good news, bad news

[cactusjack]

One of the guys I work with has a ne'er-do-well brother in law that "traded" trucks with my friend and then took off in my buddy's truck and stole his identity. The guy wrote a string of bad checks all across the southwest and mountain west. I think the law finally caught up with him in Idaho or Wyoming after several weeks. My buddy got arrested and thrown in the clink and he had no idea what was going on. That's how he found out his BIL had ripped him off. It took him a couple of years to get everything straightened out, while his BIL did hard time in the graybar hotel.

I hope you and Kate can get this corrected. You won't get any sympathy or assistance from the collection agency. They will just try and lean on Kate until she pays them. You'll do better dealing with the lending bank itself.

[Idaho]

Kate is going to call the bank directly even though they have turned the account over to collections. Hopefully they will pull it back. I am going to ask for legal help here to work with the prosecutor to make sure that the banks are named as recipients of the restitution order.

You know what is ironic? This guy got his hooks into Kate two months after she turned 18, I sell Identity Theft Protection. My wife and I had planned to put Kate on a plan of her own when she turned 18 but procrastinated until after this mess came to light. She has her own ID Theft Shield now but we are still left trying to get her name cleaned up.

In the meantime, I will never do business with that bank again. I already had my lawyer send them a letter a few years ago to get them to stop sending me risky solicitations in the mail because they would not listen to me. We got rid of their credit card shortly after that. Now this mess with Kate only further solidifys my opinion of them. Not good business practices as far as I'm concerned.

Just so you all know, the total amount that Kate currently owes between the two banks is $31,000 !!

Call the state banking commission. They always like to hear accounts of the banks taking advantage of it's customers.If the bank doesn't like talking to you,imagine how much they will not like answering questions from a government agency.

[cactusjack]

Weren't credit card companies/banks getting grilled by a House subcommittee a couple of weeks ago about gouging customers?

Wow, $31k? Ouch. That's a very bitter pill to swallow.

[Idaho]

I am also a member of Pre-Paid Legal Services. The attorney has been giving me free advice on how to proceed up to this point. Now we both agree that I need a specialist in banking law and was given a referral to a local barrister. Have contacted him to set up an appointment. Can't wait to tell him Kate's story and unleash him on the world of consumer banking. I will keep you all informed.