While I was off at college, my mother forged my signature to a credit card application addressed to me at my old home address.
Here is only part of my story.
I need help in fighting the credit card companies who allowed her to default over $12,000 to this fraudulently obtained account.
I also wish to publicize this increasingly common financial nightmare-type situation in hopes that credit card companies start changing the manner in which they obtain their customers.
Please email me about anyone interested in doing a story on this topic. I think it is an important subject to be addressed.
denise @joymail.com
July 31, 2000
I was on AM radio today on the Clark Howard show.
"What did your mother do to you?!" he opened.
I proceeded to tell him the story of that started last spring when two of my credit cards were suddenly canceled.
I was never late with payments and had them pretty much paid off. So, I figured it must have been the school loan payments which I had deferred for the year. When I called my credit card companies, they suggested I order my credit report.
When I got my credit report I was shocked to find an over $12,000 credit card account written off as bad credit. It was a joint account for a GM MasterCard with my mother which I had never signed for, never charged to, never received bills for, or never had been notified by anyone about.
I called her and she admitted to forging my signature. Even if she had the money and could pay the account off, it would still be on my credit reports at least until I was 37.
BUT, what about me? What about my future? I have always wanted to own my own house. I yearn for that sense of stability and home. I never thought I'd have to throw that dream away because of ruined credit.
I spent the next few days on the phone with the credit company, stressing to them that this is not my credit card account.
And finally several weeks later, after writing several letters the credit reporting agencies and the creditor, the account was deleted from all three credit reports.
I requested my credit reports once more a few months later. I found that the account is back on my report, but this time it was listed as a collection agency (Creditrust) and had a different account number. (I learned that a credit reporting agency may not put something back on your credit report after deleting it, but the way around it for them is to add a third party collection agency. They can claim that it is a separate account and that they always remove disputed items and may put them back on the report if they are found ?valid?)
GM/Household bank will not discuss the account with me because they have turned it over to a collection agency. The collection agency, at one time, told me that they have turned the account over to their ?lawyers" and I must deal with the lawyers. I called the lawyers. The "lawyers" couldn't find a record of this account anywhere. Creditrust says the only thing I can do is get a fraud affidavit sent to me from their consumer resolutions department (which can be reached directly only by fax and mail) and send it back in..
Clark Howard said I have to get a fraud affidavit from the credit card company who accepted my signature as valid. (But they won?t discuss the account with me) The FTC says I have to get the affidavit from the collection agency.
One FTC hotline operator says it's too late to have my mother arrested for identity theft (that it must be done within the year it happened) Another FTC representative says that I must file charges now anyway, in GA (where I live now), even though my mother signed the application in NY state while I was in another state attending college.
I am very responsible about money, most of my paycheck go toward paying off my student loans, and I always pay off my credit cards. Now I am being held back by total irresponsibility that wasn't even mine.
April 28, 2001
Since then, I have sent in an affidavit to Creditrust and GM/Household Bank saying that it is not my account. (September 2000) I received no kind of response from either entity even though I requested that they let me know the result of the affidavit.
I have hired a lawyer who asked for $5,000 up front to litigate for me. That kind of money does not exist in my life at this time.
I found out that I can only have my mother arrested for something she did in the past 5 years. (The account was opened without my knowledge or consent in 1992)
I also just found out that Creditrust is now NCO and gave my account a new number. Hence, they can put it back on my credit report ("legally") as a different account. I predict that this will go on for the rest of my life unless I find another way to stop it.
ECO says that it my responsibility to prove that the account is not mine-that they don?t have to prove to me that it?s mine.
I tend to think that they should provide me with the original signatures on the credit card application. NCO will not even send me a bill of any kind unless I agree to begin making payments on the account (resulting in a kind of admittance of responsibility for the account.)
I can?t get a copy of the originally forged signature because GM/Household Bank will not discuss it with me even thought they still have my information on file when I give them my SS number.
Is there any end to my nightmare?
Please help.
Thank you.