I went with my mom to the bank to help her get a loan for a home. Banker runs her credit, and to my shock, her credit score is deplorable for very obvious reasons: I see credit cards on her report that I didn't know about (my mother doesn't speak English well, and I handle all her finances). I give her an asinine stare, and tell her to spill the beans.
She tells me years ago, a friend of hers, Sarah, asked if she could open credit cards under my mother's name for her son, Brad. The reason is because Sarah, and her son Brad, both have horrible credit and topped their credit line limits on all their cards. At the time, Brad promised my mother that he'd pay off any new cards that my mom opened for him within a year (that was 6 years ago). My mother, being naive and having a very limited understanding of finances nonchalantly agrees. She opened 2 cards for him, and then he immediately balance transfers his balances on his own cards to my mom's 2 new cards. Total debt transferred from Brad to my mom was ~10K.
We left the bank. I chastised my mother (in a professional way -- she's still my mother), and I cooled off. I then called Brad. [For the record, he's a sordid, degenerate, uneducated, pathological liar that clubs, drinks, and does drugs for a living. This isn't a personal attack on him, but just to give you an idea of the type of person I'm dealing with. His social media accounts corroborate the aforementioned.]
He said he doesn't use the cards, but just makes minimum payments on them. He provided me the login details; he was telling the truth in regards to not using them and making minimum payments. He then promised me to pay them off within several months -- he lied -- because that was 6 months ago. It's already been 6 years from promise #1, and I'm done being polite. He's fully utilizing my mothers total available credit, thus destroying her credit score and ruining her chances of financing a home.
He already acknowledged that the debt was his (in future text message communication). I think he has several thousands in assets, but doesn't want to put that toward paying off CC debt -- especially when it's not under "his name." What's the best course of action(s)?
TL;DR: A family "friend" took advantage of my mother, opened credit cards under her name, then transferred all his debt over to her. Mom can't get a home loan because her credit is destroyed. What to do?
Submitted August 17, 2017 at 09:30AM by Patoruc http://ift.tt/2uTkNcL
