And LAOP trusted their mom, which… they should be able to trust their mom. (We’ve all read LAOP to know otherwise, but you should be able to trust your parents.)
It's always really sad to read a story where someone was duped by their own parents. Parents should be the one guaranteed safe place in life. I know that's not realistic, but it doesn't make it any less sad.
Very few of us made a 30k+ stupid decision that we had to pay for. Most engineers in physical products have definitely made more expensive mistakes on the job. I think my most expensive one was ~$72k and they didn’t fire me!
Wait, what do they mean AMEX has no preset credit limit? I had an AMEX and it absolutely had a credit limit (but I'm Canadian so idk if the rules are different).
Are there credit cards with no actual limits? Or am I not understanding something?
The card she opened isn’t a credit card, it’s a charge card. It doesn’t have a preset spending limit, but you’re supposed to pay the statement in full every month. If you don’t pay it off, there’s higher interest and fees, and they may designate a preset limit or cut you off entirely. Amex makes money off it from the transaction fees and the annual fee.
It's a specific kind of AMEX card for Americans, it seems. From a quick glance, it only looks like it has a limit if you specify it, or if you've got some red flags on your credit that make you seem irresponsible. Seems like they've made a big mistake and will learn a tough lesson here with mom.
My (Canadian) parents told me once that AmEx was famous in the maybe 80s for having no credit limit. Which was dangerous because you could get in over your head, of course, but ALSO they knew someone who got their card stolen and like $100k charged to it. He ended up for some reason in a fight with them about it for, like, months. Made me glad I've never had a credit card where someone can get my number and charge an entire car to it or whatever
I had the cashier at Canada Computers say they couldn't take the corporate AmEx (in CAD) at my work because they "don't take foreign credit cards" for those kinds of purchases ha ha ha. I was like look I get "American" is in the name, but this was issued by like ScotiaBank or something...
"Made me glad I've never had a credit card where someone can get my number and charge an entire car to it or whatever"
Fun story - my partner used his Canadian credit card to buy a used car when he moved to LA. He's a duel citizen and moved back to the US for his first tenure track position, and did not realize that his Canadian credit rating did not show up in the US.
So he went to buy a used car and found that no one would trust him. They all wanted to offer a loan with 20% interest. He contacted his bank in Canada, where I was still living and working, and they upped his credit card limit by $9000, and gave him a big line of credit as well. They rubber stamped him still having an official residence with me in Canada to justify this. He went back to the dealership and bought the car he wanted on the credit card, which made some eyes pop at the dealership. Then when the card payment was due, he paid off as much as he could and covered the rest with his low interest line of credit.
This was in 2003; it's unlikely most Canadian banks would give 2 recent graduates that level of service these days.
IIRC there is an Amex with no limit, but it’s something like a platinum card and they are rare. They’re not something a normal consumer is going to have, it’s something billionaires have.
Credit card companies and banks are pretty good at assessing how much credit they can give you that they can claw back the costs plus interest to make a profit. They aren’t handing out free money with no strings attached.
Edit: I actually looked it up. AMEX does offer cards with "No Preset Spending Limit." Here's an AI summary:
Dynamic Limit: Your spending power isn't fixed; it grows as you use the card responsibly (paying on time, keeping balances low).
Factors Considered: Amex looks at your credit history, payment patterns, financial resources, and current spending on the card.
Not Unlimited: There is an underlying limit, but it's flexible and assessed per transaction, not a static number
There was a post (that seems to have been deleted) that mentions that some AMEX cards are (or perhaps, were) technically unlimited, but AMEX uses an algorithm to flag purchases above a certain amount, based on things like credit score, payment history and whatnot. Not the standard "flag unusual purchase" thing, but a more of a "we won't tell you what it is" credit limit.
Yeah i recall many years ago a wealthy uncle of a friend of mine having a black Amex card that had no limit, he boasted he could buy a house with it if he wanted
Can you imagine? The 2% unlimited cash back would be really nice. Put your down payment down with a credit card and make the first mortgage payment with your rewards.
