Hey r/personalfinance,
This is going to be a long one, but we would appreciate any help that we can get.
My fiancé and I are in a pretty tough situation right now. Last summer we traveled to Europe to visit her brother (who is stationed there in the Air Force). Her mom and little sister went with us, and we had an amazing time. Her mother has a history of financial difficulties, and we were honestly surprised that she was able to afford the trip at all, especially since she had to pay for the little sister as well. However, we just assumed that she, like us, had been saving like crazy since we had been planning this trip for several years, and didn’t think any more about it.
Fast forward to November, 2018, and my fiancé notices that her credit score has plummeted. In September she had opened up her first credit card with Chase, and at that time, had a mid-700 level score. Despite making her payment on time every month, she noticed that whenever she checked the Chase app, her TransUnion score was steadily decreasing. In November, it was suddenly in the 500’s, and, after looking into it, realized that there were several alerts for late payments on 3 separate cards that weren’t hers.
I know people might be questioning why we didn’t seriously look into it immediately after her score started going down. We did, to an extent, but never went beyond some brief googling. Honestly, both of us were pretty naïve about credit in general, and we just assumed that it was from opening the credit card, because, time-wise, her score going down seemed to coincide perfectly with when she opened it. We just assumed that it might take a hit at first, and then would climb back up once she began using and paying it off regularly.
Anyways, she contacts the three cards listed – US Bank, CitiBank, and Capital One – and finds out that her mom opened up all three on the same day in June, less than 2 weeks before we went to Europe. In total, she racked up $13,000 between the three. We aren’t sure of all of the charges, but the representative from CitiBank read some off for my fiancé, and you guessed it, they were all from our trip to Europe. We know she didn’t spend the entire $13,000 on the trip alone, but it’s obvious that a pretty significant chunk came from that.
After initially denying it, her mom admitted what she had done (of which there is text message evidence). My fiancé reported these cards as fraudulent with the credit bureaus and the three different banks, and both US Bank and CitiBank were relatively easy to work with. Within a few weeks of reporting it, we had received letters from both of these, which stated that they had found the cards to be opened fraudulently, and my fiancé was absolved from all blame or responsibility. We still aren’t sure how US Bank is handling it, but CitiBank actually set up a payment plan with her mom to pay off the debt. My fiancé got her annual credit report with Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian, and all three cards were completely off. Her TransUnion score returned to the 700’s.
We spent about a month thinking that all was well, but we were concerned that we hadn’t heard anything back from Capital One (which was the card that had the least amount of charges on it, by the way. Only around $1,000). After initially reporting it to them, she was assigned a case manager, and was asked to fill out and fax back an official fraud report. She did this, and then we waited. After not hearing back for a month (they told her it could be a long process), she tried to get in contact with her case manager, only to be told that she was out of the office for the next week. A few days later, we received a letter from Capital One, which told us that the account was now in their recoveries department.
My fiancé called them, and was basically told that the card was found to be non-fraudulent, and due to Capital One’s policy, now that it was in recoveries, it couldn’t be disputed any longer. After finally getting through to her case manager, she was told that, since the card was used to buy a plane ticket to Europe, and my fiancé was physically in Europe at that time (no idea how they got this information), they dismissed her fraud report and moved it to recoveries. Again, they said that there was nothing they could do at this point, and my fiancé is responsible for the charges. They literally said that if my fiancé’s mom called them, admitted to identify theft, and offered to take responsibility for the account, it wouldn’t change anything. This makes absolutely no sense to me, but several of their representatives have repeated this.
This is a good time to explain why we didn’t file a police report. Judging from all of the posts that I have read on r/personalfinance about identify theft and family members, everyone on here is going to be telling us “You should have pressed charges”. We actually spoke with a detective from the police department multiple times about our options. Essentially, they told us to wait it out. The detective said that credit card companies will sometimes offer the guilty party a chance to avoid legal action by taking responsibility of the account (like CitiBank did). In their words, the only thing that pressing charges would ensure is that her mom was legally punished. And, the fact of the matter is that my fiancé still loves her mom, and doesn’t want to see her in prison. Yes, she absolutely deserves it. But our number one priority was removing the cards completely from my fiancé’s name, and it seemed like that might happen without having to put her mom in prison.
So, as it stands right now, the Capital One card is still in my fiancé’s name. It is back on her credit report, and has dropped it to the low 600’s. To make matters worse, we recently found out that our landlord is going to sell the house we live in after our lease is up, and we would love to buy it. I have good credit, and normally she would too. But we are worried that a lender is going to take one look at the delinquent card attached to her name, and be scared off.
I’m sorry that this is so long, but I wanted to make sure that I explained everything thoroughly. We don’t know what to do. Capital One suggested setting up a payment plan with her mom, and just paying off the card under my fiancés name, but it sounds like the card will continue to negatively affect her credit long after it’s been paid off. We don’t want it to be attached to her at all. What can we do? Would pressing charges make any differences in disputing it with Capital One, or are we completely out of luck? Let me be clear, we are willing to take this step if it will make the difference. This is our life, and her mom willingly put our happiness and financial security in jeopardy. All for a trip to Europe.
TL;DR: Fiancés mother stole her identity and opened three credit cards, accruing $13,000 in charges. Two cards have been dropped, but one is still tied to her name.
Edit: I meant fiancée, not fiancé. I didn’t realize there was a difference.
Submitted March 10, 2019 at 07:41PM by Hatchet_Joe https://ift.tt/2ERQucQ
