Credit Card Used by Grandson

[askaba757]

My question involves a person located in the state of: CA

My mother of 80yrs old kind heart and sound mind granted the request of her grandson to assist him with purchase needed item from a national department store using her credit card. The purchase of about $3000 was made with 24 month interest differment in CA then he picked up the items in TX from the department store and she never heard from him. She religiously paid $200 each month to keep her credit in good standings until little by little it drained all her savings as it over extended her. Now 5 yrs have gone by and she finally confessed to me what she did and how her grandson left her holding this expense. I did some investigating and found him and presented to him the dilema, he promised he would get the money to pay off the account which now stands at $7000 and delinquent, not to mention all the payments she made to keep the account current.

I was able to get copies of every statement from the purchase to the current date. Since the grandson required the original receipt to pick up the merchandise in TX, he has those as well.

What state do I file this in? Does my mother have a good case to collect her money? What is the required timeline that a national department store is required to keep those signed receipts for picking up merchandise? I can only guess the location he picked them up at.

Any inside will truly help!

[Dogmatique]

How is she going to prove that this was a loan?

[askaba757]

The only confirmation I have are emails indicating that he forgot about the loan and have every intention of repaying as well as saying that a CD was coming to terms at the end of January and this money was to be used to pay the account.

would this suffice?

[Dogmatique]

That might be admissible, yes. Where is the grandson located? CA or TX?

[askaba757]

Grandson lives in TX, my mother lives CA

[Dogmatique]

That's unfortunate.

The reason I say that is because even if your Mother can get a judgment (she would have to sue him in Texas), she may find it impossible to collect the judgment. In Texas, she cannot garnish his wages for example.

All too often, getting the judgment is the easy part. Collecting it is a different matter entirely.