Suppose your son or daughter takes your credit card, and uses it to make a purchase. He/she signs your name-is this act fraud?
As far as I know, a credit card can only be (legally) used by the person to whom it was issued-is any other use, by any other person, fraudulent?
Did you authorize the use? Do you intend to pay off the purchase?
IANAL
My understanding is that it is only fraud if there is “intent to defraud”. If your child has your permission, I can’t see any reasonable way to read “intent to defraud” into that, unless there are other circumstances. There’s also the law of Agency so if you let your child use the card, I think the law might consider that legally equivalent to you going to the store with your child and letting them get whatever they want and then you swipe and sign.
Also, if your child didn’t have permission, and knew that they didn’t have permission, but intended all along to reimburse you or somehow pay your bill for you, and then actually did so promptly, then I, personally, wouldn’t see that as a big deal unless it became burdensome for me to track. Whether or not this is fraud may be jurisdiction dependent.
If the merchant knows that the child is signing as the parent’s agent, that’s one thing. But if the child gave an unwitting merchant a false name to induce the merchant to carry out a transaction that it otherwise might not have, ISTM that that could be fraud. Possibly a civil claim if not criminal. And on the civil side, if the parent gave the child the card, that may be breach of contract as to the card issuer too.
Obviously this is going to depend on the precise wording of the criminal legislation in the place where the act is done. But, in general, fraud offences require (at least) two elements:
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Dishonesty; false representations (which may be express or implied - e.g. producing and using a credit card is an implied representation that you are, or are authorized by, the cardholder).
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Obtaining financial or material advantage (or, sometimes, imposing disadvantage on another, even if there is no advantage to the perpetrator).
If I use your credit card without your authorization, that’s dishonesty. But if my intention is to reimburse you in full, it may not be fraud.
You could argue that it is fraud, since I have obtained credit, and that’s a financial advantage - by lying, I have obtained the use of someone else’s money (the bank’s) and someone else’s creditworthiness (the cardholder’s) and that’s a financial advantage. Whether the fraud would be prosecuted is another matter.
How old is the child? If under 18 it is probably not fraud per se as they would be considered under your care and you would find it hard not to be held responsible for their debt. Over 18? Fraud, parents are usually the first victims of drug addicted children and they generally get away with it to keep the situation from becoming a source of embarrassment.
A slightly-related thread I started a couple years back:
General consensus was that it wasn’t the greatest idea. Though in my opinion, unlikely to get caught.
Generally, yes that would be fraud, but we need more information from the OP to answer the question.
Is the parent aware of the CC use?
Was implicit permission given?