What to do about Credit Fraud?

[virtuousbeauty31]

I have an 86 year old grandmother and my Uncle ran up several bills that were in her name. He opened two cingular cell phone accounts totaling $1k+. Now it's in collections, do I ask them to provide proof that she ordered these phones? He actually ordered them through her home phone account as well as cable. He ended up running that bill up to $600+. Now I am receiving all type of collection calls and I am telling them the same story over and over. They won't stop calling and I won't pay, she cannot afford it and shouldn't have to. What should I do? Thanks in advance for all responses.

[Anonymous]

start with a police report and fill out a affidavit of fraud from the FTC website.

Place Fraud alerts on their credit reports.

[Anonymous]

I know how grandmas are and she may not be willing to file a police report (which is probably what he is counting on).  Talk to her seriously tell the collectors to only contact you grandma by mail.  Dispute the credit bureaus as fraud, file the Fraud affidavit and see if grandma would be willig to file a report.  He has opened her up to being sued for whatever else he may have done and its best to **bleep** it before it can get worse.

Have eyou spoken with the original creditors and not just the CAs about it?  Im sure that they will understand the logic.  What would a 90 year old woman need with two cell phones? Hopefully he didn't talk her into signing anything.  IF nothing else take him to small claims court and get a judgement against him.  This will probablly hold up in a fraud claim.

[haulingthescoreup]

You also might check with your county social services agencies--this could be considered a form of elder abuse.

[virtuousbeauty31]

Thanks to everyone for the advice, I have did the police report and ftc fraud affidavit back in February when all this happend. I spoke with AT&T, Verizon, and everyone else before they sent it to collections. All they did was notate the account. I just spoke with the CA for verizon and I will fax them the same thing I faxed to Verizon. The state agency did get involved and it is elder abuse, however when my uncle was here the police would not take him to jail and the detective said since he's soo sickly that the courts would just let him go because it would take more trouble to take him to dialysis three times a week and to the hospital etc than it's worth. Our legal system sucks!!! I am really going to ignore these people if all else fails, grandma is 86 and lives with me she really doesn't need her credit, I just hate that it was ruined because of this.

[virtuousbeauty31]

Oh, I forgot to add she is sickly and I have power of attorney, so I handle all of her business so there is no need to get her upset over this.

[Anonymous]

If you have filed an affidavit of frau and the collection agenciesand OC are refusing to honor it, I would make a complaint directly to the FTC.