ID theft by parent!?!?

photokitty

I can understand yours cousin's confliction. Honestly the F's on my transcript would bee what would do it for me.

I would probably consider paying off my mom's debt, but to not be able to get into the academic program I had worked so hard for, served my country to pay for...yeah, I'd press charges of it meant reaching my potential and achieving my academic and career dreams.

Money is just money, you can make more if you have a good career...something your cousin's mom has now stolen from her.

Sugargirl1019

Mom put her daughter in a prison. So, I think daughter should return the favor and put HER in prison.

This woman has ruined her life!

themuffinman16

My mom took money from my account once, $7,000 from my back settlement. When she explained why she did it, she said she would lose her house. (Trying to make me sympathize with her.) Turns out, she gave it to my step-father to buy a classic car to race on the drag strip. But it never went as far as ruined credit

beethery

That kind of shit shows that her mom does not actually fucking care about her. Say what you want, she might put on a nice face and listen to her daughter about stuff, and she might act supportive.

BUT, doing some underhanded illegal shit that directly affects your child is not behavior that says, "I care about my child."

banana468

beethery said:

That kind of shit shows that her mom does not actually fucking care about her. Say what you want, she might put on a nice face and listen to her daughter about stuff, and she might act supportive.

BUT, doing some underhanded illegal shit that directly affects your child is not behavior that says, "I care about my child."

It's behavior that says, "I'm betting my daughter cares more about me. "

ShellD13

I'm so sorry for your cousin - this is terrible.  Her mom has shown a terrible lack of regard for her own mother and daughter!  I know it is tough but I think she has to pursue bringing charges against her...

On another note, I used to work for a child and family welfare agency.  The kids in our care were subjected to this type of abuse from their bio families quite frequently.  The State was actually playing with legislation that would require programs like ours to obtain a credit report for each child in their care before they aged out to try to detect this type of fraud/abuse.

melbenso

steph11814 said:

Question for the lawyers out there: If the cousin doesn't report this, does that make her an accessory after the fact?

I haven't practiced criminal law in several years and laws vary from state to state, but to the best of my knowledge, no it would not.  Especially since she is the victim.

However, PPs are correct in noting that if she doesn't report it she's probably going to be stuck with a lot of it.  If she were my client, I would advise her to at least make a police report.  That doesn't necessarily mean she has to press charges, although depending on where she is, the prosecutor might make that decision without her.

flyingfoxes

I talked to FI about this last night, and he said he'd be right there with the cops when he had her arrested if it were his mom.  We are heartless people like that, I guess.  lol

beethery

april182015bride said:

I talked to FI about this last night, and he said he'd be right there with the cops when he had her arrested if it were his mom.  We are heartless people like that, I guess.  lol

Yup. Anybody did this to me, regardless of relationship... I'd be like "Cool. Bye!" as the cops took them away.

misshart00

This makes me kind of ragey. If I was brother and has my identity stolen later, I would be asking, why didn't you do something about this way back when? You could have prevented this from happening to me.

lc07

nicoann said:

I just am so disturbed by this and need to vent. Sorry, it's kind of long.

I hung out with a cousin over the weekend and got caught up on some family gossip. She is starting her 2nd year of college. She had gone away for school last year, didn't like it there, so came back to go to college locally this year. Her college application & financial aid were taking a long time, which was unusual since she has always been good student and there shouldn't be any issues. They told her there was an issue with the financial aid. She looks into it and is told there are unpaid loans in default from an online college that need to be paid back before she can get more financial aid. It turns out her mom signed her up for classes and did the coursework long enough to get the financial aid draw, then stopped doing the work. This also has now left a couple F's on cousins college transcripts. So, cousin looks further and pulls her credit history. Her mom also took out max. loans for the other college last year, in cousins name. They had told her GI Bill covered everything and not to worry about the expenses because it was all taken care of. She also found a couple credit cards on her report that were all maxed out. Some of it probably did go toward cousins college expenses, but not all of it. And even if it did, they should have kept cousin informed of these things! I'm sure she would have rather cut back on expenses or something instead of ruining her future. But, she thought it was all covered by GI and grants. So, now my cousin has horrible credit, can't get financial aid due to defaulted loans, and has F's on her transcript which may prevent her from getting accepted into the program she wants. Oh, and come tax time, all this money will be reported as income for the year, so she'll get screwed again and have to pay, probably $5-10k in taxes on it. How does a parent do this to their own child?!

 

It seems incredulous, that a parent would do this, but when she told me about this, I didn't doubt her story for a second. It's not the first time her mom has done this. A few years ago she took out multiple credit cards in her own mothers name and maxed them out, then would stop paying or just pay minimum payments. The credit companies went to college and her mom is on social security with bad health and no assets, so there's nothing she could do to pay them. But, she's ruined her own credit so bad, so now she's taking out credit in anyone's name she has info for. She's also screwed over her brother and stolen his disability money. He's currently in process of changing his social security number because she has all his information, so it's impossible to stop her. My cousin has put holds on all her credit and is debating changing her social security number also.

 

This woman is one of the biggest drama queens I've ever met. She exaggerates everything and is super manipulative. The whole family knows not to take anything she says at face value. I've already cut most all contact with her because she started telling people I said things I never said and creating drama in my life... and I try to stay as far away from drama as possible. It's easy to buy into her stories, she's your typical soccer mom type, seems responsible, but after you've seen too many stories turn into lies or heard too many stories like this from people, you see past the mask. Her husband seems to not know about any of it. But, how could he not know? They have more money spent than income. Either he's fully aware and just as bad as she is, or he's naïve and completely falling for her stories, in denial, and/or just plain stupid. Sadly, I think he really just has no clue and falls for everything she says. And now her mom is telling everyone that its my cousins fault and she was the one being irresponsible with the money. Some people probably believe her. But, any of our family members don't buy it for a second, because we know what her mom is like and see past her mask.

