• FreeAdvice has a new Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, effective May 25, 2018.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our Terms of Service and use of cookies.

My Mother took out student loans in my name and spent all the money.

Accident - Bankruptcy - Criminal Law / DUI - Business - Consumer - Employment - Family - Immigration - Real Estate - Tax - Traffic - Wills   Please click a topic or scroll down for more.

milodius

Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Alabama

I am a college student. 25 years old. 3 years ago, my Mother talked me into getting a private student loan. I allowed her to handle getting the loan. She then took out more loans than I had even signed for, and even a credit card that I didn't even know existed until I saw my credit report a month ago. I ended up getting about $10,000 out of about $100,000 worth of loans. She ended up spending all the rest of the money on drugs and ended up in a psychiatric hospital, beaten and diagnosed as psychotic. Is there any legal recourse for me to avoid this debt? what do I do? I never expected this to happen, I mean my own mother... it feels like getting hit by a truck..
 


Isis1

Senior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Alabama

I am a college student. 25 years old. 3 years ago, my Mother talked me into getting a private student loan. I allowed her to handle getting the loan. She then took out more loans than I had even signed for, and even a credit card that I didn't even know existed until I saw my credit report a month ago. I ended up getting about $10,000 out of about $100,000 worth of loans. She ended up spending all the rest of the money on drugs and ended up in a psychiatric hospital, beaten and diagnosed as psychotic. Is there any legal recourse for me to avoid this debt? what do I do? I never expected this to happen, I mean my own mother... it feels like getting hit by a truck..
The ones you signed for, those you are definitely on the hook for. For thd other ones, you will have to file a police report. But, i'm not even sure yoyr story is going to fly....
 

justalayman

Senior Member
are you willing to let your mother deal with the legal consequences of the criminal acts?

If not, then you might as well just suck it up and realize you have a lot of debt to pay back. At best, you could sue mom for the money.

If you are willing to report these as fraud, you may be able to escape some of the debts but mom will be on the hook for them and may have some criminal charges to deal with.
 

latigo

Senior Member
Your story reminds me of San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf. It smells of fish and other dead ocean creatures.

Do you really expect anyone to believe that a lending institution permitted your mother to create a student loan in your name and was then advanced thousands of dollars on YOUR student loan? Or that she created a credit card account in your name without your knowledge?

If you are going to attempt to sell that yarn, then you had better produce some clear and convincing evidence of forgery. Plus explain why it suddenly becomes a major issue with you three years hence!
 

cosine

Senior Member
Your story reminds me of San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf. It smells of fish and other dead ocean creatures.

Do you really expect anyone to believe that a lending institution permitted your mother to create a student loan in your name and was then advanced thousands of dollars on YOUR student loan? Or that she created a credit card account in your name without your knowledge?

If you are going to attempt to sell that yarn, then you had better produce some clear and convincing evidence of forgery. Plus explain why it suddenly becomes a major issue with you three years hence!
Isn't this forum for advice? Or is this place to adjudicate?

I suspect the "evidence of forgery" (or not, if that is the case) will be signature comparison on documents held by the financial institutions involved. Did the OP ask for copies of these documents? Did the financial institutions provide them? In the typical collections cases, the collectors tend to refuse to validate the debts. Sounds like this one will go to court, and the OP will have to demand the documents be produced and that expert signature comparison be made.

As for a lending institution allowing that, I've so much incompetence at banks, it's not just plausible, I'm sure it's a certainty that it has happened many times. I just don't know if one of those many times is what the OP is talking about.

My approach here is to give what advice I can, based on what the OP says, not what I want to believe that is in contradiction to what the OP says (although sometimes I also explore that to get more info). In this case, I don't have much. What I can say is the law is more stacked against the OP than for common debts.

The OP definitely needs an attorney.
 

latigo

Senior Member
. . . . As for a lending institution allowing that (a parent unilaterally obligating an adult child to a student loan) I've so much incompetence at banks, it's not just plausible (sic), I'm sure it's a certainty that it has happened many times. I just don't know if one of those many times is what the OP is talking about. . . .
Okay, let’s just set aside the issues of the OP’s credibility as to whether or not it was “plausible” for the mother acting on behalf of her adult son to have secured an FAFSA student loan with him named as the sole borrower having first complied with federal regulations; and on behalf of her son submitted his Student Information Record (ISIR) to the school, which would in turn have calculated the loan amounts and disbursement dates.

And for purposes of argument accept that it was plausible for the parent to have accomplished all of this THEN let’s have an explanation of how this student loan balance reached a figure of $100,000?! And do so considering that the maximum annual distribution of such loan proceeds never exceeds $12,500 (3rd and subsequent years) and for the first year does not $3,500!

Personally I don’t see where confidence or lack of it with respect to lending industry has any relevancy here whatsoever.

And speaking personally I think the OP secured that student loan and the credit card account – all of which are in default – and after three years this is the best excuse he can manufacture in an attempt to avoid responsibility . . . blame it all on an incapacitated parent!

If he would have us believe that he feels as though he was run over by a truck driven by his mother, I wish him to know that I didn’t just fall off of one carrying a load of turnips!

Fini!
 

commentator

Senior Member
Obviously you haven't had the realization that there are some very defective parents out there. But there really are.

Unlike grants and those FAFSA loans that go directly to the school to pay for tuition, this person indiciated that these were private student loans, the kind you get from a private bank or lender. And the banks are extremely casual about them, as they have been with mortgage loans.

Yes, parents have certainly gotten credit cards in their children's names.

