Is This Fraud?

[mdj]

My brother gave his girlfriend his credit card with permission to fill up her car once. They recently split and when she left she took the card and proceeded to charge several thousand dollars on it, everything from large purchases at Wal-Mart to her mother's water bill. When he called the credit card company they told him since he allowed her to use it one time there was nothing they could do about all of the unauthorized charges. How is this so when he did not order a card in her name, nor authorize these purchases in any way. She used the card with his name on it without his permission. Is he liable for the bills? What can he do to fix this mess?

[Jeanie]

If he had admitted to them that he allowed her to use, no matter how many times he would be liable. The smart thing to have done was reported it stolen. He also should have checked the status of the card and if more charges were made he should have closed the card. He needs to call in and report it lost and stolen so they can issue him a new card with different #'s.

Good Luck..

~Jeanie

[formercap1agent]

Jeanie is bang-on, and we would get calls of this type often (usually it was a situation where the spouse had an authorized-user card, which charges the same account). We would process these as a lost-stolen report, change the acct number and issue a new card only to the primary cardholder.