 

My cousin has consulted lawyer to figure out how to fix this mess. Option 1 is that somebody has to pay back all the debt. Either her or her parents. I think her parents are running out of people to steal money from, so it may be all on her. And it still leaves her with bad credit from the defaulting and bad grades on her record. She may be able to settle to reduce payments or whatever. Although, some of the companies won't even talk to her since she doesn't know the passwords and pin numbers on the accounts, since she didn't set them up, so they don't believe it's really her. Option 2 is file fraud charges against her mom. If she does that everything can get wiped clean (finances, credit history, loan, bad grades, everything) , but her mom will possibly do 10-15 years in prison. Lawyer said there were at least three class 1 felony charges with min. 6 years each to be served consecutively, so even with reduced charges or whatever she would almost definitely do some prison time. It's easy to say to just press charges, but it's her mom. How do you make that decision to send a parent to prison? And, if we give her the benefit of the doubt, maybe she did do it to send cousin to the college she wanted and had good intentions, but just went about it the REALLY wrong way. On one hand, she needs something to happen to make her stop screwing over family. If it was lesser crime and sentence, with just probation or something, it probably wouldn't be a question about pressing charges, but real prison time complicates it. Nobody wants to do that to a parent, even if the parent screwed you over. On top of that, my cousin has a little brother to think about. Sending mom to prison would rip apart his world. But, I'm not sure mom is the best role model either. And part of me does wonder if she truly thought she was doing it for the right reasons, to help give my cousin the education she wanted, and is just so messed up that she just didn't realize how wrong and irresponsible it was. And didn't think about the long term consequences of it. If that's the case, major prison time doesn't seem appropriate. Even though it still doesn't change the fact that she did defraud both my cousin and the financial aid system. My brain really wants to think it was all done with the best intentions in mind, and I usually try to give people the benefit of the doubt. But, given her history, I have serious doubts about her intentions.

 

It's a lose-lose situation no matter what my cousin does. I feel so bad for her. I want so badly to help, but there really isn't anything I can do. Plus, I really want to stay out of the drama. These people are the only family I have nearby, but I avoid them as much as possible because I hate the drama. I've told my cousin that I'm here for support or talk to, if she needs it. But, that's about all I can do. Luckily her boyfriend seems to be pretty responsible and reasonable and an awesome support system for her. But, the whole situation has been bugging me and my DH since yesterday... even ruining both our sleep last night. Mainly anger and, I don't know, disbelief (not sure that's the right word... maybe shock) that ANYONE would be able to do something like this. It's almost like we aren't shocked that she is capable of this, but still shocked that she would actually do it... if that makes any sense. And there is part of me that thinks I'm only hearing one side of the story, but I know the other side lies and exaggerates. So, even if I did get her mom's side of the story, I wouldn't believe it anyway. But, I just can't get this mess out of my mind, so hopefully this rant will help some.

This is something many victims feel and it needs to stop being perpetuated. She isn't sending her mom to prison. Her mother's choices and actions are sending her mother to prison. 

princessleia22

 

jnrsgirl said:

I second the Lifelock idea. The cost is certainly worth it. Or she can also contact the credit reporting agencies and have them block the pulling of any of her credit information without her calling them directly to give her express consent. It can be a small pain sometimes, but it definitely is worth it when you have evil family members ruining your credit.

She has put a block on her credit with all the agencies.  And she set it up where no credit decisions can be made or accounts opened without her appearing in person and showing photo ID.  She can't have anything that can be authorized over the phone because her mom knows all her identifying info to answer any security questions (SSN, birthdate, mothers maiden name, address, previous addresses, phone, etc.), and her mom has called these places in the past saying she was my cousin. 

And she has currently cut all contact with them and hasn't talked to them directly in about a month.  She was trying to figure out how to approach them and say that they need to fix it or she will press charges.  So far, anytime she's talked to them about it in the past, it's turned into a big fight. I told her to have her lawyer right a letter to them.  That keeps her from having to talk to them directly or risking another shouting match and it lets them know that she is serious about it. But, who knows how they would come up with the money to pay it, without screwing someone else over.  There are parent loans, but their own credit is so screwed that they can't get any of their own financing... that's why they took out loans & credit cards in their kids name. So, they won't be able to get any legal financing to pay it off.

But, even then, it only takes care of the financial portion. The school program she hopes to get into is pretty competitive and the F's may keep her from being accepted.  She's takes a lot of community college courses, so hopefully an abundance of good grades will overpower those couple of bad ones.

And it still doesn't teach her mom a lesson or save her brother from a similar fate someday, unless the threat of prosecution is enough to stop her, which it rarely is for people. I don't know what course of action she will take.  She may just try to get them to pay it and avoid anything legal.  But, she is definitely seriously considering pressing charges and she may very well go that route.

But, it's just infuriating to know someone who would do this. And if we were to see her, I seriously think my DH would punch her right now.  We would both certainly go off on her.  I've been so tempted to call her and bitch her out, but I know that it's best for me to just stay out of it. So, I'll just sit back, be angry, and support my cousin in any way I can.

 

lnixon8

I have a friend that went through a similar situation. It is heart breaking to watch. Especially when I consider how often I ask for and how highly I value my Dad's opinion; it's hard to imagine not only not having his advice, but the fact that he wouldn't have my best interest at heart. It's hard for my friend to move out becasue his credit is so bad. Sad...