|
 |
Home >> Accounts >> Checking Accounts
Old Joint Account Still Used to Pay Bills
My former boyfriend and I had a joint account. I had his name removed from the account after we broke up. While we were together, he had a credit card in his name and he paid his bill electronically out of our joint account. He has continued to pay the bill electronically out of the account. Is this considered fraud? What should I do?
|
|
 Whether any fraud is involved is a matter of state law, if you wish to pursue available remedies. Your bank probably does not know who authorized debits from the account, so it has continued to allow them to be paid. There are three things you need to do:
First, contact your former boyfriend. Remind him that his bills are being paid from your account, and ask him to correct that problem. A lot of people allow this sort of thing to go on more out of forgetfulness and inertia than out of any sort of fraud or malice.
Second, contact your bank. Explain the situation and place a stop payment on charges from the credit card company. The stop should be successful at bouncing the next attempt to debit your account, but probably won't affect any subsequent charges.
Finally, work with your bank to close out the existing account and open a new one. When you do so, you will cause any future debits from the credit card company to reject. Make sure your bank will not attempt to post those entries against the new account.
Once in a while one of the owners of a joint account will need to remove the other joint signer. Your experience is an excellent reminder that the best way to handle such situations is to close out the account, rather than attempt to remove the other owner's name. This may even be good strategy when attempting to end the authority of a non-owning signer on an account.
Published on BankingQuestions.com 9/11/07
|
| |
|
Accounts
Article
Q&A
Podcast
Video
Blog
Discussions
PDF
Powerpoint
