Asked 2/4/2016 – Houston, TX

I was having some credit issues and my brother agreed to open a credit card and add me as an authorized user with the promise that I would be responsible for any charges that were made. It went fine for a couple years but we started to grow apart and eventually I was late on one of the payments to the credit card. When he found out about the late payment he went crazy and told me he wanted the account off his credit report and if I didn’t pay the balance immediately he was going to claim the account as fraud and say I opened and used the account without his permission.He ended up calling the bank and was told they didn’t see any evidence of fraud but if he wanted to pursue a claim he would need to file a police report which he did. He has also made these types of threats in the past when he got a car loan for a family member and she was late on a payment. He never followed through with that because the dealer had him on video signing the contract. My question is can I somehow be held responsible or prosecuted for using the account due to his police report and statement that the account is fraudulent?And if so how can it be proven that his claims are not true ?

Answer

If you were authorized to use the card, then no, you will not be charged with fraud; the question is whether that authority was revoked and were any charges made any the revocation. It will be presumed that if you are an authorized signatory on the account, you had authority to use the card, but you may get a call from a local detective. Get copies of the card statements, determine what charges you made and when you made them and go over this situation with a local attorney.