I mean, I asked my dealership if I could put my downpayment on my card when I bought my car specifically for this reason.
Right after he muttered something about "you people and your points" he let me know they only allow 2k (at least I got those points)
I bought my sister a cash car last summer and even though the salesperson said max $2K the finance manager didn’t give a shit and let me put the whole $11K on my card.
Most transactional credit card regulations and laws apply to charge cards as well. If it has numbers that aren’t routing and account, not broker is going to take it. Many brokers can’t even process it.
Hi all, I’m looking for general legal guidance and next steps. Location: I’m located in WA state, she resides in CA.
In 2022, my (24) mother (50) opened an AMEX Gold card in my name WITH my consent. At the time, she had recently gone through a divorce and told me she wanted the card so her spending wouldn’t be tracked. I did not apply for or use the card myself.
Because it’s an AMEX (no preset spending limit), the balance has gradually grown and is now around $30,000. She has been making only the minimum payment each month, but has repeatedly said she would pay it off in full. Since around July of this year, she has continued to delay doing so.
The account is fully in my name (she made herself an authorized user) and tied to my credit, and I’m increasingly concerned about: • My credit liability if she stops paying • Long-term credit impact • Whether I’m already legally responsible for this debt I want to handle this without doing anything rash, but I also need to protect myself. I’m not trying to get her in trouble, but I do need to understand my rights and realistic options.
Some specific questions: • Is this considered identity theft or fraud even though she’s my parent? • What are my options if I want the debt removed from my name? • Can I force closure or payment without filing a police report? • What should I do first to protect my credit while trying to resolve this privately?
Any guidance on how to proceed carefully would be really appreciated. Thanks!
Edit for additional context
>She is unlikely to participate in any balance transfer or other option where she has to willingly participate given she’s a narcissistic sociopath.
She makes over $300k. Amount varies by year but in the past she had made over $500k.
That said she is extremely financially irresponsible and I wouldn’t be surprised if I have more savings than her.
>I asked her to pay it again today in which after screaming at me she said she would pay it over the next 24 months but that may have been to just end the conversation.
Edit 2:
To clarify, after being emotionally and financially pressured, as I was under her support at the time, I verbally agreed to letting her open it. That said I never contacted Amex, she impersonated me using my details to open the card and add herself as a user. I have never spent anything on the card. But I was aware of the existence of the card for the past 3 years so I understand that may waive any fraud claims.
I feel for LAOP, as the child of alcoholic narcissis', I got pressured and verbally abused into a lot of this shit, you literally can't say know because you do actually fear for your life, even if they haven't actively been hitting you.
But also credit scores are bullshit built on fake money to support a shadow economy.
Also if you're young and financially dependent your options may be to say yes and deal with debt in the future, or say no and deal with not being able to pay your bills now.
My father never physically abused me, but I was terrified of him. One memory burned in mind was when I was a teen. I had a cold and he and my stepmother said I could not was my hair because the cold would get worse and I wouldn’t be able to go to school (read: not take care of my step siblings). Hair dryers were not allowed because they used too much electricity.
It was Sunday so I had to go to Sunday School and church looking like a female version of a 1950s greaser. When I was teased about it, I told them I hadn’t been allowed. One girl, who was the classic mean girl type, asked why I didn’t just tell them to fuck off and do it anyway- what could he do… I guess the look on my face and my quiet “I don’t know” gave them all pause. Then and after that, they all, even her, treated me much more kindly and I was no longer ostracized or treated like the weirdo. So I guess a couple good things came out of it.
At least that the girl and other kids you mentioned seemed to have realized that we can never know exactly what other people are dealing with in their lives and how it might be affecting them. I think that’s one of the most important lessons in empathy for kids (or adults) to learn, but many never do.
They also replaced solely income-based measures--which is still what a lot of the world uses--which kinda sucks if you're not rich and want to buy a house. Yeah, credit scores suck, but that's really just because capitalism in general sucks and not because it's actively worse than any of the options we have under it.
