Credit score tanked 200 points from missed payment and deliquency

[Anonymous]

I'm 23 years old, and my credit score has always been pristine for someone my age, in the high 700's. Many months ago, I signed up for an amazon rewards card linked through chase to save some money on a purchase. I used the card for about a month, paid it off for that month, then took the card out of my wallet and never used it again. While a few of my friends were talking about FICO scores, I decided to check mine, and saw it was down to around 650. I saw I had a missed payment on one of my accounts, and I quickly found out that there was an unpaid balance for 3 months on my amazon chase card. I found out that there were 2 unpaid postmates orders that my younger brother had found and used my card to pay for, and I was never made aware of this. Even more, the email that I used to sign up for the chase account is an email I don't check anymore, so I never saw any of the "payment due" messages. I paid the balance off as soon as I found out, but now I have a missed payment and a delinquency on my credit report, and my score is down to 580!  This is absolutely sickening to me, I always took pride in my credit score, and now it is abysmol, well below the average for any age. Given that this was such a huge and unfortunate misunderstanding, is there anything I can do to remedy this?

[Anonymous]

Sounds like at least two of the charges were legitimately not authorized by you so
You could dispute those I guess.

Not sure how chase handles disputes but you can also try goodwill letters.

[Remedios]

Hi and welcome to the forums! 

You wont be able to dispute this unless you file police report in order to get CRAs to place a block. 

If you're unwilling to do that, you may try GW approach, but I doubt Chase will remove lates in this instance if you're claiming fraud occurred without the evidence (police report) of the fraud 

Good luck and I hope you get it resolved 

[Anonymous]

Well considering it was my younger brother who used my card without my knowledge, because he wasn't aware I wasn't using the card anymore, is it still considered fraud?

[Anonymous]

Also I should point out that the account was closed the last time I signed in and paid off the balance.

[grower1]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Well considering it was my younger brother who used my card without my knowledge, because he wasn't aware I wasn't using the card anymore, is it still considered fraud?

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It would be fraud since you didn't authorize him to use your card. 

[staticvoidmain]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Well considering it was my younger brother who used my card without my knowledge, because he wasn't aware I wasn't using the card anymore, is it still considered fraud?

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You could choose to pursue it with this approach. It depends on how much you love your brother because this will not look good for him. It means filing a police report.

I would contact Chase first and tell them it was an unauthorized charge, and proceed from there. I would explain that you're not after the refund which is why you paid it off. This is a goodwill approach.

Good luck.

(Note: I am not a lawyer, nor an expert in law. I am sure other people here are.)

[Remedios]

Whenever an account is brought down to $0.00 balance, Chase reports it.  

You cannot incur a late after account is closed. The account would of have to be open when your brother used it. 

If you paid and closed after he used it, you would have already been past due. You're saying 90 days, so that's 60 day late at minimum. Did you notice those charges when you were closing the account? 

You also said you did not get "payment due" emails, but unless you set it as an alert, you would not be getting those. Dates when payments are due are within your account. 

When card is used without your permission, it's a fraud. If he had your permission to use your accounts, then it's not (in my opinion). That's what the GW approach is for. Basically writing to Chase, explaining how the error happened and politely begging they remove the late. 

Some lenders might. It usually takes time and persistence 

I have to confess to being just a little bit confused on what happened and when 

When is the last month you used the card? When did he use the card? When were the lates reported (for which months)? When did you close the account? 

[tparks5961]

Yeah,

This sucks... because it will affect you for at least 7 years. Whatever you decide good luck.

I would personally take the process as far as i could, making sure that my brother in the process wont go to jail. Im not sure what your relationship is like with him.. but this will literally cost you potentiallt 10's of thousands of dollars.

You're only 23, so you figure at some point real life will set in, maybe a wife , kids and a car.

I would report the fraud to get the required docs to try to get this reversed. Im sure you can get something withiut pressing charges against your brother.

Good luck

[Anonymous]

Why will this cost me 10's of thousands of dollars??