and my wife is caring for her full time.
We ran an annaul report on her and found out my wifes sister has opened two accounts in her mom’s name charged 11,800 in the last five months.The billing address is her sisters.It appears she took credit life out two.Is this a sick person or what?
Boatdoc1963@yahoo.com
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THIS HAS JUST HAPPENED TO ME BY MY DAUGHTER $5,500.00.
THE CREDIT CARD COMPANY HAS DENIED MY CLAIM SIMPLY BECAUSE DAUGHTER SAID THAT I KNEW. THE POLICE ARE NOT DOING ANYTHING EITHER – WOULD APPRECIATE ANY ADVICE – DON’T HAVE ANY PROBLEM PRESSING CHARGES – DO YOU THINK THAT IS THE PROBLEM THAT I HAVE JUST FILED A REPORT AND NOT PRESSED CHARGES YET – I CAN’T BELIEVE THE CREDIT CARD COMPANY DENID ME – NO CHARGES WERE EVER SENT TO MY ADDRESS AND I LIVE IN A DIFFERENT CITY THAN SHE DOES. I NEED HELP.
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I have reason to believe that my own sister and brother in law are using my name and SS # since 1997. First off I have not been able to obtain a full copy of my credit report due to the fact that this person/s have a Triple Advantage Credit Alert on my credit files. When I send in copies of my ID’s and important information this is what they tell me, that the person listed on their file does not match mine.
Recently I did a people search and find my sister’s name and my name was listed with hers, so I put in for a change of address for my name at her address and just learned from my brother last evening that my change of address messed up her and her husband’s mail. However they are not using my name than it should not be messing up her mail at all.
Also two months ago I learned that someone went down to Denver, CO and filed for my SSDI and why now I am on SSI. They are telling me that I am out of mind for I am the one that filed for SSDI and also filed an appeal, which I never did this.
I am being run around in circles completely.
Also social services where I am receiving medical help from told me last year that I am on manual pay, yet my SSI payments are direct deposit.
Also they are receiving food stamps and it has been added to me for collections through social services yet I am not on food stamps at all.
How do I stop her and my brother in law?
And how to I take charge over my creit record again?
I even found a business the my sister had back in 1993 and yet she lied to me about this.
I have filed a police report and have gone to FTC and also other agencies.
However since she has had control over my name and SS# for so long I am not sure if I will beable to obtain the evidence I need to press charges on her.
Oh and my sister can forge every member of my family, including mine.
Any good suggestions would help at this point.
Thank you for your time.
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I don’t know what is better yet. My wife and two grown kids (who live under the same roof with me) have their hearing date next month for doing this same thing to me. I already tried the other way 3 times. I just got angry, warned them, shouldered the debt and went on. The first card was 5000, then they ran 2 at the same time to the tune of 18000. The newest addition, that I refused to shoulder, taken out in Sept. 08 and caught by me in January was $8500.
Incidentally the last three cards were taken out as business cards using our Church! as a business with me as the responsible party. As such they didn’t show up on my credit report and “credit protection” couldn’t catch it.
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My mother stole from me in that exact same way. I was eighteen when she did it, and I didn’t find out until I was twenty. It is beyond worth pressing the issue and reporting them. What if you need to buy a house? Rent an apartment? Get a loan to put your OWN child through schooling? If you don’t report it…It very well could make those dreams…dreams. This is also going to be a long and hard battle with the authorities, because for all they know that families do this all the time, they don’t really care. They just want their money. Because her mother and sister did it, they’re (the authorities) are going to assume that your wife was MORE than willing to help her family. She’s going to have to work very, very hard to prove she had no knowledge about these accounts…and because she now knows about them, the sooner you report it, the easier that will be. You can and will be held liable if you don’t report it immediatly. Because it took me so long to figure out why I couldn’t get a student loan, I’m having one hell of a battle.
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I once loaned my credit card to my sister to help with a car repair she needed done… I was sooo foolish about this, didn’t even consider that she would miss use it even tho the circumstances could NOT have been better for her, as I was leaving the country to teach english overseas right at the same time… I just told her to give the card to my mom when she was done, without even letting my mom know about the arrangement.
Fortunately, as a young college student I didn’t have a credit card she could charge 17,000 dollers on, tho in the space of 6 months she managed to get my limit nearly tripled and maxxed the thing out.
For the sake of “family” I would not press charges, but just begged and begged the credit card company to help me out, I ended up cutting a deal to pay off only a portion of the account, and dealing with bad credit for several years.
