We just found out that the car my mother in law bought a month ago, was purchased under my husbands name and credit. Can they really do this? We just found out, when I checked the mail and there was a payment book in the mail with my husbands name on it. He wasn't listed as a co-signer or joint applicant. It was only in his name. Can someone help me with this? Don't you need to show identification or something?
More than likely you *ARE* supposed to show identification. Especially if your state requires that the forms be notorized for the title registration, etc. I would say that your husband should file a police report, don't say who you believe may have done this, they will get the information they can from the car dealer, just tell the police that he didn't apply for this car. If they ask who you believe may have done it, as impartially as possible say whatever facts you do have, if the payment book lists the make/model, and your cousin miraculously started driving that make/model car at the same time, then you have real proof of who may have done it. When you get a copy of the police report listing the incident number, I would *SEND* the car dealer a copy of the police report.
Ummm i dont think your posting the whole story or your husband is giving you the whole story, If what your saying is true, then your mother in law committed Grand Theft with auto specs, and will be sent away for 2 yrs. If your husband is lying and you file a false police report cause he didnt want you to know. Your sending yourself away for 6 months. I cannot see a car being sold in someone elses name without a 3rd party breaking the law as well. Something sounds not right.
That's why I'm suggesting that *he* file the police report, with whatever information he has, if he does not in fact know anything about the account. Of course, if he blew up when he saw the payment book, that would be a good indicator that he may not have known anything about it, so the big question would be how did he react when he opened, or saw the payment book for the first time?
you can bet if its a car, that the car dealership is simply not going to write this one off as a loss, they are going to pursue charges, because once a car is off the lot and has miles on it, its an unrecoverable asset. It is considered stolen property. And the detectives investigating the case will show up and hand cuff whoever has the vehicle in their possesion. And the car, will be seized as evidence. The dealership will not want it back anyhow. What will happen is that the Pd will auction it off, and they will sue the mother in law for the balance, and since she will be in jail, they will put a property lien against the house. or if she has nothing they will then write off that balance as a tax loss. Trust me I see this all the time.
Actually, he was really PO'd. He called the creditor who approved the loan to find out where the car was bought from then called the dealer. The dealer said that everything was done legally. That's the only info he would give us before hanging up. We just came home from his mother house. She and an aunt had gone to the dealer and tried to get the car under my brother in laws name, but because he had no credit they were unable to. So, the dealer asked them if they would be able to use my husbands, because we bought a car from them before. My mother in law said yes and drove the car off the lot. In the entire month that she's had the car she never bothered to tell us what she's done. Now the dealership wants my husband to sign some papers for the car. He refused, now my mother in law is begging him to let her keep the car. So, he really didn't know anything about this and is actually still fuming.
He is going to need to make a tough decision. Either he has to bite the bullet, and let her get away with it, or he has to do something which will probably be extremely difficult, and one way or the other make her pay for it. There is nothing legal about what the dealer did as well, if your husband (or brother-in-law) was not the applicant, the dealer had no permissible purpose to run their files, force through fraudulent loan apps, and anything else that he may have done that you don't know about yet... And of course, now he's playing on the "You don't want to get your Mom in trouble, so be a good boy and sign the papers to make it legal" guilt trip to cover his own hide.
Sounds to me like the car dealer either needs to locate mom some financing in her name, or finance it out of the dealer's store. Sure she did the wrong thing, but not alone -- the deal was driving.
Hmmm......sounds suspicious on dealers part, not that the MIL is a saint. Dealer should have never let the car leave that parking lot without DH's personal signature and approval. Your MIL didn't forge your dh's name right? Also, who provided his SSN#, MIL or the dealership? Seems to me if MIL didn't sign any paperwork on behalf of dh and never gave his SSN#, I don't see how that would be a case of "grand theft auto" or ID theft. Maybe the dealer talked her into approaching dh to be the signor on the loan doc's, and let her have the car contingent on his permission? Of course, if she forged his name and gave them his SSN#, that's a problem.
