âĤa man named Jason Reed. We believe he’s in a relationship with your daughter-in-law.”
The investigator, Mr. Cole, showed me the third application. A black pickup truck, worth $58,000, financed in my name and registered to an address across town. Jason Reed lived there.
My son, Ryan, had forged my signature on the Mercedes loan and a second application for an SUV. He’d told the dealership I was his “co-buyer.” But the third loan had been submitted online, from my daughter-in-law Amber’s laptop, a week after the first.
“It looks like your son was being used too,” Mr. Cole said.
I asked Ryan to come to the fraud office with me. I didn’t tell him why. When Mr. Cole laid out all three applications and Jason Reed’s address, Ryan went very quiet. He recognized the name. It was the “coworker” Amber had been texting late at night for months.
Ryan admitted to forging my signature on the first two loans. He said Amber told him I’d “never notice” and that he’d pay the cars off before I found out.
All three loans were cancelled. The dealerships repossessed the cars. Ryan was charged with identity fraud. Because he cooperated fully, he received probation and community service. Amber and Jason were charged too.
Ryan moved in with me for a while after Amber left. He was ashamed. He did my yard work every weekend without being asked, and fixed my leaky faucet, and drove me to my doctor’s appointments.
One evening, he said, “Mom, I used your name to buy a car that she gave to another man.” I told him that was the most expensive lesson anyone in our family had ever learned. He laughed for the first time in weeks.
