My sister is mentally ill and has been for the last 30 years. She is functional and lives in an assisted living facility. She applys for credit cards and goes on spending sprees until the limit is reached. We pay them and tell her to stop using them. We have an attorney who now manages her money. She applies for more credit cards and they send them with higher spending limits because we continue to pay the bills. When we call the credit reporting agencies they make a note on the file however, my sister calls and tells them to remove it. Without my sister defaulting on payments, how can we prevent credit card companies from sending her cards?
2007-03-05 07:31:24 · 8 answers · asked by cristobal 2 in Business & Finance ➔ Credit
Easy: stop bailing her out. Period. End of story.
2007-03-05 07:41:14 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
For one, you should stop the mail that she gets offering her pre-approved credit applications. Call 1 888 5OPTOUT. Second, it sounds as though you need to have someone who has power of attorney over her. That will take some kind of judgment in court or with a state agency. Moreover, what about some oversight by the assisted living facility on outgoing mail and calls? Continue to work with a qualified attorney who specializes in these cases.
2007-03-05 07:42:57 · answer #2 · answered by VT 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
OK this is a tough choice, but let her go into bankruptcy, she has no assets anyway and theres no reason for the whole family to suffer since she is unable to appreciate the consequences of her actions. As long as you do pay for her, the companies will regard her as a good risk, but a bankruptcy will put an end to her (your) good credit. Also look into having her mail and outgoing calls monitored, so the problem can be stopped at the onset. Everything she buys should be returned, if she goes shopping then she must be watched, and if not why not? Is it possible she needs more observation than they provide?
2007-03-05 07:43:20 · answer #3 · answered by justa 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
You could try and have an official letter from a doctor stating that she's mentally ill, and cannot be allowed to make her own decisions (which basically means you need power of attorney to make those decisions on her stead while she's still alive), and send those to credit reporting agencies.
But short of calling VISA, Mastercard and any other credit card on the earth and informing them of the situation, it's nigh impossible to stop applications from coming. Maybe you could get the attorney to write up an official letter regarding this, and send it to each credit card company...
Other than that, good luck.
2007-03-05 07:36:17 · answer #4 · answered by Fabulously Broke in the City 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
http://www.smartmoney.com/dealoftheday/index.cfm?story=20070206
There's a couple different places to remove your name listed on the article link above. #1 priority is the http://www.optoutprescreen.com page. This will eliminate the prescreened credit offers. This should help dramatically, but might not get rid of the generic, non-prescreened offers. Those are much fewer nowadays though, since the banks would rather spend the small amount of extra money to ensure that the people they spend money to mail to actually could get one of their cards.
Sadly, you might just need to stop paying on one of her accounts for a while. Trash her credit so bad that no one will lend her money anymore. I know this sounds mean, but you can't keep paying her debts for her anymore either. You have to be able to live your life too.
According to the post office, registering at all 3 places on the above link will wipe out about 90% of her junk mail.
Any chance you could get her mail rerouted to her attorney first? I don't know if that's legal, but perhaps with the power of attorney it can be done? Then he could screen out whatever might still make it through.
It could take a couple months for all the offers to stop coming after registering her name, since lists are often bought months in advance, but eventually, you'll be in much better shape.
2007-03-05 07:50:25 · answer #5 · answered by Yanswersmonitorsarenazis 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
sounds like someone needs to check her mail everyday and just tear em up and talk to her about it, or have her mail changed to your box so you can oversea everything
2007-03-05 07:37:07 · answer #6 · answered by Starfire 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
you can opt out on pre approved offers with the credit bureaus.
2007-03-05 07:33:39 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
is she technically under another family members legal care? if not, she's got every right to keep doing it...
2007-03-05 07:35:58 · answer #8 · answered by Tacyella 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