My Mother opened a Home Depot account in my name without my knowledge

[Anonymous]

I spoke to her about it and told her to just pay it off and not do anything else.  She never listens to what anyone tells her and is now trying to cancel the credit card claiming it was opened in error.  I'm pretty sure by doing this my score will get lowered.  Should I disput this on the credit report or should I confront Home Depot about this?  I'm not sure what to do.

[llecs]

Was the card ever used?

If you dispute, HD will only verify. You'd really need a police report for ID theft if you were to do that. I'd probably call HD, and be up front. Tell them the card was opened by a relative and ask them if the account has a balance on it. If not, then ask them to close the CC AND to remove the TL off your CR, assuming you don't want it.

If you are worried about future attempts like this, then if I had no plans to seek credit in the near future, then I would place a fraud alert on my CRs to make it that much harder to obtain credit.

The HD account, if newly reported and at $0, could hurt your score by about 20-25 points for the new TL, assuming your mix of credit is good now. If your utilization was high, and if significantly lower due to this new TL, then depending on the CL, your score could actually rise.

[Anonymous]

If you have any use for a HD card and the balance isn't' outrageous, you could call them and report the card lost and get a new card with a different account number. Then keep the card for yourself and collect the balance from your mom.

Do you get mail at the same address? If so, I'd get a PO box and change the address to the PO Box.

If you don't get mail at the same address, but it has her address, I would change the address.

[Anonymous]

yes there is a $3000 dollar charge on the card she used it to renovate the kitchen she actually opened up 3 accounts one in her name and another in my brothers name as well each have $3000 charged.  My revolving availability is still over 96% I'm just afraid that if she closes the account it will effect my score.

Message Edited by Vin75 on 11-03-2008 08:37 AM

[Anonymous]

Yes, closing the account will hurt with such a balance on there.

Plus, you have already taken the ding from a new account and lowered your age.

Does she plan to pay the account? Can you trust her to pay it and you just take the account over(of course letting her know that if she does it again, you aren't going to be so nice).

Unless the account is going to cost you money or you will never ever use it, I'd try to come up with a solution that works for the both of you and keeps the account open. Just my opinion.

The only way likely to get it removed will be to file a ID theft affidavit and police report.

You can try to get HD to remove it because of the circumstances, and they may not.

HD could also chose to file charges of their own because she did lie to them in order to open the account.

[akaniks]

Wow. I see stories like this all the time on these forums and I still find it hard to believe. 

[Anonymous]

man!  i can't believe this stuff.

i believe i'd call the police and not think twice about it.  she didn't care about what happened to you when she did that, why should you care what happens to her?

am i evil?

[akaniks]

I would do the exact same thing!

[Anonymous]

I would probably do this as well but unfortunatly she is also owns the house I live in.  My mom's not a bad person she's just loopy at times and thinks she knows more than anyone else.  Oh and did I mention she can be very cheap.  I'm going to try to see if I can call Home Depot and make sure that she is not allowed to touch my account.

[Anonymous]

I would make damned sure she knew exactly how worng this was and thhat charging up 6K in debt on other people's credit is illegal and imprisonable.  That is grand theft.  I know it is next to impossible to go after your own mom for money like this (I have been in a similiar situation)...  In the end, you have to figure out how to keep her from going to Lowes or Sears the next time  she wants to remodel the bathroom....  Hell, in alot of cases, people would have gladly helped the person by charging a couple things and letting the other person pay them back (plus all the interest) but some people just think that anything within the family (including credit) is communal property...