Man Says His Ex-Wife Opened Credit Cards in His Name — Then Threatened To Block Him From Seeing Their Son if He Reported Her
In a Reddit post, a divorced father said he thought he and his ex-wife had settled into something close to workable co-parenting until one letter from a collection agency changed everything. According to the post, the divorce had been final for about four years. She had primary custody because she lived in their son’s school district, while he had most weekends and holidays. It was not perfect, but it had been functioning. Then he found out that his ex-wife had opened two credit cards in his name and run up about $6,000 in debt.
He said it was obvious she was the one behind it because the accounts were tied to her address and the charges matched the places where she regularly shopped. In the post, he wrote that when he confronted her during a child exchange, she first denied it. Then, when he said he would have to go to the police if she did not pay the balances off immediately, she changed tactics. She told him that if he reported her, she would stop allowing visitation for “safety” reasons. He said this was not an empty threat. She had done similar things before, forcing him to go back to court just to enforce the parenting order.
The father wrote that this was what made the situation so ugly. It was not just identity theft. It was identity theft tied directly to his fear of losing time with his son. He said he did not want the child dragged through another round of court drama, but he also could not simply accept damaged credit over debt he never agreed to. In the post, he sounded torn between doing what was legally obvious and bracing for the retaliation he knew would follow the moment he did it.
He ended up going to the police anyway. Four months later, he came back with an update and said the report itself had been easy enough to make. Both fraudulent cards eventually dropped off his credit report, his score recovered, and he froze his credit to stop it from happening again. But the legal side did not go the way he hoped. According to the update, prosecutors were not interested in pursuing criminal charges unless the credit card companies cooperated, and they typically did not. He even tried asking the county to prosecute on his behalf, but got a form letter back saying they would not.
What did happen, though, was exactly what she had promised. He said she started withholding their son the very week after he made the police report. According to the update, he documented every single missed exchange — around 30 by the time he wrote again — and went back to court. She accused him of being abusive and manipulative. He responded by showing the judge the police report over the credit cards and pointing out that the visitation violations had started right after he reported the fraud. The judge gave her what he described as one final chance to comply with the custody order before altering it and possibly pursuing contempt or criminal penalties.
That did not stop her. He wrote that after the hearing she immediately began demanding more child support and alimony, asking for an extra $1,500 a month. When he refused, she skipped another exchange. Then the next day he got a “new account detected” alert and discovered someone had tried to open yet another credit card in his name — again using her address. He said he managed to shut that account down before the card was even mailed, made another police report, and got her served at work again ahead of the next court date.
By the end of the update, he sounded exhausted more than anything else. He said he knew things would work out eventually, but she was testing his nerves badly. What started as one fraud discovery had turned into a spiral of police reports, custody interference, court hearings, child support demands, and a second attempt to open credit in his name as soon as the first round stopped working.
