Chapter 1: What issues arise when a family member uses your identity for investments?
Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Normal is broken. Common sense is weird. So we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network and the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio, this is The Ramsey Show. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author and host of the brand-new runaway hit on Ramsey Network called Front Row Seat.
He's my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Elizabeth's in Philadelphia. Hi, Elizabeth. How are you? I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Wonderful. My husband and I... I'm sorry. It's okay. My husband and I are debt-free, and we were looking into investing. And at the advice of a family member, our in-laws, they suggested to use a site that they had been using.
And when we tried to create an account, we found that my husband's Social Security number was already in use. And we have been told not to look into that further. We can't create the account because his Social Security is in use. And we found out essentially that investments and things are being made in his name, even though he's requested that they stop.
They're sending us, quote unquote, refund checks for the taxes that we pay on these investments. How can we... get away from the situation, essentially, and be financially independent of our in-laws. Wow. Yeah, it's fun. So your father-in-law is a con artist. I mean... Yeah, he's a criminal. This is criminal freaking fraud. Yeah. Yeah. You need to own this emotionally.
This guy's not only out of control, he's like go to jail out of control. You're screwing around with the Securities and Exchange Commission with fraudulent transactions. All y'all are messing up. You're messing up by allowing it to occur, and he's go to jail time if they can. Good God, people. Yeah. Wow.
Mm-hmm.
See the difference in how I reacted and how y'all reacted? We've been told we're not to talk about this. Well, you by God better. You can talk about it from cell block C if you want. Yeah. Have you measured your jumpsuits just to see how you look at them? They'll probably be short. Yeah. I'm just saying. I don't know how you look in orange, but you should probably look into that.
So this is what's known as a family that puts the fun in dysfunctional. Mm-hmm. So when is your husband going to call his dad and mom and say, guys, you need to shut all of these accounts down in the next 48 hours or I'm filing a police report. So we've done that. We just haven't filed the police report. You told them that. Yes. And they did not shut them down.
We didn't tell them we were going to file a police report, but we've requested multiple times very sternly, I'll say that in a polite way, to take the name off, get rid of it. We don't want anything to do with it. Cease and desist. What was their reaction? Oh, we're doing this for your future. They kissed my butt. You guys suck at poker as well. I'd love to play poker against you all.
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Chapter 2: What steps can be taken to regain financial independence from in-laws?
Well, he wasn't exactly a fan of this. And when I our last conversation that we all had around this and after that ended, I said, I'm going to call the Ramsey show. And he just kind of laughed. I guess he didn't think I was really going to do it. Well, you can play this back for the whole family if you want. You know, I think you can send it to mom and dad. Yeah.
And I think you need to make sure you mom and dad, if you happen to hear this, you suck. This is horrible what you're doing to your children. I know you think you're being smart, but you are way out of control. You've never met the word called boundaries, and we want to introduce it to you. Here's the thing.
You're complicit in this now, and it's kind of scary that you called the show, and you've said that you're complicit in it because I think you've laughed, and I'm not trying to be a downer here. She's just nervous. Well, but it's not funny. There's actually nothing funny about this. I hope you hear the urgency. I don't think Dave was too extreme.
I actually think that's what you should do because I don't even know. I'm no legal expert and I haven't played one on TV, but I do think this thing is far more serious as to what you all know than you actually realize. Yeah, there's probably other stuff going on. I'd be terrified. Usually when you tip something like this over, a raccoon runs out with the trash.
Yeah, and honestly, we kind of suspected that recently just with how
adamant they were because since this account's in my husband's social he could easily call the company and you know get detailed information and it was like don't you dare like you don't need to be looking in there and he still hasn't and we need to run your husband down to walmart and have him pick up a backbone on aisle three he's gonna y'all are gonna deal with this honey it's a mess y'all are y'all are mess y'all are a hot mess oh my gosh
So, you know, the first time I ever ran into this was a long, long time ago. It was like decades ago. We started hearing the word identity theft. I'd never heard the word before. It started coming up. You know, the Internet started having more prolification. And, you know, when I started the show, there was no Internet. That's how long the show's been on the air.
But I started hearing that and then I got just, I just got hillbilly mad because some guy calls in and goes, I'm 24 and my mom has seven credit cards that she opened in my name when I was 12 and 14 years old. And I'm like, your mother is a freaking criminal. She stole your identity. And the problem is the victim is just like her husband.
They're like, well, it's just kind of how our family does things. Your family's full of criminals. That's how your family does things.
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Chapter 3: How should one handle fraudulent transactions involving family members?
Your family has no idea how the legal system works in America today. And when you're doing investments, you're now involving the Securities and Exchange Commission. It's not simply banking laws.
Right.
I mean, banking laws are credit card theft, right? Or identity theft with opening a credit card. You start opening a dadgum mutual fund with a licensed broker. Oh, my God. You don't understand. They love to make examples of people like this. Especially stupid people. They really do. The people that investigate this kind of stuff are the most uptight investigators. They are purists.