OP I honest think you should press charges against your mother. This may help bring her to reality. But then again, it's a tough road to travel, because most people don't accept that this rotten reality can happen. It can, addiction is wicked and doesn't care who it hurts, even one's children.
 

cosine

Senior Member
Okay, let’s just set aside the issues of the OP’s credibility as to whether or not it was “plausible” for the mother acting on behalf of her adult son to have secured an FAFSA student loan with him named as the sole borrower having first complied with federal regulations; and on behalf of her son submitted his Student Information Record (ISIR) to the school, which would in turn have calculated the loan amounts and disbursement dates.
Oh, did the OP actually mention FAFSA? I must have missed that in the OP's original post.

And for purposes of argument accept that it was plausible for the parent to have accomplished all of this THEN let’s have an explanation of how this student loan balance reached a figure of $100,000?! And do so considering that the maximum annual distribution of such loan proceeds never exceeds $12,500 (3rd and subsequent years) and for the first year does not $3,500!
How about bad mom comes back for more next year. Rinse, lather, repeat.

Personally I don’t see where confidence or lack of it with respect to lending industry has any relevancy here whatsoever.
Seems pretty easy to me. The originator of this loan was as lax about checking things as others have been for other kinds of loans, like mortgages. Given that even private student loans are now protected from BK, banks would be more eager to make more of these loans, and set commissions and quotas, making some people that shouldn't be working in banking or near money do the wrong things when mom comes to the bank and says their kid is still off at college and needs more money for school. If dozens of parents have done that, one bad mom might slip through.

And speaking personally I think the OP secured that student loan and the credit card account – all of which are in default – and after three years this is the best excuse he can manufacture in an attempt to avoid responsibility . . . blame it all on an incapacitated parent!
I have many doubts about most original posts coming here. But if I focus on those doubts, I won't achieve the objectives, which for here is to provide advice and/or explain advice given by others here or given to the OP outside of the forum context.
 

cosine

Senior Member
Unlike grants and those FAFSA loans that go directly to the school to pay for tuition, this person indiciated that these were private student loans, the kind you get from a private bank or lender. And the banks are extremely casual about them, as they have been with mortgage loans.
And even these are now days protected from BK.

Yes, parents have certainly gotten credit cards in their children's names.
More than that. A friend of mine's father took out three loans in my friend's name to use for repairs on rentals the father owned. They were eventually paid off, but not before messing up my friend's credit. FYI, my friend was just 15 when the first one happened. Someone at the bank wasn't doing their job.

OP I honest think you should press charges against your mother. This may help bring her to reality. But then again, it's a tough road to travel, because most people don't accept that this rotten reality can happen. It can, addiction is wicked and doesn't care who it hurts, even one's children.
I fully agree.
 

Who's Liable?

Senior Member
OP MUST file the police reports implicating their mother. Failure to do so will deem them complicit in the eyes of the lenders and courts.


Sad to say this is becoming more and more the norm...
 

latigo

Senior Member
. . . Sad to say this is becoming more and more the norm...
Could you be a bit more explicit and explain what is becoming “more and more the norm”?

Are you claiming that it has become fashionable for lenders to permit parents to secure six-figure loans in the sole names of their children?!

Or are you referring to the practice of fabricating and posting preposterous yarns as just laid on us by Mr. milodius?

And just what do you suggest that this odious milodius fellow tell the police in these reports that you believe are so urgently needed.
 

Who's Liable?

Senior Member
Could you be a bit more explicit and explain what is becoming “more and more the norm”?

Are you claiming that it has become fashionable for lenders to permit parents to secure six-figure loans in the sole names of their children?!

Or are you referring to the practice of fabricating and posting preposterous yarns as just laid on us by Mr. milodius?

And just what do you suggest that this odious milodius fellow tell the police in these reports that you believe are so urgently needed.
Settle down and switch to decaf.

I referred to the fact that parents are taking loans out in their childrens name, without their consent or knowledge, and spending the money. This is happening more and more not only with student loans, but also non-school related private loans. Parents who've destroyed their own credit ratings are using their childrens limited or fresh credit histories as their own personal credit history to continue their bad money making mistakes.

Sadly, the ONLY way these children can absolve themselves of said debts is to file police reports of identity theft against said parents.

It's a tough decision, but has to be done if the kids want to save their past and future credit histories.
 
Last edited:

cosine

Senior Member
Or ...

The parents and kids are conspiring together to beat the system by fabricating the whole story together. They've split the $100K they bilked the system out of and are trying to pass it off as ID theft.

That and many other variations of fraud.

It's a scheme that doesn't work very well, and these days works less and less. The OP needs to, in order to not appear as one of these cases, file the police report.
 

Beentheretoo

Junior Member
I Completely Understand

I know people are saying they do not believe the OP; however, there have been multiple cases of parents using their child's credit to get loans, especially in this economic climate. The following is are links to one such reported cases.

Parents commit identity theft against children - Jun. 8, 2010

Mom Accused of Gambling Away Daughters? Student Loans : Student Loan Blog by NextStudent

I completely sympathize with the OP. My mom took out a $30,000 private loan in my name when I was an undergraduate. She did not pay any interest so when I graduated and moved back home, I was bombarded with mail requesting payment on a now $50,000 student loan of which I had never seen a dime. I was left with two choices: file a police report and get my mother charged and fight the loan on my credit report or pay it. Every month, I write a check for $400. It kills me both financially and emotionally. Every month that is money I could be putting in my savings for my future (house, kids, etc) All I can tell myself is that within the next few years, I'll have a job in a health professional shortage area and be eligible for loan repayor programs.

To the OP, what has happened since your last post? Have you gotten any advice?
 

Find the Right Lawyer for Your Legal Issue!

Fast, Free, and Confidential
data-ad-format="auto">
Top