[mymistake]

I made a huge mistake...please advise what could happen.

Almost two years ago my sister agreed to co-sign a loan for me. I opened an account, and paid on it all of the time. About a year later she agreed to cosign another account to have a surgical procedure done. I decided I could not afford it. Because the intrest rate was so much better I decided to transfer the account to the new card. Little by little I started using the card. I had a 5 % intrest rate and everything was fine. I made a payment online that never went through, so my interest rate jumped to 28.99%!!! I did not know what to do. The past 5 months has been a huge battle with this card and now they have involved my sister. She has perfect credit so this hurt her very much. She looked into all of her options, until finally her lawyer told her she needs to close the account do to fraud. He assured her if she did not press charges against me nothing would happen to me I would only be responsible to repay the money. But I have heard that this is not the case at all. There is about $5,000 on the account plus interest that has now made the card over $7,000. Someone advised me that if she does not press charges the credit card company will. And this could mean jail time? I appreciate your advise and information.

[Bill Collector]

I am not an attorney, but I work in the collection field and have heard this before. I don't see how she would be able to close the card as a fraud account as it was opened with her knowledge and she signed the application as a cosigner. Stating anything else on a report of any kind would be falsifying information on her part. Also, most credit card companies require a police report of fraud in order to close the account (especially if it has already gone to collections). If she falsifies a police report, that is more trouble for her.

Now for the really bad news. If she doesn't press charges against you she is still responsible for the balance as she is the lawful cosigner on the account. The bottom line is that somebody is going to pay the bill. If they feel that enough assets are available, they may decide to go for a judgement against the both of you and depending on what state you live in, they could garnish wages, or lien property. If she DOES press charges against you, she'll be filing a false police report and possibly committing purgery. If it goes through, it will remove her name from the account and make you soley responsible, but now you'll also have a record on top of bad credit. The best thing to do would be to get the account paid asap.