Identity Theft by Family

[chrisllo]

What is the name of your state? MD

My best friend spoke with me today she knows for a fact that her older sister is using her name and social to obtain accounts for herself. We know of a telephone account and a cable bill that she started under my friends name within the last year both she ran up and they have disconnected. We also know that she used the information to attempt to receive a loan using my friend as a co-signer and my friend's truck for colateral. The telephone company contacted my friend after her sister failed to pay the bill totaling over $400. After they gave her the address of where the phone was installed at she realized it was her sister's residence my friend told them that she did not authorize the phone. However, they told her that she was still responsible for the debt and that she needed to pay it or else they would take it to court.

My question is how does she go about clearing her credit we are ordering a copy of her credit reports. Does she have to envolve the police. Her sister has a 4 year old son. Also my friend lives with her Grandmother and if anything happens (court or jail wise) may lose a place to live.

Would it just be better for her to file for bankruptcy?

 

[AmosMoses]

I see that, unless you find out different after you get the credit report, that the only fraudulent bill that you are aware of is for $400.00, which is less than what a bankruptcy would cost you. Now, as far as the "attempt at getting a loan", well, there is no recourse available for you there EXCEPT for criminal action, which you seem to want to avoid anyway. Now, your friend cannot control what a lender, who is a victim of fraud by the identity thief, does as far as pressing criminal charges....if they know that they were victims of fraud by identity theft, I expect them to want to press criminal charges. If your friend has other reasons to want to file bankruptcy, which she may, considering that the sister was unable to get one fraudulent loan (if she was tuned down, then your friend's credit is likely not the best to begin with, making her want to file bankruptcy anyway, ESPECIALLY considering that she is even considering bankruptcy for a $400 bill). Thing is, if your friend attempts to have a fraudulent loan discharged through bankruptcy, and the lender finds out, then your friend may well find herself under criminal charges as well.

 

[Ladynred]

But, the fraudulent loan was not HER FRAUD, it was caused by the fraud by someone who STOLE HER IDENTITY !!

Your 'friend' needs to stop being a bleeding heart and file a police report for identity theft. There is NO WAY that your friend can be held liable for a FRAUDULENT DEBT, but she DOES have to DO something about it. She MUST report it to the cops, to the phone company AND to the credit bureaus - and she must do it IN WRITING - forget phone calls, they don't mean squat.

She needs to IMMEDIATELY put a fraud alert on all 3 of her reports to stop the thieving sister in her tracks, just call the 3 bureaus and tell them what you want and why. When she gets her credit reports she MUST dispute any fraudulent accounts with the bureaus IN WRITING and she WILL be asked for a police report.

I understand that blood is thicker than water, BUT, there are limits even to that. Her sister obviously doesn't care about what she's doing to your friend and her credit and is proving herself to be a criminal that MUST be stopped.

 

[chrisllo]

The loan was not turned down. She only found out about it because they called her about the truck.

I know there are 2 current accounts totaling over $1000. The phone bill was only $400. I am also sure that there are other accounts in the past that her sister opened in her name.

Does the police have to be involved in order to remove these accounts from my friends name. Her whole family is on the side of her sister. I also know that she has now gone to using her mother's name for her phone bill. My friend has always seemed to be her families trash can everything she does is wrong. She took the last year off of work to care for her sister's child most times without being paid.

 

[AmosMoses]

It seems from what you have posted here that your friend needs to get a copy of her credit report (which you say that you/she are in the process of doing), and then she needs to vigorously refute EVERY illegitimate loan/bill/etc., just as Ladynred said. I mean, the thing is that she needs to report this to the appropriate authorities and let the chips fall where they may. If it worries her so much about what her family thinks (which in my opinion it shouldn't.....if her family is going to defend a fraud and a thief, then maybe she needs to re-think her concerns as to what her family thinks of her), then she could tell them that she saw fraudluent accounts on her credit report, had no idea who opened those accounts, and she turned it over to the authorities. Then, she would have no "blame" as far as the family is concerned...again, I think that this should be the LAST thing that she should be worried about, anyway.

