Trickery and Fraud

So now you're thinking, "why do you keep dealing with this person if she has proven herself untrustworthy?" I've asked myself the same question. I'm a person of faith who believes that the power that is displayed through the Lord Jesus in the Gospels is the same power He intends His people to use today. The offending party is a highly gifted and compassionate person. In addition to being a direct beneficiary of her persistent prayer and counsel, i've been to meetings where people received healings before my very eyes, where "sinners and backslidden" cried out to the LORD in repentence, asking to be forgiven for their sins, people with obvious demonic oppression being set free, words of knowledge and words of wisdom flowed. How could someone so genuinely nice, down-to-earth, operating in spiritual gifts not make good on her debts?

The situation only gets worse. At the beginning of this year, she approached me to co-sign for a business card. That's exactly what she asked, "would you consider co-signing for a business card for the ministry?" I told her that was an important decision that i would need to pray about. (Fourth mistake: if someone needs you to co-sign for them, that very likely means that they have already ruined their own credit and cannot qualify to even finance a pack of bubble gum). After a day or so, i agreed to do it. She faxed me the application and i faxed it back to her. I noticed that it only had a line for one signature and wondered why it didn't have a line for two signatures. (Fifth and sixth mistakes, i sent her ALL of my personal information on that application and didn't challenge her on the lack of a signature line for her!! Aaack. The better thing to do would have been to complete it and mail it myself to the company).

Within a couple of weeks, i started receiving information and cards from two DIFFERENT companies. My second indication that something was wrong was when she called me to ask me to authorize one of the cards. I'm thinking, why do i have to authorize the card? Well, when i talked with the representative, she wanted me to acknowledge that i was the primary account holder on the account. I refused to do that and stated that i only indicated that i was the secretary on the account. Angry, i called the offending party and asked her what was that about. She sounded irritated that i was so angry, and explained that they needed one person's name as primary account holder. Then she said something to the effect that we were still on a corporate fast and it wasn't good for me to be so upset. Fearing that God would be displeased with me for ending a fast on a bad note, i backed down and activated the account. That was the second big warning God gave me that i ignored in favor of her spiritual talk.

The third big warning was a call late Saturday night from the fraud department of another company. I was not even aware of this card, as i had not received one in the mail. It was getting worse by the minute. I called completely irate, but again, she said something like i had agreed to apply to a business network of cards and this was one of them. This time, i felt really, really sick in my stomach. She wasn't a liar was she? I mean, i knew she wasn't good about paying back promised money, but was she lying to get credit? The company had shut down the card and was was willing to do a fraud investigation on my behalf, but that would mean prosecution for the offending party. Not wanting her to get in trouble with the law, i asked them to suspend the investigation. The company representative stated that that automatically meant i had to accept responsibility for the charges since i was now notified of the situation. That company in particular sent me those bills. For two months, i got bills that didn't seem to be getting paid. They finally suspended charging privileges on the card. They were calling the ministry until that number got disconnected. Then they started calling me.

Keep in mind that i had not made a single purchase on any of those cards. Moreover, i never received a card from one of the companies at all.

Two months ago, i started getting calls from another company stating that the balance on that card was over 12 grand. I called the offending party and was livid. At this point, i saw her as completely irresponsible. I began to talk to her less and less, because i was so sad that she had mishandled me and my credit. Broken, i called a Pastor, the first person who i admitted how dumb i was. How could i, an intelligent, pragmatic, common sense (sometimes) kind of person have been duped for so long? I mean, had she done anything to prove that she could handle money responsibly since i knew her? He gave me good advice which was to ask the companies for proof that i had applied for the cards. Then i called Christian Credit Counselors who listened to my story and explained that it was IMPOSSIBLE that one application had been used to obtain cards from three different companies. The counselor told me that they wouldn't even help me make payment arrangements until i could show them which of the three cards i was liable for.

The company that had the largest balance began calling me up to 12 times a day. Also, they were able to extract "good faith" money to keep me out of legal proceedings until i could identify what was really going on (seventh mistake, making a payment is an admission of responsibility).
I was mistakenly told that my request for the original application had been processed at the end of August. It wasn't. They didn't mind mis-informing me, but had perfect precision calling me all day every day. When i refused to be bullied any further, i got a little more cooperation. The understanding is, no more money until you can prove i owe this money.

I would have prevented the use of the other two cards if i had simply known that my information was fraudelently used to acquire them. Lies, my friends, all lies.

What caused me to realize that i was dealing with someone who, although apparently used by God to affect the miraculous, was totally unethical when it came to money. Due to the pressure that was on me from the companies, i kept calling her every day asking when had she planned to pay these companies? She then stated that she had finally closed a real estate deal and that her money was released. "The money is going to be in the mail by Tuesday and you should get it Wednesday...Oh, that's right, i mailed it two-day priority and you should get it no later than Friday...the post office called and told me the package didn't get mailed out and it should be there Monday...oh, the tracking number, let me find it... the devil must be fighting me real bad, because i can't find that tracking number anywhere." The Holy Spirit revealed to me that she never mailed the money, but i called the post office anyway. They confirmed that money orders had not been purchased, that they would have never called her about a package, and that she hadn't even been in that week. I also found out a real estate deal in the town in question had not taken place, at least not in her name or the (many) names of her ministry.

You may marvel that the bold lies was was sent me over the edge. Indeed, the lies hurt more than the actual credit drama... However, it wasn't until a pastor called me because he found the bills for the card companies and wanted me to know that a young man came to the church looking for the offending party because she owned him $5000 and that other people in the pastor's church had confessed that they too had either loaned her money or gave offerings beyond what they could reasonably give. The pastor asked me to file a police report to help stop her from doing this to someone else. What i learned from the police is that they couldn't do anything for me because i waited too long after knowing that the other cards were opened in my name for them to conduct a criminal investigation. My delay in dealing with the situation came from manipulation through statements from the offending party such as "just trust God. He's going to come through and pay these bills. Just be patient. Just wait."

Learn from my story and don't be a victim.