28-year-old son discovers his parents have taken out 3 student loans in his name without permission, 25-year-old girlfriend demands he reports it as fraud: 'My credit score just dropped tremendously'

Author image for Emma Saven
Emma Saven
Oct 14, 2025 1:00 PM EDT

At the ripe age of 28 years old, imagine the surprise, after not being in contact with your family for months, that your parents have taken out three student loans in YOUR NAME since 2017, without you having any knowledge of it even happening…Now, fast forward years later, when you and your girlfriend are trying to purchase a new car, but realize your credit score is as mysteriously low as your will to make it out of this situation. 

How could they do this to you, after years of trying to become financially independent and stable? This is bound to throw a spanner in the works…and his girlfriend? Well, she's not too pleased about it either! Her opinions on his family are already sour, but this is too much. A big family recovery is not looking very likely…However, it was mentioned that this son lacks, well, for lack of a better word, 'financial literacy,' so many are arguing that perhaps he did sign the paperwork…After all, he did attend college, maybe he was just unaware that he'd be the one paying for that education years later…?

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  • It seems as though this family is in dire need of instant communication, before anyone takes actions that they may regret later. The couple could definitely try to freeze the accounts or speak with an adviser, but do you think this son has what it takes to claim fraud against his own family? Maybe there is a big piece of a puzzle that is missing here…and we want to know exactly what that is….because something isn't adding up, and it's not just his credit score!

  • Woman comforting her distressed boyfriend
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  • My boyfriend’s family took out student loans in HIS name and I don’t know what to do

    Where do I even begin. My boyfriend (28M) and I (25F) have a 7 month old daughter together that we are working tirelessly in this economy to support.
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  • My boyfriend's family has not been speaking to him for 5 months for other reasons that are very messed up in themselves.
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  • His own mother didn't even reach out to him on his birthday last month. Anyway, so my boyfriend has never been financially literate, I've had to guide and teach him a lot, which has been frustrating but is not his fault.
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  • He has spent the last year on a payment plan to pay off his debts and really made a difference in his credit score.
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  • However, as he was looking into getting his own car finally, he found that his credit score had dropped tremendously and we were both shocked.
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  • Come to find out, he has three different student loans that were taken out in 2017 that he did not take out himself.
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  • I was livid while he was more in shock than anything. What he had been told back in 2017 was that his grandmother was taking out loans for him to go to school.
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  • No one ever specified that they would be in HIS name, no one gave him account information, he never heard anything about them after he went off to school.
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  • A wad of cash that says student loan
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  • So here's my problem. We really cannot afford to have these loans thrown into our bills, we now are not able to get a second car, and his family is not speaking to him so we don't have any of the loan information to find out more.
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  • Not to mention this is literally illegal and he doesn't want to report his own family for fraud.
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  • I don't know what to do because thinking about this money is stressing me out every single day.
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  • It's been weeks and he hasn't tried to call his family to question them on this and all I can think is that we have to figure this out asap.
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  • It's taking everything in me to not report them for fraud myself. What do I do?
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  • Pretty senior woman writing in a notepad
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  • thefoxespisces I don't think you can legally take out loans in someone else's name...you need to call authorities and the loan people and say who authorized this because I didn't do this. It's fraud. Is the family member still alive to be responsible? The loan people shouldn't have even allowed it in the first place...my question is why did she have all his info to open a loan in his name without telling him?
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  • Being Human2011 Why would she do that though? It did not benefit her at all unless she spent the money and not him on college.
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  • HomeOk2835 OP In my honest opinion I think his mom forced his signature and pulled out loans in his name, then told him his grandmother pulled out loans for him. Why? Because they lie like that all the time, it's weird and uncomfortable but I've had to live with them for an extended period of time (unfortunately) and I've seen it
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  • Commercial-Mouse-865 First thing: pull full credit reports (all three bureaus) and freeze or put a fraud alert on his credit so nothing else gets opened in his name while you sort this out.
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  • billdizzle He signed for these loans and was to stupid to understand them at the time is my guess You can call the cops but when his signature shows up on the docs he is screwed
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  • Snurgisdr You say he's financially illiterate. The loans were supposedly for school, and apparently he went to school. It *could* be fraudulent, but it sounds more likely that his family did the paperwork for him, he signed off on it without understanding what it was, and he spent the money.
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  • Opposite-Friend7275 Report this to the police. It's the only way out of this.
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  • fallensmurf One point you may be overlooking: if his credit only recently dropped and these loans have been in repayment for years, then someone just stopped paying. That means someone has been paying these loans for your boyfriend till recently.
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  • noniqwq That's really rough. He should freeze his credit, file an identity-theft report through Identity Theft.gov and the police, then log into StudentAid.gov to see which loans are tied to his name. From there, he can dispute them directly with each servicer and include the theft reports as proof. It's tough, but that's the fastest and safest way to start fixing this.
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no-contact boyfriend family drama redditstory student loans parenting finances advice financing fraud in laws irresponisble family Reddit grandmother signature in-his-name college
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