She did give the dealer his ss#, but did not sign anything. We just found out from my other brother in law that she opened 2 credit cards in his name and has been using them to cash advance. He also just found out when he tried to buy a car and the dealer told him that he need to take care of his 2 past due cc. He never applied for a cc before. This woman is killing me. She's ruining her son's lives and their credit. My husband told her to take the car back. The dealer told us that he wouldn't take there car back because she drove it off the lot and had the car for a month. My husband threatened to sue and the dealer said that he would have to take his mother down with him. My husbands reply was, so be it, she dug this hole for herself and that as far as he was concerned, they both could lie in it. The salesman and his manager just stood there in silence. My husband also called a friend of ours who is a police officer to come down with us. The officer advised the dealer that it would be in his best interest to take the car back or we would be seeing him in court. They took the car back and actually gave my husband the money my dear mother in law put down as a down payment, after all it was in my husbands name...lol. Now she's fuming.
Glad it worked out for you. ID theft is tough by itself, but when a family member is involved, it is much worse to deal with. My mom does the same stuff too. It's a no win-situation. Maybe use your Mil's down payment to pay back your dh's brothers debt she ran up? Also, did the car dealership do an inquiry on dh's credit report? If so, might want to do some research on non-pp suits.
That's exactly what my husband did. He got his brothers credit card info and paid his cc bills over the phone before she could convince him to give her the money back. My husband is actually a real softy. I know it was extremely hard for him to do what he did but we are trying to buy a house and that doesn't exactly help our situation any. Now his cc are paid off and he closed the accounts. She's extremely PO'd right now. I can hear screaming at the top of her lungs right now. Thanks everyone for your feedback.
But, even if she would have forged the signature, the dealer would have been there to witness it. The way it sounds, the dealer suggested "well, your other son bought from us before, and got it with a loan, so we'll use his name." So probably the dealer got the forms from the previous loan, and used those to fill out the new forms.
The police officer who came down to the dealership with you needs to turn hin his badge. Officers are not allowed to act as private liasons in civil matters. Something sounds awfully fishy. No officer worth his salt (friend or not). Should be accompanying anyone in uniform our out. It appears he identified himself as an officer, and told them what was in the dealerships best interest. Which i would say is a violation of every code in our policy manual. Personally i have a diffucult time believeing the story. If it REALLY transpired as you explained, and arrest should have been made.
Shae: The fact that the dealer was cocky enough to use the "You can't arrest us, because you would also have to arrest your own mother" is a good indicator of what their logic was, no good son would throw their mother in jail, so we'll do it, we don't care if it's legal or not. I would believe that hearing a response that he was prepared to go after them, no matter if it would mean his own mother going to jail in the process would be a rude awakening for them.
Actually, our friend was off duty and did not come in uniform and he only revealed that he was an officer after the manager threatened us with a lawsuit of property theft because my husband wouldn't sign the papers. The dealer thought we didn't know what our rights were. Only then did our friend step in and say that he was a police officer and that he knew the law and that we could sue the dealer. Sorry, I didn't make that clear.
Now that the urgent problem is resolved. You, and all of your in-laws will need to try to take measures in order to prevent her from doing this, or anything similar to your families again. I would suggest that everyone in your family (and the in-laws, and their families) send to all four CRA's (EX, EQ, TU, Innovis) a letter requesting that a fraud alert to be placed on their credit files, and a copy of your credit reports to see if there may be any other accounts which your family may not be aware of, yet. A fraud alert isn't foolproof, there is nothing which prevents a company from providing credit without checking with you personally first, but they should take additional counter-measures to ensure that it is not a fraudulent account, whether its double checking ID in in-person applications, pulling additional credit reports, calling or writing your address as reported on your credit file, or any other possible verification system that they could think of. The fraud alert is typically placed on your file for under a year, depending on the CRA, but you can request up to a SEVEN YEAR ALERT in writing. They'll tell you how to request the longer alert after they've provided the original fraud alert.
