BG Legal...Question Involving Credit

[Quixon]

Here's the situation. My g/f is having some trouble with credit, and since we are close to getting married.... I don't want her problems to be my problems.


Here's the deal...

My g/f's parents have terrible credit, and not really much income. My g/f was recently trying to get her car refinanced to lower the monthly payments, and found a ding against her credit for $1200 from Sprint. It turns out her mother opened a Sprint account with all her mother's info.... but my g/f's social security number, ended up falling behind on the bill... and just left it. My girlfriend wasn't even 18 at the time the account was opened to my knowledge.

Now my question is, is there anything she can do to fix this shit without having her mom arrested lol? The collections people are obviously no help at all, they just want the $1200 paid. I'm not even sure where to go with this honestly lol.

[zoobernut]

You can call the credit report company like Equifax and contest the ding on your credit report. Then all she has to prove is the ss# doesn't match the name on the account and it was not hers and they should take it off.

I called them up and had them remove some stuff off my credit report that was not accurate before.

[Quixon]

I'll start with that. Thank you for the heads up.

Any other suggestions?

[Pikarya]

Don't pussy to the creditors, if they get aggressive fight back with them. I had a similar issue when I moved about a year ago. A lot of false reports on my credit along with some minor debts. At first they wouldn't do anything, keep fighting with them. The more I threatened them legally, the quicker the process went.

[Kiro]

Personal credit is pointless.

Business credit ftw.

[Pringles]

Same exact thing happened to a co-worker of mine. She recently had turned 18 and found out her mother, when she was 13, opened a cable contract with her social security number. When my co-worker went to try to get a credit card, found out her mother did that. The company she spoke with about told her she had two options, either pay off the debt, or report her mother for fraud and let it run the legal course. She ended up paying it off, since it was only $210.

Most likely getting this fixed without paying it off will get her mother into a lot of trouble.

[Mizango]

Zoob hit it right on the head. Contest it and show it was not her and they will remove it and put it onto the mothers credit. I've had to do this twice, both times were due to someone by the same name but in a completely different state and race.

Credit ratings are a joke and are poorly regulated due to it having no government affiliation(s), keep up with it yourself and contest everything you know that is not yours.

[Quixon]

The company she spoke with about told her she had two options, either pay off the debt, or report her mother for fraud and let it run the legal course.

That's exactly what the collections company is telling my g/f as well. We are going to file a dispute with the credit reporting agencies and see what happens.

[zoobernut]

Of course the company that is owed the money is going to say that! They will do ANYTHING they can to intimidate you and scare you into thinking you only have those two options because either way they get vindication.

Call Equifax or whatever credit rating company she is using and file a dispute with them ignore the company to whom the money is owed completely until you get answer from the credit rating company.

[Mizango]

Exactly, nothing more than scare tactics.

[Aerides]

get her fico and full report before send out the wedding invitations. my bet is there is more than one issue.

[Quixon]

get her fico and full report before send out the wedding invitations. my bet is there is more than one issue.

Haha. Yeah we are going to go through everything once this gets cleaned up.

[Absolutely Virtue]

Just a little bit of unsolicited advice-

Once you do get married and have kids, don't let your in-laws babysit...

[zoobernut]

Otherwise your 4 year old daughter might end up with a new financed car and a credit card....

[Stumblingdrunk]

These are not "scare tactics" her mother committed fraud, it's illegal. Can you threaten them and have it removed from her record? sure. However, nothing you can do outside of covering the debt, will protect her mother.

[Norelco]

Well, I married my dream girl
I married my dream girl
But she didn't tell me her credit was bad
So now instead of living in a pleasant suburb
We're living in the basement at her mom and dad's
No we can't get a loan
For a respectable home
Just because my girl defaulted on some old credit card
If we'd gone to free credit report dot com
I'd be a happy bachelor with a dog and a yard.

[Absolutely Virtue]

Otherwise your 4 year old daughter might end up with a new financed car and a credit card....

Promise I wasn't trying to woosh you. Wasn't suggesting they'd do the same thing. Was implying that people who would do that to their daughter probably won't make the best grandparents in general. Thought that was obvious.

[archibaldcrane]

Promise I wasn't trying to woosh you. Wasn't suggesting they'd do the same thing. Was implying that people who would do that to their daughter probably won't make the best grandparents in general. Thought that was obvious.

You should've gone the joke route, the serious-face response is bleh.

[zoobernut]

Promise I wasn't trying to woosh you. Wasn't suggesting they'd do the same thing. Was implying that people who would do that to their daughter probably won't make the best grandparents in general. Thought that was obvious.

You just wooshed yourself by thinking that I was being wooshed by your serious non-woosh.

These are not "scare tactics" her mother committed fraud, it's illegal. Can you threaten them and have it removed from her record? sure. However, nothing you can do outside of covering the debt, will protect her mother.

Actually they are scare tactics. I have dealt with this situation first hand and the right thing to do is go to the credit report company and file a claim of false information or whatever its actually called. Do not deal with the company that you "owe" money too. If you go this rout you leave it up to the company with a monetary claim against you to go after the mother or whoever committed the fraud. But you are not limited by what you do and doing that will not guarantee that the mother will be prosecuted like the company wants you to believe.

If you read what I originally wrote I explain all of this quite clearly.

[Mizango]

Zoober is making my job too easy. Agreed again.