Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in Virginia

Re: My Ex, Credit Card Debt and Authorized User

You should pay for any purchases which you made on the account. However, you are under no obligation

to pay for purchases which your wife made if you were not a joint account holder and merely an authorized user.

In order to sue anyone, you must have a valid address where the person can be served with notice of the lawsuit.

Re: My Ex, Credit Card Debt and Authorized User

Because property settlement is a part of the divorce, I think you should claim any money that she owes you within the context of the divorce. But if there is no property settlement covered within the divorce (such as because you can't find her and she does not participate) you could certainly sue her for "contribution" as to her purchases that you paid. You may face real problems on that point with the argument that you "volunteered" to make those payments. There was no expectation that it was a loan to her, but you volunteered to pay for her, including because she was your wife. That is another reason why it is better addressed as part of the settlement within the divorce itself.

If you used the card for your purchases, the credit card company can sue you for payment to the extent that you benefited... IF their attorney is sharp enough to figure that out. I would not say it is by any means guaranteed or automatic that the credit card company WILL come after you at all (seeing you are not a joint account holder) OR that they will do it properly to win. For one thing, they might not figure out which if any of the charges are yours. So, I do not want to falsely imply that it is automatic, but YES it is POSSIBLE for them to recover from you any charges that you made, on the grounds that you benefitted.

However, the credit bureaus follow their own rules and live in their own reality. They will very likely report it as YOUR debt -- the FULL amount -- on your credit report regardless of the truth or the law. Unless you have a court order from the divorce court showing what she owe, credit bureaus can be expected to ignore your arguments, ignore the law and the evidence, and do whatever they want.