I am gonna say one more time here....if your friend tries to discharge these fraudulent accounts through her own bankruptcy, SHE is VERY liable to wind up with a felony record herself!

Finally, as I said, your friend may well want to re-think her position as the family "trash can"....she will only be that if she lets herself be it! The absolute BEST thing, BY FAR, to do here, as Ladynred so aptly put it, is to vigorously report and pursue every fraudulent account, letting the chips fall where they may. The worst thing to do when the s%*& hits the fan is to get in the way yourself cuz you will wind up with it all over you, too, so she needs to know that if she tries to "help" her sister avoid prosecution she is putting her own neck on the line. Aside from fraud and/or conspiracy charges, plus every other weapon the feds' arsenal, your friend needs to realize that if she tries to discharge these bad debts via bankruptcy, and she sends one tiny piece of fraudulent paperwork in to a lender, to the Court, or anyone to else, placing a stamp on that paperwork and putting it in the mailbox constitues mail fraud, and the legal web spreads from there. If she tries this, I can guarantee you that she will be viewed by the Court as having planned all this with her sister from the start to purposely defraud these lenders, and they will both be looking at potential jail time, the life-long stain of being felons plus all the adverse prizes that come along with that, not to mention fines and/or restitution, along with any other little niceties the feds can dream up.

It's simply not worth it, period....identity theft is now SERIOUS business, and your friend needs to decide if she wants to be a victim of it or a conspirator along with it. To me, that's one helluva easy choice! Lenders are quite tired of being victimized by this kinda thing, and believe you me they will be absolutely tickled to draw your friend into the prosecutorial web, too....more chance of getting some decent reimbursement from them both than her sister alone, I am quite sure! This may sound harsh, but I expect it's a fact.....if I am wrong anywhere in this post, I expect that someone will let you know.

 

[Ladynred]

Does the police have to be involved in order to remove these accounts from my friends name.

Yes, it is. IF she disputes the fraudulent accounts with the credit bureaus, they are going to want to see a police report. She does not have to tell them she KNOWS who the thief is, but she DOES have to report it to get it on the record.

I am gonna say one more time here....if your friend tries to discharge these fraudulent accounts through her own bankruptcy, SHE is VERY liable to wind up with a felony record herself!

I'm sorry, but that's just not true. If SHE had committed the fraud, the debts could be deemed non-dischargeable due to fraud. That, however, is NOT the case and its also another very important reason to FILE A POLICE REPORT.

IF the family is defended the thief, then they too are WRONG.

 

[AmosMoses]

Look, I may be no lawyer, but if this lady goes and claims that she acquired these debts legitimately and then tries to have them discharged as her own debts, and she does NOT say that they were fraudulently acquired in some misguided attempt to "save" her sister and kiss up to her family, THAT is fraud in and of itself, period. And, if she claims same in correspondence through the USPS, that is mail fraud. That's just a fact.... Fraud is fraud is fraud is fraud.....it is just as fraudulent for the SISTER to claim that she is the FRIEND to acquire a loan as it is for the FRIEND to claim that she acquired the loan legitimately so that she can discharge it through her own bankruptcy to "save" the SISTER and avoid having the SISTER prosecuted for the original fraud. I'll stick by that claim until you-know-what freezes over!

 

[AmosMoses]

OK, I think I see what's what here....two different trains of thought. My impression was that the attempt to discharge the debts through bankruptcy was gonna be done to protect the sister, that the friend was gonna claim that the debts were hers, and legitimate, to have them discharged with no harm to the sister....Ladynred is saying that the debts could be discharged for the friend as fraudulent with no harm to the friend, and I totally agree with that. My impression was because the whole thing was supposedly to "protect" the sister to start out with. I guess it depends on what tack the friend takes, and if she claims that these debts were fraudulently acquired or not when she takes bankruptcy.