This is scary stuff. And I just wonder what else is going on when the dad says, don't look into this. Don't look under the covers. Dave, I'm serious here when I ask you this. I'm trying to put myself in position if this was me. I would call the company and prove to the company that I'm the actual person with the Social Security. Find out the depth of what's going on.
But there's only one company that you've found so far. I wouldn't threaten the parents. I'd just go ahead and handle this. I would do both. And I'd do it by nightfall. I mean, before the sun sets on the horizon. This putting things off, because the problem is there's a family script here that says don't look. Which makes me worried about this. I'm here to say the emperor has no clothes, okay?
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Chapter 4: What are the implications of involving the authorities in family financial matters?
Hi, Dave. I had a question, a financial question. I am in total $628,000 in debt. I have a home that I purchased a little over a year ago for $335,000. I have student loan debt of $260,000, and I have credit card debt for $33,000. I had two jobs at one point. My second job, I no longer work as of six months ago, so now I'm just using my primary income.
and I was trying to figure out the quickest way to pay this debt down. Things are getting tough. $260,000 in student loan debt. Are you a doctor or a lawyer? I'm in the legal profession, close to a lawyer, but not. I do legal research for lawyers. What'd you spend $260,000 to become? I have four degrees. In what? I have an associate's degree in biological science.
I have a bachelor's degree in English. I have a master's degree in library science, and I have a second master's in intellectual property law, which is a law degree. So that's where all the debt came from. Is that not a master's in jurisprudence? Can't you set for the bar? Yes. Huh? I'm not sure. I haven't done that research on that. It's like law school, right? Law school's a master's.
You've got a degree in research, I heard. You should probably look into that. Yeah, I will. After a phone call, I will. Sorry. Oh, that's nasty. No, I mean, it's right there for me. So what do you make? Right now, I'm over six figures. And then the second job I was making close to like $25,000 a year. Doing what?
I was consulting in the library world, doing consulting work, helping them build their libraries back up, libraries that are having issues. They either don't pay much or you weren't working much, $25,000, huh? Yeah, I wasn't doing a whole lot, maybe about 15, 20 hours a week, if that. 15, 20 hours a week for $25,000 a year is not much. That's horrible per hour. Wow, okay.
Well, what is apparent is that you have – A lot of education and a lot of upside potential, therefore, on your income if we can figure out a way to apply that education in a way that makes you more money, which is what you need is more money and not more degrees. You have plenty of those. So, yeah, I mean, you've got – it's an income issue, really.
And you don't go buy a $300,000 house when you have $300,000 in student loans. That was bass-ackwards. But the – Are you single? yes okay how old are you single parent um 45. okay so what i would start asking myself is what use of some of this education can i do in the marketplace to make the most money and what combination of that.
So if library consulting only pays a dollar an hour, I don't really want to do that, okay? But if I can get some serious money going for some of these different things that you know how to do, that you're knowledgeable in, even if it's two things or three things, I don't care, but I want some serious money.
And you don't really have serious money coming from any of these, given your level of education. I mean, making $100,000 or $120,000 or whatever with 14 degrees is not – I mean, you're not – This is not working.
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Chapter 5: How much debt did the guests pay off and in what timeframe?
It's beautiful here. Oh, we're glad to have you. And how much debt have you two paid off? $217,000. Awesomeness.
Chapter 6: What factors contributed to the guests' income increase?
How long did that take?
Three years.
Three years. Good for you. And your range of income during that time?
Started around $100,000, ended at $172,000. Wow.
Nice jump in three years. Yeah. What do you guys do for a living?
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Chapter 7: What motivated the guests to change their financial habits?
I'm an occupational therapist.
And I work for Costco. Very cool. Have you met George? George would love to meet you. So what was responsible for that $72,000 jump?
A couple things. When we first started, he was on workman's comp, and we were currently living in Idaho, and then we moved to Alaska, which also led to an increase in income and get him back to work.
Yeah. Okay. Very cool. So what made you go on the Alaska adventure? I'm curious. Well, we just really felt God kind of opening that door. You didn't notice the cold air when he opened the door?
Chapter 8: What are the key takeaways for getting out of debt?
No.
We welcomed it when it came through the door. Arctic blast. Yeah. Wow.
Yeah, we were in a dark year. The year prior, my dad had passed away. He had gone to workman's comp. We had made some dumb money decisions, and we needed to make some change. We had a lot of things happen all at once.
And a change in scenery is not a bad idea. Yeah. All kidding aside.
Yeah. Yeah.
The pay in Alaska is excellent. It is. And how long do you have to be there before you get to participate in the gas stuff and all that?
It has to be one full calendar year starting in January. So if you moved in after January, you have to wait until the following January to start all over.
Okay. So you've not been there long enough yet. We just got it. Oh, no, you're three years. Yeah, you just got it. Okay, cool. So how much is that a year? It changes year to year depending. About 10 or 12 grand usually.
Oh, no.
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