And gender. My parents first mortgage only counted 25% of my mom’s annual income as a Dr, because she was a lady and would clearly be shortly stopping work to go do lady things. The fact she earned more than my dad was particularly galling.
I never wear my wedding ring at my corporate job. Young married women were/are routinely looked over for important projects because they 'are going to get pregnant and quit'.
yep, unfortunately i experienced this. my bio dad passed when i was younger and i received some of his life insurance payout in a trust. i was pressured into giving my bio mom thousands of dollars as “repayment” for raising me the very day i turned 18. fuck the bank employee who sat there and just allowed that to happen.
over 11 years of no contact and yet she still tries to find new ways to reach out. narcissists truly are the work of the devil.
Credit scores are better than the alternative (your borrowing ability is based on the bank officer's attitude towards you personally, leading to enormous issues of bias)
But at least all that bias comes out of impersonal statistics, which makes it systemic bias. That's not really any better or anything, but it does seem harder for people to get mad about.
AFAIK your credit score is actually a rather "easy" number to figure out. Like it isn't a complicated number. It is just a combination of your utilization(current balances over max credit), payment history(both length and any missed payments), and recent applications for new credit(opening a bunch of new accounts in a short period is suspicious).
So I don't see how that has any explicit bias against minorities specifically; it is more generally biased against the financially illiterate.
Right, that's what I was trying to describe. Because credit score is itself straightforward, as you've just described, the statement that bias is 'packed into' credit scores can only be considered meaningful in the sense that it reflects the inequality of a society, which is in turn the result of the prevailing biases of that society. That's how I was using the term 'systemic bias', in order to reconcile Venus's statement above with our understanding of credit scores.
"she wanted the card so her spending wouldn't be tracked". Not really clear how an ex-spouse would be able to track spending unless it was court-ordered, or why you'd even want to hide expenses as part of a divorce proceeding. I get the feeling that mom is hiding a lot of bad juju.
That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Obviously mom is not actually spending her income on this stuff or it wouldn't be debt. So it would actually make her appear to have MORE money. Unless, as I suspect, she has a severe spending problem. Probably spending her own cash, maxing out her own credit cards, and then getting more credit under her daughter's name when she can no longer get any herself.
I asked her to pay it again today in which after screaming at me she said she would pay it over the next 24 months but that may have been to just end the conversation.
This reminds me of when I lent a boyfriend 3K once because he was having financial troubles - and I had NEVER met anyone before that didn't feel a huge weight on their chest when they owed another person money and would try to repay it as soon as they could. So I didn't think anything of it, and I told him he could pay me back in increments of 500 dollars a month, with no interest, so to ease the pressure of the amount he would have to pay back.
Well, months kept passing with him not paying me anything and not even giving an excuse of why he wasn't paying me. I would send a zelle reminder of 500 dollars, and he would act hurt and kind of berate me for it, and then finally I told him that it's an extreme breaking of trust that he didn't keep his word and that it was on me to keep asking about it - and I don't care if it stressed him out to see reminders that he owes me money, because he does owe me money and it is disrespectful for him to behave like a child anytime he is reminded of that.
Guh, makes me annoyed all over again just thinking about it.
"given that she's a narcissistic sociopath" have you noticed that every other parent and ex recently is a narcissistic sociopath? They're handing out those diagnoses like candy
I wonder if it’s a way to reconcile emotionally the dichotomy of truly loving someone who’s being horrible. Sometimes people are just… shitty. But in an odd way, if they’re diagnosed and things have a name and they just “act that way it’s how they’re wired it’s medical”… maybe it feels less personal?
I think that’s what it is. My dad is a schizophrenic (legitimately diagnosed, in treatment, not at all self diagnosed.) and it’s made it easier to move past something’s he’s done. He used to have periods where he wasn’t himself (before being diagnosed and going on meds.) looking back it’s much easier to reconcile those odd, harmful behaviors. It’s easier if I can separate who he is, from who the illness makes him.
