Thanks for your replyI dont think that the credit card account goes as far back as 20 years, probably no more than 6 years or so. I have been through everything and put into order, though I havent found the original statements.Putting aside the manner in which the debt has been accumulated (although I am extremely angry at the way she has been taken advantage of by someone in the family) I am still astonished that given her age a bank would be willing to make the credit available in the first place! I will try talking to her about the situation again to see if she will allow me to contact HSBC in the manner you suggest, she becomes very closed when the subject is raised......

Hello, I’m not sure if this is the correct place on CAG to post this thread, but hopefully so!I have recently become concerned with the state of my 86 yr old grandmothers finances. Old age is starting to take hold so i have been trying to help her keep her household bills and paperwork in order as she worries and doesn’t understand much of the letters, bills etc that come through the letterbox these days.Whilst sorting through her paperwork i came across her HSBC bank statements and credit card statements. I didn’t even know she had a credit card! She was overdrawn past her overdraft limit and also had a balance at the maximum credit limit of £ 10,000. Upon further investigation i found that there were two cards registered on the credit account, one to her and one to my uncle. He has been unable to work due to ill health for many years and from looking at her statements i found that all of his living expenses are going through on 'his' credit card. She hasn’t spent a bean on her credit card since the first statement that i can find going back 5 years or more, i have also found that she has been paying the minimum balance of the monthly credit card each month for well over 3 years with no contribution from him, and this, along with withdrawing large sums of money from her bank account to give him, has caused her bank account to be overdrawn. I have talked to her about the issue of my uncle getting her into debt and his lifestyle being on her tab, and that she should cancel his credit card etc - she grasped that giving him money from her bank account was causing her to go overdrawn and that it was impacting on her lifestyle (she was rationing her food!!!) - and has stopped giving him money from her bank account. I am pleased to see from her last statement that she is back in the black, but she doesn’t really understand what a credit card is and doesn’t get the concept that she is £ 10,000 in debt, and also worries about her son because of his health and not being able to work etc.To top it all off HSBC have recently increased her credit limit to £ 11,000, even though she only makes minimum monthly payments, the balance sits at a few pounds under the £ 10,000 limit and she quite regularly pays late as she forgets. She just thinks that it’s a monthly payment she has to make over the counter at her branch, with no grasp of what it’s for!!!!I am hoping that someone here can give some advice or guidance on what i can do to help her situation with regards to the credit cards. As far as i can tell from the paperwork i have found is that the credit account would have been opened after my grandfather passed away (that was over 20 years ago and the first statement i have is around 5-6 years ago), he was the only earner out of the two of them and since this she has lived only on her state pension and disability payments. Would HSBC giving her a credit card under these circumstances be considered irresponsible at her age and with no employment income? Especially increasing the credit limit recently to £ 11,000 when she quite obviously has no way of repaying the debt.The only way out of this for her that i can see (my uncle paying off the debt and reimbursing her for the money she has spent on paying the monthly payments is not going to happen) is if we can get the debt written off due to irresponsible lending? But i have no idea where to start.Many thanks for your help

Thanks everyone. We'll contact the CRAs tomorrow to sEe if we can get ourselves dissassociated. Looks like we may have bigger problems on my wifes credit report - having just reviewed it there are a lot of credit applications on there over a long time scale that she definately hasnt made but using a slightly different variation to our current home address......

Hello I recently obtained my credit report for the first time in many years and note that my wife is showing as a Financial Associate. However we have never had a joint loan, mortgage or credit application. Several years ago I worked away for quite a while (at the time my wife was my girlfriend) and just in case of emergencies I added her onto my current bank account so that she could make withdrawals over the counter if she needed to. She never had a debit or cash card for the account, didnt even have the need to withdraw cash when I was away, and when I returned home I never thought to remove her name from the account. Bank statements were addressed to us both but she never used it and never paid anything into it etc. The problem now is that I went bankrupt nearly 3 years ago and at the time this bank account was overdrawn and therefore included in the bankruptcy. It was only me that went bankrupt my wife was not included in this. I am now discharged. At the time of going bankrupt the bank contacted my wife demanding that she paid them for the full overdrawn amount, plus interest and over limit admin fees. We disputed this saying that at the very least that we were not liable to the charges that they added on after the bankruptcy date and they told her that they would get back to her. We never heard from them again, have never paid anything to them and I even received a statement from them some time later showing the full balance and a credit entry for the full amount bringing the account to zero - i thought that it must have been them transferring the balance to some kind of bad debt account and that the matter was closed. However I have noted now that on my credit report that bank account is showing as 'not updated' every month and is therefore still open and detriment to my credit rating. All other credit agreements that were included in my bankruptcy are showing as 'settled' as they should be, so I want to contact the bank to request that they update this with the credit reference agencies so that I can start to build a solid credit file so that in the future we can be successful in obtaining a mortgage. However I am worried that by contacting them it will trigger a demand for the money again which we can not afford to give them. There is also no evidence of this bank account or the overdrawn balance etc on my wifes credit report. So my questions are - Can or will they request payment of the overdrawn balance if I do contact them asking them to update the status with the credit reference agencies Is there a time limit/cut off after which point they cannot demand the money Can my wife and I disassociate ourselves financially with the credit reference agencies as we have no joint credit agreements (or at least none excluding the disputed bank account) Many thanks for reading and any advice that can be offered Regards

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I know where you are coming from. I went BR in 2008 and voluntarily gave my house back to the mortgage company a few weeks before my BR. Such a huge relief and life has been so much better since. I would have done it 1 year earlier had the fear of BR and the unknown not been so overwhelming, plus the feeling of guilt. However there is an awful lot of support out there for people in our position and there is not so much stigma as there used to be. The people on the CAG are very supportive and I also found the bankruptcyhelp forum very useful in the leadup to my BR. Best of luck to you

thoughts are with you and your family in Japan. I spent a month working in Tokyo and really loved Japan and the people.