My friends in a spot of bother

tranmereforever

Hiya,

a friend of mine ( a fellow student) has got herself into a bit of trouble where her dad has run up bills on her cards and she has now been passed onto debt collection agencies for one of them

She is angry at her dad at the moment but so far she hasent mentioned it to him as she doesnt want to cause stress in the family, ive told her that she has too as she doesnt even know how much is on some of the cards ( i think he has the details to 3)

Ultimatly I have told her that she needs to sort this out now because otherwise she could get done for fraud ( as i assume she could as it is her dad using the card) but she doesnt want to ring the card companies up as she doesnt know what her balance is or what he has spent money on so she thinks if she rings up then she will get found out

has anyone got any advice as to what I should get her to do?

CCCele

Act as soon as possible. She should definitely contact the issuers immediately, to find out what debts are on them and to cancel all her cards if necessary. Then she needs a family meeting.

tranmereforever

if she rings up though does she be honest and say that she let her family use them or just try and find the balances out?

Gillianh2

She could ring them and ask for statements on the accounts. This way she could see what had been spent and on what. She then needs to ask her Dad how he intends settling this debt for her.

tranmereforever

just as an update to this, she has told the debt collectors she has nothing to do with this and they are investigating ( she hasent told them her dad was using them) she says that shes buying some time for herself and that shes not done anything illegal, I told her that its fraud, she doesnt think so, it must be surely

nobblyned

As he was using it without her permission, it is fraud, but his, not hers.

Depends though whether she wants to shop a member of her family.

tranmereforever

well to be honest im not so sure it is all his fault as such, from what I can gather (and to be honest shes being quite cagey about it all) she let her dad use her cards as he couldnt get one on his own but is upset that he has run such huge debts up on it, so in essence I think it is her fault for letting him use it in the first place

cm233lh

If he's using the cards with her permission then it's her problem and she'll have to deal with it. Sounds like the father has caused stress in the family already, so she shouldn't worry about grassing him up. This is her credit rating he's trashing, and she'll probably be needing a mortgage before many years are up, so she needs to get on top of it sharpish.

belfastgirl23

Your friend might be able to get advice from her student union. Maybe legal advice and financial advice? Worth her while checking what's on offer...