Although mine was diagnosed decades ago and stopped treatment last I saw him (we got estranged after an episode), and I do wonder if he’d be diagnosed differently in 2025…
My best friend is an actual diagnosed narcissist. She has a debilitating disorder that is also heavily demonized, and it takes her so much effort to work through it. She's a great person. It pisses me off so much when people on the internet use it as a synonym for "self-centered abuser".
I'm sorry, but shitty narc parent aside, in what world would someone agree to open a limitless card in their own name, for SOMEONE WHO MAKES $300K+ A YEAR. Holy shit dude. What the mom did was fucked up, but I find it hard to feel sorry for OP. She knew her mom sucked. She knew what she earns. It's like she decided to jaywalk across an interstate at night with her eyes closed and is now crying about getting slammed into at 70 MPH.
except, she‘s not crying. she knows now it was a mistake to have trusted her mom and now asks what she can do to mitigate the fallout and in which order
Is LA correct that she has no legal recourse? I expect there must be some recourse that she was pressured into it. I also imagine she could probably report it as identity theft anyway and deny agreeing to it, but that would be illegal advice lol.
Those people advising her in a legaladvice forum to fraudulently claim that she never consented and make a false police report of identitity fraud are pretty wild.
Legally speaking, she consented by knowing it was going on and not doing anything to stop it, but morally, she really didn’t, she was pressured into it. People were probably getting the two confused.
For what it’s worth, we don’t know the full scope of the “mental and financial pressure” to say yes, maybe that would rise to the level of fraud? But of course the length of time that has passed is problematic for that argument.
The mother impersonated her daughter to open the account; LAOP doesn't specify if the account was opened online or over the phone but regardless, isn't that act of impersonation fraud? Even if the daughter did give permission to open it?
It sounds like LAOP's mom is the worst kind of shitty parent: a smart one. She did a pretty good job of setting this up so that LAOP would be the one on the hook for payments.
at that point you're dealing with he said she said unless she has a very thorough accounting of it and probably recordings on what was actually said while opening it. Barring obvious physical threat, even fi you felt coerced you still signed a contract. I imagine that there's more history of her talking to her mom about paying it off than that which unfortunately really damages any attempt to claim fraud. The time to claim fraud was the first time this happened.
But per LAOP, they never signed a contract. Mom did. The thing that might bite LAOP if they filed an ID theft report is if there is ANY indication that she knew - like buying a car and got her credit pulled at that time.
Filing a false police report is a crime. Having your mom fill out an online credit card application with your full knowledge and consent is not a crime.
They are correct that there’s no legal recourse as no crime took place. OOP could possible try to sue and argue that there was a verbal contract where mom agreed to pay, but that’s not exactly a slam dunk either. It’s OOPs credit card that she agreed to open and she allowed her mom to use. As far as the credit card company is concerned, that’s OOP’s debt 100%.
Are there any drawbacks to closing the account? LAOP will still have to pay, of course, but I don't see what difference having it open makes. Is it just so they can negotiate with the bank?
I suspect it's more that once she's paid it off her mother will a: be angry that her card doesn't work any more and b: consider the debt paid and never to be mentioned again.
Legally it's the reverse: the longer that card stays active the larger the debt that LAOP has to pay off.
I love how OP did this to help her mother hide her spendings in a divorce proceeding, and is then asking "is this fraud?". Yes, but not the kind you are thinking.
Oof. Kind of feel bad for LAOP. Pretty much all of us were young and made stupid decisions, but very few of us made a 30k+ stupid decision.
They need to remove their mom as an authorized user like yesterday. At least keep the number from going up.
And LAOP trusted their mom, which… they should be able to trust their mom. (We’ve all read LAOP to know otherwise, but you should be able to trust your parents.)
It's always really sad to read a story where someone was duped by their own parents. Parents should be the one guaranteed safe place in life. I know that's not realistic, but it doesn't make it any less sad.
