Short version: I’m looking for advice on what to do in a situation where someone has taken the identity (SSN, etc) from a senior family member, used it to open several credit accounts, run up $75,000 or more in debt (still finding more), emptied some accounts, co-opted her pension and social security payments (we’ve gotten those back), and did not pay any of these bills. Now her credit is ruined, the creditors are coming after her, and we don’t know if we have any recourse to clean up her credit, try and recover any money, stop the claims, and so on.
Holy crap. I’m so sorry this happened to your family member. Has the thief been caught, and are you reasonably sure there won’t be any future new fraudulent activity? If not, you can place a “credit freeze” with the credit agencies. That can prevent any new credit from being issued. That doesn’t help with the existing problems, of course, but if the thief is still running around, it can help keep things from getting worse.
How old is she, and does she have any plans to buy a house, car, etc? Not to be indelicate, but the ruined credit rating may not be a major issue if she’s elderly.
I’m afraid I don’t much advice on the other issues.
She’s 80. The main reason I’m worried about her credit rating is that she’d like to move into a retirement home. Her long time roommate just died and she’s lonely.
I assume she/you have filed reports with the local police and the FBI.
If the retirement home she’s interested in is one of the larger ones, I’d expect they’ve seen this before. The police report would I think protect her from the bad credit report.
No, in part because we live in another state from where this happened, and in part because this happened about 6 months ago and we just figured it out. I’m trying to get everything organized.
In that case, put together whatever evidence you have and on Monday morning call the non-emergency number for the police department local to where the family member lives. If you can travel there, that would be good, but not necessary.
If you’re going to pursue this long-distance, perhaps scan or photocopy the evidence. You might be able to email the scanned evidence or overnight the photocopied stuff.
Some people are reluctant to when it’s against a family member. IF you are willing to press charges, contact the various creditors, share the paperwork & ask them to back everything out against your mother/aunt. Note that this is different than them just writing off the charges. The difference being if they do the former then they should also withdraw the credit report ding.
This will require calls/follow up/work on your part, but once done, it’s an ‘instant’ fix to (this part of) her credit score. Realize that you may need to deal with the credit bureau(s) to ensure that these dings are removed. Note that the FTC estimates it can be six months & 200 hours of work to clean this mess up. Even if that link is overestimating the time by a factor or 2x or 3x, you’re still taking dozens of hours of work on your part which is why I put instant in quotes.
If you’re not willing to press charges against a family member/longtime neighbor/caretaker, then the various creditors will consider them legitimate charges that were not paid back according to the agreement.
On a related tangent, do retirement homes look at credit scores or just assets? It’s expected that someone in a retirement home isn’t working anymore & therefore doesn’t have any income other than their existing assets. Even if granny has stellar credit but only $5000 in assets, she’s not going to be able to afford the retirement home for very long (assuming they want more than just her SS/medicare payments)
The actual question is “Is the victim willing to press charges?”
OP is not the victim. Unless there’s some legal guardianship or something similar, the victim is the only person to address the legal and financial ramifications. OP may be able to help, but I would not want any financial or law enforcement entity to swing into action on the basis of a report from someone other than a legally competent victim.
Pressing charges is turning out to be the rub. It’s a family member with a gambling problem. He thought he could cover things for just a while before that next big win, and it never came. He never told her he was doing this. He just kept opening accounts, and either using them to pay living expenses or taking out cash advances. He also got into several retirement accounts and emptied them. She still has her pension and SS.
I’m continuing to gather all of the documentation on what has happened, and I’m pulling credit reports to make sure I catch everything. I hope that when we sit down together and look at the scale of it that she’ll report it, but I don’t know that she will. It’s one of those situations where you say it makes you feel sick and it really does. I can’t comprehend doing this to an elderly relative. Addiction is a bitch. I think this asshole needs to spend some time in jail to sort his life out.
I’ve seen it before (at a job); people bitching they want their money back. Sure, Customer, we’ll do that, just as soon as you press charges against your kid/brother/niece/nephew/SO. It’s amazing how few times we actually gave someone money back.
You’ll need to check credit reports for a while.
A new account was recently opened; it’ll take a while until that is considered delinquent & reported.
An account was opened some time ago, but the relative is making the minimum $15 payment so it’s not delinquent, it’s sometimes a little harder to find these in the credit report & realize they’re not legitimately Mom’s/aunt’s because they’re marked as being current.
No. There is no rub. He needs to be arrested YESTERDAY. I’m sure she’s a sweet old lady but he HURT her. If she won’t report him do you have any recourse? There may be an elder abuse service that can help her.
