…$4,800 is exactly the down payment the dealership is waiting for.”
My attorney, Mr. Barnes, had run a credit check on me as a precaution. Last Tuesday, someone had applied for a $48,000 auto loan in my name, with my Social Security number and my signature. The loan was approved on one condition: a ten percent deposit by Friday.
The car was a white luxury SUV. The delivery address was my son’s house.
I didn’t call my son. I drove to the dealership with Mr. Barnes. The salesman remembered the “lovely couple” who had come in with paperwork for my son’s mother. “She was helping her elderly mother-in-law buy a car,” he said. “She said you’d had a hip replacement and couldn’t come in.”
I’ve never had a hip replacement. I walk four miles a day.
The papers had been signed with a signature that looked a little like mine. The copy of my driver’s license had been taken from my wallet, I realized later, during the baby shower, when I’d left my purse in their guest room.
Then I called my son, Jake, and asked him to meet me alone at a coffee shop. I put the loan application on the table.
He read it twice. Then he went very quiet. “She told me her parents were buying us a car for the baby,” he said. “She said they wanted a deposit from our side to make it fair. And that you should pay it, because you have savings and we don’t.”
The invoice had been her idea. If I paid it, the money would go straight to the dealer, and the car would arrive with my name on the loan and my credit on the line.
Jake was furious and humiliated at the same time. He hadn’t known. But he admitted he’d stopped asking questions a long time ago because it was easier.
Mr. Barnes reported the fraud and froze my credit. The dealership cancelled the loan. Jake’s wife, Brooke, was charged with identity theft. She told the police it was “a family matter.” The judge disagreed.
Jake and Brooke are separated now. He has the baby every other week, and on those weeks, I’m there. I hold my grandson for as long as I want.
The handmade blanket is in his crib. And there’s no fee.