There's dozens of us... It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Very few of us made a 30k+ stupid decision that we had to pay for. Most engineers in physical products have definitely made more expensive mistakes on the job. I think my most expensive one was ~$72k and they didn’t fire me!
Do student loans for an art degree count? 😅
Wait, what do they mean AMEX has no preset credit limit? I had an AMEX and it absolutely had a credit limit (but I'm Canadian so idk if the rules are different).
Are there credit cards with no actual limits? Or am I not understanding something?
The card she opened isn’t a credit card, it’s a charge card. It doesn’t have a preset spending limit, but you’re supposed to pay the statement in full every month. If you don’t pay it off, there’s higher interest and fees, and they may designate a preset limit or cut you off entirely. Amex makes money off it from the transaction fees and the annual fee.
Oh, maybe that shouldn't be a thing outside of like corporate or very wealthy people.
Amex used to be limited to those group
but then how are companies supposed to get people into crazy debt they will never get out of?
I'm not wealthy or corporate and do just fine, I don't know why I shouldn't get access to a great card because other people can't handle finances.
Charge cards are legit? I had one slimy looking wastelander in Boston try to sell me one once and the thing only worked in Bar Harbour.
that motherfucker
My ex husband had an AMEX with no pre-set limit. He did a crazy amount of business travel and would sometimes have 20k in travel in a month.
It's a specific kind of AMEX card for Americans, it seems. From a quick glance, it only looks like it has a limit if you specify it, or if you've got some red flags on your credit that make you seem irresponsible. Seems like they've made a big mistake and will learn a tough lesson here with mom.
My (Canadian) parents told me once that AmEx was famous in the maybe 80s for having no credit limit. Which was dangerous because you could get in over your head, of course, but ALSO they knew someone who got their card stolen and like $100k charged to it. He ended up for some reason in a fight with them about it for, like, months. Made me glad I've never had a credit card where someone can get my number and charge an entire car to it or whatever
idk I had a Costco Amex bc it was the only card Costco Canada accepted for awhile, but they switched it to MC years ago.
I basically couldn't use the Amex anywhere except Costco bc retailers here hate it (charges higher fees than Visa/MC to the vendor).
I had the cashier at Canada Computers say they couldn't take the corporate AmEx (in CAD) at my work because they "don't take foreign credit cards" for those kinds of purchases ha ha ha. I was like look I get "American" is in the name, but this was issued by like ScotiaBank or something...
My workplace doesn't accept AmEx due to the high fees. Their cardholders get VERY angry about this, but somehow manage to have another card.
"Made me glad I've never had a credit card where someone can get my number and charge an entire car to it or whatever"
Fun story - my partner used his Canadian credit card to buy a used car when he moved to LA. He's a duel citizen and moved back to the US for his first tenure track position, and did not realize that his Canadian credit rating did not show up in the US.
So he went to buy a used car and found that no one would trust him. They all wanted to offer a loan with 20% interest. He contacted his bank in Canada, where I was still living and working, and they upped his credit card limit by $9000, and gave him a big line of credit as well. They rubber stamped him still having an official residence with me in Canada to justify this. He went back to the dealership and bought the car he wanted on the credit card, which made some eyes pop at the dealership. Then when the card payment was due, he paid off as much as he could and covered the rest with his low interest line of credit.
This was in 2003; it's unlikely most Canadian banks would give 2 recent graduates that level of service these days.
My dad bought me a new car in 2012 when my engine seized states away from home...on his Amex black card
IIRC there is an Amex with no limit, but it’s something like a platinum card and they are rare. They’re not something a normal consumer is going to have, it’s something billionaires have.
Credit card companies and banks are pretty good at assessing how much credit they can give you that they can claw back the costs plus interest to make a profit. They aren’t handing out free money with no strings attached.
Edit: I actually looked it up. AMEX does offer cards with "No Preset Spending Limit." Here's an AI summary:
There was a post (that seems to have been deleted) that mentions that some AMEX cards are (or perhaps, were) technically unlimited, but AMEX uses an algorithm to flag purchases above a certain amount, based on things like credit score, payment history and whatnot. Not the standard "flag unusual purchase" thing, but a more of a "we won't tell you what it is" credit limit.
so like the "unlimited vacation days" of credit cards
So it won't stop $50 transaction because you are over limit. It will however stop you purchasing an yacht unless you are Richie rich.