A few years later, said sister was of course doing the SAME THING again, only this time she included someone who wasn’t related to her in her group of scams and got CAUGHT. She ended up doing jail time (she was doing more with stolen IDs and checks at this point than she had been doing earlier) and her daughter (now 15) will have nothing to do with her.
I wish now that I had pressed charges the first time. She would have been caught and punished, but it wouldn’t have been as bad a situation as she get herself in later. Also, helping out her daughter would have been much easier then than it was the second time around – back when she was younger there were several people who were willing to take her in, but after living with her mom and sadly learning a lot of her worse habits the family is frankly scared to take her in (she’s accused guys falsely of molestation… no one in the family will put their husband at risk with her now).
TURN THEM IN. It will only get worse in the future if it is not nipped in the bud, NOW.
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What happens if someone steals a credit card that you did open? This happened to me. I had paid the card off several years ago and had forgotten I had it until I started getting phone calls from the creditor. Turns out my boyfriend of 5 years had been using it for cash withdrawals. The credit card company advised me that if I went to the police I would be held liable anyway because we were living together at the time and they would say that the money went to things we both needed. I don’t know that this is true. Nearly $11000.00 was taken out in about six months. I don’t see how we could have been paying out more than was coming in. The numbers just don’t add up. No point asking him what the money went to because if he could be commiting fraud against me and taking the statements from the mailbox before I could get to them what are the chances he’ll tell the truth about where the money went? They have made an agreement with him to make equal monthly payments and not let it ruin my credit as long as he keeps paying. But I’m worried. I obviously can’t trust him. I feel so helpless. Any suggestions?
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I have to agree with Stu the rest of the minority few who advised against filing a police report. What these family members did was wrong, no question. It was dishonest, deceptive and yes, also illegal. But it was not a malicious attempt to hurt you or your wife. They have been making payments, so at this point, there is probably no real damage to your credit. Yes, the debt is officially your responsibility, and one you don’t deserve. There is also the potential for the debt to become delinquent, which of course could damage your credit. Before that happens, the cards should be collected, the accounts closed while they are still in good standing and payment arrangements made. If you and your wife have the means to pay off the balances immediately, do so in order to avoid future interest charges and other fees. Then, have a legal contract drawn up in which your in-laws promise to repay you a certain amount every month, plus interest. And of course, start monitoring your credit more carefully so that this won’t happen again.
That will stop the damage and also hold them accountable in a way that will also benefit you financially, because they would be paying interest to you instead of to the bank.
Sending them to jail might teach them a lesson, but there are other ways for lessons to be learned and personal responsibility instilled. Plus, sitting in jail would prevent them from earning the income necessary to repay the debt and also cost tax-payers money.
Again, what they did was not OK, but people without the financial stability that you and your wife enjoy are naturally more tempted when the opportunity to commit a “white collar” crime presents itself in the form of an unsolicited credit card offer.
Yes, you earned the stability and good credit you have, and they did not.
But just for a moment, imagine yourself as someone working but struggling, basically law abiding and non-violent…someone who doesn’t rob banks or snatch purses or shoplift or burlarize anyone’s home or go around looking for anyone’s indentiy to steal.
Then one day, you open the mail, and there it is. You know that the intended recipient doesn’t need that line of credit, but even though you’re not destitute or lacking in basic needs, you could really use it.
So, you know it’s wrong, but you rationalize it by telling yourself that you’ll be responsible with it and keep up the payments so that it doesn’t hurt the person whose you name you put on the account. So, you accept the offer, getting a card your own name as an authorized user, and then have some fun with it.
But, instead of maxing it out and leaving the country without ever repaying it, you continue living in the same town, working at the same job, participating in family and community life and making payments on the account. Until you get caught, of course.
I’m speaking from experience here, because I once did the same thing your wife’s relatives did. The victim was my fiancially comfortable mother. I do feel shame and regret for my actions and have not repeated them. I also paid her back and am very grateful that she gave me the opportunity to do so, rather than calling the police and pressing charges.
In today’s world, credit and wealth are precious commodities, and when you have worked hard to earn them, of course you want to protect them. And nobody else, family or not, has the right to just help themselves. But…it happens, and not always with malicious intentions.
Please look at the big picture. If you and your wife are OK, and you don’t feel that her relatives are out to intentionally hurt you, let them know that what they did was not OK, you won’t tolerate a repeat performance of it, and they have to repay the debt. But please focus more on your family relationships and the well-being of everyone involved before you exercise your legal rights.
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