Credit Cards fraud by family?

Smallios74

Bit of along story for my first post, but one of my friends has recently found out that they have 5 credit card debts amounting to over £6000, none of which she opened! She had a falling out with her mother a while back and found out that she had been taken money from her bank account as her mother had put herself on her account as a second person. As my friend work away from home during the week she left her debit card at her mums house under her supervision, so all post went to her house. Since then we have found out she also had applied for 5 or so credit cards in her daughters name and details ran up the limit and defaulted on them, i guess the only way she could of done this was to pretend to be her daughter. So my question is without contacting the police, rather get her to pay them the bills without getting them involved, what are her options? Do the banks/CC keep records of the agreements, so we can check to see if the sigs are not my friends? As my friend had no access to phones/banks when she was at work do they log phone call time etc that are several years old? I hope someone will be able to help, as its affecting her credit and she already has had a firm contacting her about a visit from the debt collectors. Like i said at this point she just wants it paid, rather than any retribution, she just wants some kind of evidence she can goto the banks with and try to sort it out, her mum has destroyed any paper work involved and the cards so we have to physical proof from her house.
Off course it may not all be the case thats why want to prove it

beer_tins

The banks and cc lenders have a signed copy of all the agreements. The sigs can be checked by an expert if there is any doubt. Her only choice is to go to the banks, but this will mean an investigation (involving the police) for fraud. Her only choices are:
1) Pay the debt herself
2) Make her mother pay the debt
3) Go to the banks (who will involve the police)

knithappens

I had this happen to m,e, my sister was the ran up CC debt in my name, because of my nephew, i didn't want to involve the police, but payed the debt myself , relationship with my sister is kaput so to speak. My nephew is old enough now to see me when he wants to , but I dont speak to my sister as it has devastated me that she woudl do that to me, especially when i canot affor it.

NickX

Right, not a nice situation to be in - there is another long running thread on this board with a similar situation, although there has not been an update for some time.

I'm afraid if your friend does not accept liability for the debts, then she needs to dispute them as fraudulent and will need to explain that it was her mother that took out the accounts fraudulently and ran up the debts without her knowledge. This will almost certainly mean her mother getting a knock on the door from the local constabulary.

Can she not confront her mother about this and suggest that she should settle these debts as she ran them up, or otherwise she will be looking at a fraud investigation ?

One point to note is that if your friend agreed to her mother being a secondary card holder on any of her accounts, then your friend is solely liable for those debts because they always remain with the primary card holder. Only if the mother set herself up as a secondary cardholder without your friend's knowledge would that again be deemed as fraud.

Good Luck and I hope they sort it without police intervention.

clio

LMM
Thats tragic isnt it , family members who disrespect you enough
to hurt you is a shame, will you ever forgive her?? it,ll be hard job
to get the trust/respect back. good luck

latecomer

I'm sorry but any family member who steals from another loses all respect from me. As I suspect the relationship will be effectively anyway finished I'd go straight to the police and report them and then set about getting the debts moved onto the correct person.

However I appreciate that this must be a extremely difficult situation for those involved.