Yeah i recall many years ago a wealthy uncle of a friend of mine having a black Amex card that had no limit, he boasted he could buy a house with it if he wanted
Various laws prevent buying credit cards for real estate transactions.
Rich uncle possibly speaking figuratively there. Or ignorantly.
Can you imagine? The 2% unlimited cash back would be really nice. Put your down payment down with a credit card and make the first mortgage payment with your rewards.
I mean, I asked my dealership if I could put my downpayment on my card when I bought my car specifically for this reason. Right after he muttered something about "you people and your points" he let me know they only allow 2k (at least I got those points)
I bought my sister a cash car last summer and even though the salesperson said max $2K the finance manager didn’t give a shit and let me put the whole $11K on my card.
It isn't a credit card. It's a charge card. The standard green/gold/black amex cards are charge cards.
Most transactional credit card regulations and laws apply to charge cards as well. If it has numbers that aren’t routing and account, not broker is going to take it. Many brokers can’t even process it.
Location Bot folded.
>She is unlikely to participate in any balance transfer or other option where she has to willingly participate given she’s a narcissistic sociopath.
>I asked her to pay it again today in which after screaming at me she said she would pay it over the next 24 months but that may have been to just end the conversation.
Cat fact: Cats always hold all the cards.
I feel for LAOP, as the child of alcoholic narcissis', I got pressured and verbally abused into a lot of this shit, you literally can't say know because you do actually fear for your life, even if they haven't actively been hitting you.
But also credit scores are bullshit built on fake money to support a shadow economy.
Ok, who's next on the soap box
Also if you're young and financially dependent your options may be to say yes and deal with debt in the future, or say no and deal with not being able to pay your bills now.
My father never physically abused me, but I was terrified of him. One memory burned in mind was when I was a teen. I had a cold and he and my stepmother said I could not was my hair because the cold would get worse and I wouldn’t be able to go to school (read: not take care of my step siblings). Hair dryers were not allowed because they used too much electricity.
It was Sunday so I had to go to Sunday School and church looking like a female version of a 1950s greaser. When I was teased about it, I told them I hadn’t been allowed. One girl, who was the classic mean girl type, asked why I didn’t just tell them to fuck off and do it anyway- what could he do… I guess the look on my face and my quiet “I don’t know” gave them all pause. Then and after that, they all, even her, treated me much more kindly and I was no longer ostracized or treated like the weirdo. So I guess a couple good things came out of it.
Oh my god, I’m so sorry.
At least that the girl and other kids you mentioned seemed to have realized that we can never know exactly what other people are dealing with in their lives and how it might be affecting them. I think that’s one of the most important lessons in empathy for kids (or adults) to learn, but many never do.
I hope things are much better for you these days
Yeah, that's considerably more kindness than I expect from a "classic mean girl type". Good on her, I'm pleased.
Jfc 💖
Well that gave me a sad.
Credit scores are BS but they replaced racial profiling as the default way of evaluating creditworthiness.
They also replaced solely income-based measures--which is still what a lot of the world uses--which kinda sucks if you're not rich and want to buy a house. Yeah, credit scores suck, but that's really just because capitalism in general sucks and not because it's actively worse than any of the options we have under it.
Minorities can't have good credit?
They can, that's the point. Before credit scores lenders used racial profiling.
And gender. My parents first mortgage only counted 25% of my mom’s annual income as a Dr, because she was a lady and would clearly be shortly stopping work to go do lady things. The fact she earned more than my dad was particularly galling.
I never wear my wedding ring at my corporate job. Young married women were/are routinely looked over for important projects because they 'are going to get pregnant and quit'.
