American Express Fraud Affidavit Requested

[Tom Reid]

What is the name of your state?

California

Back in 1997 my ex-wife at the time,un-beknownst to me, applied for and got an American Express card in my name and ran up $17,000 in charges. The account, within a 6 month period, defaulted and remains unpaid to this day.

The address she used was the residence i shared with her while married and i was never made aware of any balance ever owed to them since my real address and correct employer were not used when she fraudulently opened the account in my name. I have always had good credit and never looked at my credit report until now, i never had trouble getting things before. I recently applied for an Amex card and was told it was denied due to a previous balance. Thats when i found out about this happening. I called my ex-wife, she confessed to me and apologized (as if it makes it better). When i spoke to Amex initially after account declined, i said i had no knowledge and never had an Amex card in the past. Once they mentioned the time period and
address, i knew what happened..

They are not trying to collect from me since i told them it was not me initially and they want me to fill out an affidavit attesting that i have no knowledge of the account and that it was fraudulent. I do not want the card bad enough now to risk any action happening to my ex-wife (although she deserves it), but she is the mother of my children and yada yah..

My question is: if i do fill out the affidavit and attest the account opened up in 1997 was fraudulent, do i risk them doing a further investigation and bring action against my ex-wife even though this happened almost 10 years ago and the statute of limitations must have run out by now. Could i risk prosecution for lying on the affidavit that i had no knowledge (which i do now but not back then?)

Please help..

 

[divgradcurl]

My question is: if i do fill out the affidavit and attest the account opened up in 1997 was fraudulent, do i risk them doing a further investigation and bring action against my ex-wife even though this happened almost 10 years ago and the statute of limitations must have run out by now.

Well, there are two statutes of limitations to consider here. First one is the debt itself -- typically you only have 4 years to collect on the debt, so unless you send them a payment to "reset" the clock, the statute has run for them to collect the debt (based on what you've written, of course, other facts could potentially change this).

However, if you give them information that leads them to believe that real fraud occured, then it's a possibility that they could get the local DA interested in pursuing a criminal fraud complaint against her. No way to know how likely this is or not -- the thing to remember is that the statute of limitations only begins to run once someone finds out about the crime -- so if they knew about the fraud from day 1, the statute of limitations has run, but if they just found out today, then likely the statute BEGINS running today.

So yeah, it possible your affadavit could start something. How likely that is, who knows.

Could i risk prosecution for lying on the affidavit that i had no knowledge (which i do now but not back then?)

Probably not. But if they do decide to investigate, and do decide to ask the DA to file a complaint, and the DA does, then when you get subpoenaed to testify, or deposed, lying there could get you in trouble.