After my father died my mother thought it was a good idea to put my name on everything she had, including her credit cards. Until recently I only knew about two of these. I was an AU on her Amex and did charge on the account. I was under the impression that Amex did not carry balances so I assumed that it was being paid off every month. In fact the balances were being transferred to another Amex acct that did carry balances. When my husband and I decided to open a business I got a copy of my credit report and I found out what she had done. I called and had my name removed from all of her accts. Now she is unable to pay and the cc are coming after me. Attorneys representing Amex called and told me that if I did not pay they were going to have me investigated for fraud for charging on the accts and then having my name removed. Has anyone else had this happen? The strange thing is that the Amex accts have been deleted from all of my CRs.
As an AU, you are NOT responsible for the accounts. Its a fairly common tactic to try and scare authorized users into paying when the card holder defaults. Don't let Amex scare you, its all wind. If push comes to shove just play stupid. Tell them you had no idea that when you charged items to the account the primary card holder was not paying the bills since you were only and authorized user. Then tell them to go pound sand.
It's up to the Police and the DA to arrest you. They don't have the time or want to be bothered since this is a civil matter , not criminal. There is violent danger present with terrorist so even if it was ruled criminal they have better things to do. This is a quote I got from friends in law enforcement. Amex is just trying to scare you. Send them a C&D if you want them to stop contacting you.
As an AU, you are NOT responsible for the accounts. if I did not pay they were going to have me investigated for fraud for charging on the accts and then having my name removed. Has anyone else had this happen? The strange thing is that the Amex accts have been deleted from all of my CRs. zizi |
The same thing happened to me late July 02... I was an AU on my ex husband's AMEX (btw, yes you carry a balance on a regular AMEX card - it's called the "Sign & Travel acct. and you defer paying the full balance owed on your AMEX card by kicking a major portion of your bill over to the "S & T account; it will appear as two separate tradelines on your credit report). Only got the card in 1999 because we were traveling out of the country (Bonaire) and nobody on the island accepted my card of choice (Discover Card). To make a long story short, ex moved out in Oct 2000, stopped paying any of his credit cards by the next October, so that I received a threatening phone call from one of AMEX's nasty CA's (Nationwide) telling me I had to pay HIS bill or they would take my house. I said I was only an AU anyway and I had written to AMEX myself in February 01 asking them to cancel my acct and remove all entries from my credit report. AMEX seemed to comply by sending a letter to all three cras. AMEX entries were removed from EXP and EQ but remained persistantly on TU. It remains on my TU to this day, one of the entries I have to take "dispute".
