Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in California
fraud
over 10 yr. ago, my wife had a boyfriend that used her social ( and a bunch of other fake ones ) to apply for accounts. For the ones that he opened against her ssn, she filed bankruptcy. we have just learned that this guy has used her name as a reference (10 years later) and has creditors calling our house looking for him. We found he has 16 aliases and 10 different ssn's including my wifes. She is scared to turn him in thinking he has held on to something from the past that would shift the focus off of him on to her - she paid her dues on this, shed the boyfriend, and filed bankruptcy. We have run reports against her and he has not used her ssn recently, but has used her maiden name as an alias. We want to turn this guy in, this all happened 10 years ago, is there anything she should worry about even if he has some trumped up info that was negative about my wife? Is there a statute of limitations since all of the stuff he did was over 10 years ago? All of this was consumer related - as I said for all of the things he opened using her ssn, she filed bankruptcy.
Help? We get about 10 calls a week on this guy - and since he has her ssn, it is only a matter of time before he gets into my accounts...
4 Answers from Attorneys
Re: fraud
Find a good website devoted to California identity theft law, and -file a police report-. If you're too scared of boogeymen to file a police report, don't come whining about it here.
Re: fraud
You might check with the Social Security Administration about issuing a new number or putting an advice in her SS file. The State of CA has a department that provides advice about consumer fraud. You can check out their website. Sorry about my colleague's impertinence.
Re: fraud
Its a bit confusing. If he stole her identity, why did she file for BK? I think there may be more to this story.
However, if you want a quick fix, you should call Social Security. She should be able to get a new number. Try reading here:
http://www.ssa.gov/pubs/10064.html#getting
Re: fraud
There may be a violation by the debt collector under both the Fair Credit Reporting Act and Fair Debt Collection Act. Have you received any written correspondence from the debt collection company. We may be able to help you to stop the contact.