Hi, I'm new here. I've got a general idea of how I should handle this problem, but wanted to get some advice from people seasoned in this sort of stuff. I recently got married to my girlfriend of almost 8 years. When we were dating, she tried to get a car loan and got denied. When we looked at the credit report we saw 2 accounts on there that were not hers, but her mother's. She talked to her mother and she said she would take care of it but wouldn't give my wife the numbers for the credit cards, we thought nothing of it since both accounts were in good standing. Recently though, my now Mother in Law has gotten in trouble with the law and is currently in custody awaiting a trial for some pretty serious charges. We asked my Mother in Law the day before she went into jail if she had removed the credit cards from my wife's account and she didn't know. We asked her if she forged my wifes signature, just as a matter of course and we were shocked when we heard "I don't remember" instead of an emphatic "no" we expected. We pulled my wife's credit reports and sure enough the 2 accounts are still listed. One is listed as a Joint Account and the other is listed as an Individual Account. While retrieving my Mother in Law's mail, we got a bill for the Individual Account in my wife's name. We're fairly sure we know what has happened, but can't tell for sure yet. Anyway, my wife is willing to do what needs to be done to get this off her credit, but she's not wanting to hand my Mother in Law over on a silver platter either (In fact, I had to convince her we shouldn't just pay the 10k on the cards to just be done with the issue). From my research, here's what I'm thinking the best course of action is, please critique if you see room for improvement: 1) Call the Credit Cards, let them know the situation and verify that it's not some simple mistake. Request an address to submit a request for verification of the debt. 2) Request in writing verification of the debt in my wife's name 3) Make sure there IS some sort of forgery going on and if so, file a police report (we'd like not to do this, but understand we probably HAVE to in order to clear this up) and then submit an affadavit to the Credit Card Company. Once the credit card company gets the affadavit, do they have to take the cards off your report or can they still present us with problems? If the balances of each card are in the 3-4k and 5-6k range and the identity theif is already in jail and has no earnings, how likely will it be that the credit cards will further press the issue? How specific do you need to be in the police report? Like I said we don't want to hand her over on a silver platter, but we're not going to lie either.
You may have to get a lawyer and start suing under the Truth in Lending Act [15 U.S.C. 1642] which makes it illegal to issue a credit card in anyone's name without that person's explicit permission. If your wife was the victim of identity theft and had fraudulent credit card accounts opened in her name, she certainly did not apply for the account and the law has been broken. This law also applies to a credit card company that opens an account, based on a fraudulent application. Once you begin to resolve this issue, you also need to closely monitor the interest rates on your wife's credit cards because it is possible that a "fraud alert" could trigger higher rates even with a perfect payment history. If that happens, and it may, call the cc to have the rates reduced. You need to see a lawyer.
If this is the sort of thing you can expect from your mother in law for the forseeable future, you may need to put a fraud alert in place for longer than the usual 90 days. That may also require a police report, on top of its necessity in disputing the ID theft accounts. Since your mother in law has all information needed to open accounts, and has clearly done so, how else can you prevent it? In addition, ID theft by family members is even more of a problem than ID theft by strangers since your wife's addresses cross with your mother in law's, so it is harder to prove to creditors that she didn't open the accounts. The longer you fail to act after finding the fraudulent accounts, the more likely the creditors will claim you either benefitted from them, or authorized them, either explicitly based on the fraudulent application, or tacitly based on your failure to file a police report. If your state allows it, you may even want to place a credit freeze with the CRAs on the reports, since creditors have no obligation to actually act on a fraud alert. At least in California, if you are a victim of ID theft, activating a credit freeze is free, and it can be temporarily unfrozen when needed.
Honestly, my educated guess is that my Mother in Law will be in jail for the next 12-24 months. We're planning on placing a fraud alert with the CRAs anyway. Do I do this before contacting the credit card companies? This is a point of confusion for me, what would I tell them now without any sort of proof that something was forged? I'm 100% sure my wife wasn't living with my mother in law when the accounts were open. There is even a chance that the accounts were opened at the apartment my mother in law got after my wife moved out. This is a point of concern for me. We "discovered" the accounts a couple years ago, but the mother in law said, "Yeah, those are my credit cards, not sure why they're showing up on your report, I'll call and fix that." At that time, her word was good enough for us. It's only recently that we discovered that fraud might be involved, before we thought it was just a simple mistake.
"If the balances of each card are in the 3-4k and 5-6k range and the identity theif is already in jail and has no earnings, how likely will it be that the credit cards will further press the issue? " Against your mother in law, probably nil. Against your wife, since her name is apparently on the accounts, probably high. She is not in jail, probably shows evidence of income or assets on her reports, and it is enough to be worth suing over. Further, they have no reason to believe this is an identity theft case, and it is in their self-interest to pursue your wife as the debtor.
Re: Re: Identity Theft by Family Member Yes, because of the cards in question. We have, however, put in a correction request to Transunion.
Re: Re: Identity Theft by Family Member We're going to be disputing the cards and going through the procedures to correct this, even if it means my mother in law gets in more trouble. I'm hoping that after a police report/affadavit that nothing more will be required on our part and that the accounts will be moved from her credit report promptly, perhaps I'm being naieve though. When this happened, I called my mother because she had delt with identity theft before. She said that she had a Discover card that she called to dispute and they decided not to pursue the identity theif because the balance didn't warrant an investigation (~$1200 IIRC). Despite the bad things my mother in law has done and the trust she has destroyed, my wife still really loves her and doesn't want to see her in more trouble. There was some hope on her part that the credit card companies wouldn't press charges on the mother in law, which is why I was asking. I'm doubting that's the case though. Either way, we will do what is necessary to clean up her report.
Re: Re: Identity Theft by Family Member Your mother may still find that her identity theft problem is not completely resolved. If she did not file a police report on it, and send a copy along with her affidavit of fraud to the CC company, she may find that Discover, although not pursuing it against her or an alleged id thief at this time, might still sell the debt to a JDB, who might later still pursue it as a valid debt years later. With a filed police report in her records, she would be in a stronger position to block later collection activity and obtain removal of the erroneous TLs from her CRs. A 2003 report showed that 7 out of 8 accounts opened by identity theft were never recognized as such by the original creditor, but were instead sold as valid but bad debts. In many cases the ID theft victim only became aware of the original fraudulent account when a CA attempted collection years later. As a result, perpetrators of ID theft face little risk of prosecution, creditors under report id theft and claim it is not a serious problem, and id theft victims get treated as deadbeat debtors somehow responsible for the damage to their own credit.
Re: Re: Identity Theft by Family Member It is amazing how it is seldom worth pursuing an identity thief, but it is frequently worth pursuing an identity theft victim. Actually it is unethical but self-serving common sense, justifiable only by carefully maintained "blindness".
Re: Re: Identity Theft by Family Member I can possibly help, offering a service called Identity Theft Shield, which is Idenity Theft Restoration. With this service, a trained expert will take the steps to restore your name ane credit for you! Help reduce your out of pocket expenses and time spent away from work with vaulable services from detection to resolution. Licensed Investigators will work on your behalf! For more info, call me at 877-616-9587.