That’s not at all what they said.
yep, unfortunately i experienced this. my bio dad passed when i was younger and i received some of his life insurance payout in a trust. i was pressured into giving my bio mom thousands of dollars as “repayment” for raising me the very day i turned 18. fuck the bank employee who sat there and just allowed that to happen.
over 11 years of no contact and yet she still tries to find new ways to reach out. narcissists truly are the work of the devil.
Credit scores are better than the alternative (your borrowing ability is based on the bank officer's attitude towards you personally, leading to enormous issues of bias)
Don't worry, the packed a ton of racial and gender bias into credit scores too!
But at least all that bias comes out of impersonal statistics, which makes it systemic bias. That's not really any better or anything, but it does seem harder for people to get mad about.
AFAIK your credit score is actually a rather "easy" number to figure out. Like it isn't a complicated number. It is just a combination of your utilization(current balances over max credit), payment history(both length and any missed payments), and recent applications for new credit(opening a bunch of new accounts in a short period is suspicious).
So I don't see how that has any explicit bias against minorities specifically; it is more generally biased against the financially illiterate.
Right, that's what I was trying to describe. Because credit score is itself straightforward, as you've just described, the statement that bias is 'packed into' credit scores can only be considered meaningful in the sense that it reflects the inequality of a society, which is in turn the result of the prevailing biases of that society. That's how I was using the term 'systemic bias', in order to reconcile Venus's statement above with our understanding of credit scores.
"she wanted the card so her spending wouldn't be tracked". Not really clear how an ex-spouse would be able to track spending unless it was court-ordered, or why you'd even want to hide expenses as part of a divorce proceeding. I get the feeling that mom is hiding a lot of bad juju.
They mention mom has a high income, perhaps she is trying to hide funds from their spouse
That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Obviously mom is not actually spending her income on this stuff or it wouldn't be debt. So it would actually make her appear to have MORE money. Unless, as I suspect, she has a severe spending problem. Probably spending her own cash, maxing out her own credit cards, and then getting more credit under her daughter's name when she can no longer get any herself.
Bravo on the title
This reminds me of when I lent a boyfriend 3K once because he was having financial troubles - and I had NEVER met anyone before that didn't feel a huge weight on their chest when they owed another person money and would try to repay it as soon as they could. So I didn't think anything of it, and I told him he could pay me back in increments of 500 dollars a month, with no interest, so to ease the pressure of the amount he would have to pay back.
Well, months kept passing with him not paying me anything and not even giving an excuse of why he wasn't paying me. I would send a zelle reminder of 500 dollars, and he would act hurt and kind of berate me for it, and then finally I told him that it's an extreme breaking of trust that he didn't keep his word and that it was on me to keep asking about it - and I don't care if it stressed him out to see reminders that he owes me money, because he does owe me money and it is disrespectful for him to behave like a child anytime he is reminded of that.
Guh, makes me annoyed all over again just thinking about it.
Did you get your money back?
"given that she's a narcissistic sociopath" have you noticed that every other parent and ex recently is a narcissistic sociopath? They're handing out those diagnoses like candy
I wonder if it’s a way to reconcile emotionally the dichotomy of truly loving someone who’s being horrible. Sometimes people are just… shitty. But in an odd way, if they’re diagnosed and things have a name and they just “act that way it’s how they’re wired it’s medical”… maybe it feels less personal?
I think that’s what it is. My dad is a schizophrenic (legitimately diagnosed, in treatment, not at all self diagnosed.) and it’s made it easier to move past something’s he’s done. He used to have periods where he wasn’t himself (before being diagnosed and going on meds.) looking back it’s much easier to reconcile those odd, harmful behaviors. It’s easier if I can separate who he is, from who the illness makes him.
Schizo fathers fist bump!
Although mine was diagnosed decades ago and stopped treatment last I saw him (we got estranged after an episode), and I do wonder if he’d be diagnosed differently in 2025…
People want a psychopathological reason for other people to be assholes.
Unfortunately, many people are just assholes.
Just like every ex girlfriend has bpd.
