Posts by Sarah Wood9

Look, there’s no debate about who owns the phone number—she’s been using it for years, calling us from it constantly whenever she needs to make some pathetic excuse.
We’ve already come to terms with the fact that we might never see a dime of that money, but we just want this over with. My husband and her aren't even working at the same place anymore, and if we just let this slide, she’ll realize she can get away with it—and then some other naive person will fall for her nonsense (we heard through the grapevine she owes people left and right). It’s pretty obvious my husband doesn't even know how deep she is in debt, either; she kept insisting we shouldn't tell anyone she owed us because she was afraid her husband would take their kid away. Then there's the constant lying—promising to pay us back in a few days, only for nothing to happen. She’s been dragging this out for over six months now. We run into her all the time at restaurants or the mall, and then she just "flees" the moment she sees us.

I'm wondering if we actually interpreted the law correctly here—is this really how it works?

Megan Thomas5 said:1. What do you mean "forgery"?
2. A private lawsuit doesn't involve official misconduct.
3. Fraud? Where?
4. If you don't have a notarized contract and all that paperwork, you're going to have a really hard time in court.

1. US Code Title 18, Section 1651:
"Whoever, with intent to defraud, makes, uses, or utters a false document as if it were genuine or who acquires such a document for use or uses it as genuine,"

Section 3:
"Whoever commits an offense under sections 1 or 2 regarding public documents, wills, promissory notes, checks, credit cards, or public or official records required by law..."

Basically, she emailed us a payment confirmation using some fake account number as proof of payment. When we went down to Chase a week later with that receipt to see why the money hadn't hit our account yet, they told us flat out the receipt was a fake.

2. We’re thinking about filing criminal charges against her instead of just doing a civil suit.

3. Per US Code Title 18, Section 1343:
"Whoever, with intent to defraud, obtains money or property through false pretenses or by means of material misrepresentations or omissions and thereby causes a loss to another..."
Section 3:
"If the offense under section 1 results in minor financial gain, and the perpetrator intended to secure such gain..."

Look, there wasn't even a loan involved that she needed the cash for—that's the false representation part. She knew she wasn't going to pay it back, but she promised it within days—that's the deception. Then she kept giving us these endless excuses—saying she had the money and to check tomorrow, then calling minutes before the deadline saying she didn't—just keeping us in the dark.

4. We have over 50 text messages where she doesn't deny the debt or the deadline. She keeps saying she'll pay tomorrow, then says she can't, then says she'll pay the day after... it just goes on forever.

Back in March, my husband lent a coworker $2333. She promised to pay us back in just a few days—claimed she needed to cover some bank fees to get a loan approved. Fast forward to today, and she’s only scraped together about $200. We even tried being nice and offered her a payment plan of $167 per month, but her "payments" have been a joke—it's $27, then nothing for two months, then $100, then silence again, then $73. Every single week we send her one or two texts asking for our money back, but now? Total radio silence. She used to be a pro at making excuses—waiting for a paycheck, travel expenses, claiming she had COVID, crying on the phone about her kid... she even sent us a fake receipt for a transfer that Chase couldn't find any record of. And even when she actually admitted she had the cash and we set a time and place to meet, she’d either ghost us or call minutes before, sobbing about some new crisis. Turns out, it was all a front—we found out she’s a gambling addict and is drowning in debt, despite living this high-end lifestyle with designer labels and fancy dinners. There was never any loan involved because her credit is trashed.
She hasn't denied owing us through text, and she knows damn well we need that money—her stalling is costing us real money. I actually had to take out a personal loan to cover my husband's credit card bills after he lost his job in early May.
We tried playing nice, but since she’s ignoring us and clearly has no intention of paying, we’re thinking about filing a police report to sue for damages. We don't have a formal contract, just a trail of texts where she admits everything. The money was lent as a favor with the explicit condition it would be returned within a week.

My question is: does this qualify as fraud or forgery? Should we report this to the police or the DA? And do we actually need to hire an attorney, or are these things prosecuted automatically once reported?