 

[Ladynred]

OK, Amos, I think you see where I'm coming from. Whether its to protect the sister or not, the fact is, these debts ARE in the friends name and that's all that the creditors are going to see - and that's all the BK court would see as well. I understand your point about fraud, but from a creditors narrow point of view, they don't give a rat's patoot HOW the debt got in her name - not unless she stands up and defends her rights against the ID theft crime. She is NOT liable for a debt incurred through ID theft, but if she does nothing about it, its just going to continue to hurt her in more ways than one.

 

[AmosMoses]

If this lady tried to discharge a debt through bankruptcy and the creditor shows up to contest it, and they can find ANYTHING to use to contest it, they will, including the fact that someone else incurred the debt and this lady (the friend) claimed that she did. Companies have whole departments of fraud investigators, so if this lady wants to risk saying that she incurred a debt that her sister did, just so she can have it discharged through bankruptcy and protect her sister, she is crazy. I agree 100% that no one is liable for a debt incurred through fraud, but I believe the point to this whole thread is that the sister is willing to file bankruptcy rather than report the sister and get her in trouble. If so, to me that says that she is going to attempt to call the debts her own so that they can be discharged with no charge on the sister.

If this lady tries to have a debt discharged because it is fraudulent, that is fine. If this lady attempts to call a debt her own to attempt to get it discharged through bankruptcy so that her sister does not get charged with identity theft, that is fraud on the FRIEND, period. And, if you read the tone of the OP, it's obvious that this is the point of the query.....how to get this debt removed without getting the sister in trouble!

You could examine any manner of crime as to the "chance of getting caught" to justify the risk of doing it, but regardless of what the lender will "probably do". Regardless of how narrow a scope a lender has in this, I would never risk assuming a debt as my own that my sister incurred in my name to save her from criminal charges. That, as I said twice before, transfers me from being the victim to a fraud myself. The law isn't written to prosecute only those who perpetuate fraud for their own benefit....I guarantee you if you are caught trying to discharge a debt as your own that isn't your own simply because you want to protect the original fraud, your sister, the lender can damned sure have grounds to file a criminal complaint against not only your sister, but you yourself as well. It just isn't worth the risk.

 

[AmosMoses]

As simply said as possible-

If I am a victim of identity theft by my sister, and I file bankruptcy, if I claim that the debt was fraudulent, I am a victim.

If I am a victim of identity theft by my sister, and I file bankruptcy, if I claim that the debt was mine so that I can have it discharged and protect my sister from criminal charges, I am a criminal.


That is all I am saying here.

 

[Ladynred]

I understand what you're saying. What I"M saying is that the creditors DON"T CARE, all they care about is that the debt is in HER NAME. If she never tells a BK lawyer or a Trustee the debts were the result of fraud by someone else and SHE didn't actually incur them, they are not likely to look any deeper than that.

Yes, creditors do investigations when people file bankruptcy, but what evidence would THEY have that these debts were NOT incurred by her ?? All they have is a name, SSN, etc. and if that matches HERS, chances are it won't go any further than that except maybe to object to the dischargeability of that debt. Then she would STILL be stuck. You're guilty until proven innocent when it comes to creditors.

This is why it can take YEARS for victims of identity theft to get their names and credit files cleaned up. While the credit bureaus have put in motion ID theft programs, they do NOT do a whole lot to stop the aftermath and in some cases, they perpetuate it.

 

[AmosMoses]

If I drove from my home right now and went to a place that I had never been, oh, say a few hundred miles from here, and I went and found an arbitrary house sitting near no neighbors, and I threw a rock through the window while the owners were not home, and then I drove home, the odds of me getting caught are slim to none, but I am not gonna do it, nor would it be any less illegal simply because I didn't get caught and no one tends to investigate these things. The chances are that I wouldn't break a leg running away, and that the owner would not come home from work early that one day and catch me crawling out of the drive, but hey, stranger things have happened. If this lady wants to discharge her sister's fraudulent debts as her own, I say rock and roll with it....it's still fraud, plain and simple, and that is what has this back and forth going between us here. I just never have subscribed too much to the "what are the odds that they'll catch me if I do such-n-such thing" theory.