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I know I haven't been around for a while, basically since last spring when I sold the '84. We had some family "issues" over the past few months that have made my involvement with TCS, the Shelby club...well, pretty much everything non-existent.
Around Christmas time, my parents found out that their house was in foreclosure. This came as a big surprise to the rest of my family as we didn't even know there was a mortgage. Weelllllll....there kinda wasn't. My older sister had "allegedly" taken it upon herself to have my father sign over the deed to the house about 4 or 5 years ago. As far as we can tell, this was shortly after he suffered his first major stroke. She then took out two mortgages on the property, one for my parents' house (pics below) and one for her house which she had moved onto a 5-acre section of the back yard. Keep in mind, this is a place in very rural South Dakota so that's a 5-acre section of a 39.5 acre property.
We were pretty much dumbfounded at this, and very very angry. My parents are both retired, my father has had numerous health problems, and now they are going to be forced to move out of the house they have lived in for 35+ years? It just didn't seem fair.
Then it got worse.
My other sister lives in Germany. After she found out about this, she planned to fly home in February. She has a joint credit card with my mom that she can use specifically for things like airline tickets and emergency trips home. When she went to use it for this trip home, the card was maxxed out. When she did eventually make it back, further investigation revealed a total of 15 to 20 unknown credit card accounts in either my mother's name, my sister's name, or a combination of the two. They found the account numbers on a post-it note in my sister's house in the parents' back yard, next to her computer. In layman's terms, that's pretty damn incriminating.
All said and done, we are up around $300,000 in fraudulent debt. The credit cards have been about 95% cleaned up, but the foreclosure had already progressed too far to fight without spending oodles of money on lawyers and court costs to delay it long enough to build a case. That money was used to buy a replacement house instead.
There have been a handful of smaller incidents as well. My TCF account was locked one day after some "suspicious activity". Just last weekend (May 19th) my mother got a phone call from another credit card company because someone was trying to activate a new card. Again, I don't explicitly know my sister had anything to do with these things...but...well...it's pretty hard to not accuse.
Now, save your sympathies and apologies. That time has passed. We've moved on to the "we're putting that bitch on ice" phase.
I spoke with the State's Attorney who is handling the case just today. There has been a warrant issued for her arrest and she will face mandatory prison time. I have also spoken briefly with the Minneapolis Assistant US Attorney General who has handled many similar and bigger cases. I asked him if I could pass his contact information on to the prosecuting State's Attorney who has never had to handle a case like this. He agreed to help answer any questions which may arise.
Lots of people start by asking "where'd the money go?" The truth is, there is no answer to that. It doesn't matter where the money went, it's just gone. If you want my best guess...I'd say a combination of cash advances to pay the fraudulent mortgages and/or online gambling. I have no proof to back that up, it's just my guess.
By now some of you may be asking "why post this here?" The answer is actually pretty simple. I want everyone to make sure they understand that stuff like this DOES happen. My parents kept a big brown file folder with all of our information inside. Birth certificates, loan information, bank accounts, copies of our social security cards...all of that stuff. All of us kids knew about the big brown file folder, including my sister. Someone who broke into their house would never have taken the generic big brown file folder, even though it's probably the most valuable thing in the entire place. My sister, on the other hand, knew exactly what was inside. More often than not, cases like this are traced back to a family member.
Around Christmas time, my parents found out that their house was in foreclosure. This came as a big surprise to the rest of my family as we didn't even know there was a mortgage. Weelllllll....there kinda wasn't. My older sister had "allegedly" taken it upon herself to have my father sign over the deed to the house about 4 or 5 years ago. As far as we can tell, this was shortly after he suffered his first major stroke. She then took out two mortgages on the property, one for my parents' house (pics below) and one for her house which she had moved onto a 5-acre section of the back yard. Keep in mind, this is a place in very rural South Dakota so that's a 5-acre section of a 39.5 acre property.
We were pretty much dumbfounded at this, and very very angry. My parents are both retired, my father has had numerous health problems, and now they are going to be forced to move out of the house they have lived in for 35+ years? It just didn't seem fair.
Then it got worse.
My other sister lives in Germany. After she found out about this, she planned to fly home in February. She has a joint credit card with my mom that she can use specifically for things like airline tickets and emergency trips home. When she went to use it for this trip home, the card was maxxed out. When she did eventually make it back, further investigation revealed a total of 15 to 20 unknown credit card accounts in either my mother's name, my sister's name, or a combination of the two. They found the account numbers on a post-it note in my sister's house in the parents' back yard, next to her computer. In layman's terms, that's pretty damn incriminating.
All said and done, we are up around $300,000 in fraudulent debt. The credit cards have been about 95% cleaned up, but the foreclosure had already progressed too far to fight without spending oodles of money on lawyers and court costs to delay it long enough to build a case. That money was used to buy a replacement house instead.
There have been a handful of smaller incidents as well. My TCF account was locked one day after some "suspicious activity". Just last weekend (May 19th) my mother got a phone call from another credit card company because someone was trying to activate a new card. Again, I don't explicitly know my sister had anything to do with these things...but...well...it's pretty hard to not accuse.
Now, save your sympathies and apologies. That time has passed. We've moved on to the "we're putting that bitch on ice" phase.
I spoke with the State's Attorney who is handling the case just today. There has been a warrant issued for her arrest and she will face mandatory prison time. I have also spoken briefly with the Minneapolis Assistant US Attorney General who has handled many similar and bigger cases. I asked him if I could pass his contact information on to the prosecuting State's Attorney who has never had to handle a case like this. He agreed to help answer any questions which may arise.
Lots of people start by asking "where'd the money go?" The truth is, there is no answer to that. It doesn't matter where the money went, it's just gone. If you want my best guess...I'd say a combination of cash advances to pay the fraudulent mortgages and/or online gambling. I have no proof to back that up, it's just my guess.
By now some of you may be asking "why post this here?" The answer is actually pretty simple. I want everyone to make sure they understand that stuff like this DOES happen. My parents kept a big brown file folder with all of our information inside. Birth certificates, loan information, bank accounts, copies of our social security cards...all of that stuff. All of us kids knew about the big brown file folder, including my sister. Someone who broke into their house would never have taken the generic big brown file folder, even though it's probably the most valuable thing in the entire place. My sister, on the other hand, knew exactly what was inside. More often than not, cases like this are traced back to a family member.
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