My best friend is an actual diagnosed narcissist. She has a debilitating disorder that is also heavily demonized, and it takes her so much effort to work through it. She's a great person. It pisses me off so much when people on the internet use it as a synonym for "self-centered abuser".
Considering it sounds like she is stealing 30K from her son, this diagnosis may actually be plausible.
People steal from family all the time.
I'm sorry, but shitty narc parent aside, in what world would someone agree to open a limitless card in their own name, for SOMEONE WHO MAKES $300K+ A YEAR. Holy shit dude. What the mom did was fucked up, but I find it hard to feel sorry for OP. She knew her mom sucked. She knew what she earns. It's like she decided to jaywalk across an interstate at night with her eyes closed and is now crying about getting slammed into at 70 MPH.
except, she‘s not crying. she knows now it was a mistake to have trusted her mom and now asks what she can do to mitigate the fallout and in which order
Cases are rarely so clean cut.
OOP is FUCKED.
Is LA correct that she has no legal recourse? I expect there must be some recourse that she was pressured into it. I also imagine she could probably report it as identity theft anyway and deny agreeing to it, but that would be illegal advice lol.
Being pressured is largely legally meaningless unless it rises to the level of coercion, extortion or if OP is mentally disabled.
Those people advising her in a legaladvice forum to fraudulently claim that she never consented and make a false police report of identitity fraud are pretty wild.
Legally speaking, she consented by knowing it was going on and not doing anything to stop it, but morally, she really didn’t, she was pressured into it. People were probably getting the two confused.
For what it’s worth, we don’t know the full scope of the “mental and financial pressure” to say yes, maybe that would rise to the level of fraud? But of course the length of time that has passed is problematic for that argument.
There’s a lot of crimes it could be, but identity theft isn’t one of them.
The mother impersonated her daughter to open the account; LAOP doesn't specify if the account was opened online or over the phone but regardless, isn't that act of impersonation fraud? Even if the daughter did give permission to open it?
It sounds like LAOP's mom is the worst kind of shitty parent: a smart one. She did a pretty good job of setting this up so that LAOP would be the one on the hook for payments.
at that point you're dealing with he said she said unless she has a very thorough accounting of it and probably recordings on what was actually said while opening it. Barring obvious physical threat, even fi you felt coerced you still signed a contract. I imagine that there's more history of her talking to her mom about paying it off than that which unfortunately really damages any attempt to claim fraud. The time to claim fraud was the first time this happened.
But per LAOP, they never signed a contract. Mom did. The thing that might bite LAOP if they filed an ID theft report is if there is ANY indication that she knew - like buying a car and got her credit pulled at that time.
Filing a false police report is a crime. Having your mom fill out an online credit card application with your full knowledge and consent is not a crime.
They are correct that there’s no legal recourse as no crime took place. OOP could possible try to sue and argue that there was a verbal contract where mom agreed to pay, but that’s not exactly a slam dunk either. It’s OOPs credit card that she agreed to open and she allowed her mom to use. As far as the credit card company is concerned, that’s OOP’s debt 100%.
Hey, I think you should give me $1000. Pleeeaaaaase. If you don't give me $1000 I'll be very sad.
It sounds the initial agreement when opening the card was that mom would pay the balance, so OP could sue her for failing to pay.
And here I would feel a little bad about raiding my kids Halloween candy
Raid the candy. It’ll build their character.
Oh, I did. And quickly got over it.
The purpose was to help her mom avoid her spending getting tracked during divorce proceedings? Fuck around with the system and find out.
Are there any drawbacks to closing the account? LAOP will still have to pay, of course, but I don't see what difference having it open makes. Is it just so they can negotiate with the bank?
I suspect it's more that once she's paid it off her mother will a: be angry that her card doesn't work any more and b: consider the debt paid and never to be mentioned again.
Legally it's the reverse: the longer that card stays active the larger the debt that LAOP has to pay off.
I love how OP did this to help her mother hide her spendings in a divorce proceeding, and is then asking "is this fraud?". Yes, but not the kind you are thinking.