Is this trouble? What could happen?
If someone unknowingly made a mistake: They forged a couple of signatures and made up some SS #s on credit card application forms so their fundraising group could get $$. Of course these individuals (about 20 of 200 were incomplete) filled out their names, addresses, phone etc. They left the signature and SS# blank.
Now, over 3 years later, the school's gov't is being audited and this person has to submit records from that fundraiser. What could happen?
Answers:
If this is you, you better go hire a lawyer today to defend you. Sounds like you may be spending some time in prison. And it doesn't sound like it was "unknowingly made a mistake" either so you better hope I'm not on your jury.
One word jail
jail for fraud or possibly identiy theft attempt.
i hate to say, but you really need to consult an attorney on this.
remember - usually your initial visit is free.
good luck :)
your best bet is to go to south america where they cannot extradite you
That is not unknowingly making a mistake. That is FRAUD. Hire a lawyer.
its called fraud yes they can get in trouble big trouble with the law becuase its against the law .
Unknowingly making a mistake is counting wrong or adding wrong, not filling in someone's social security number with a fake and signing a fake signature! You better hope that this "audit" is just a skim to see if everything looks ok otherwise you're in BIG trouble. What you did was called FRAUD!
Credit fraud is a federal offense which means big time jail. If only one dollar was charged on a card.. the person who spent that is going to go to jail.
A super good lawyer (super expensive ) could work it out. But someone is going to spend time in jail, spend $10,000 in legal fees and when they audit that person will be sued.. for the schools legal fees and damages. It could even go into parents having liabilty as you were a monor at the time.
Get a lawyer now.
The most important aspect boils down to this: Did any money get charged to those credit cards with other peoples' names and wrong soc sec #'s on them?
If you were signing people up for some kind of credit card promotional fundraiser, and they forgot to sign or write their numbers down, so you signed for them and made up fake numbers, no harm was probably actually done.
If you were somehow using these phony cards to "give" yourself the funds for the fundraiser, you have actually committed some pretty serious fraud.
Seek immediate legal advice if the latter is the case, wait and see if it is the former.
You don't say who is doing the "audit" #1.
Your story is not very clear. The fundraiser aspect? The group was raising funds by doing what? They were being paid to solicit people to apply for a new credit card? Is that it? So...your fund raising group was paid money for credit card applications that were not really any good?
It is not really a forgery if you are just making up names and SS#'s. Nor, would it be ID theft. It could be construed however, that one was attempting to obtain counterfeit credit cards. Now, it would be a way diff story if you used a real ss# and forged say, my signature. THAT would land you in BIG trouble. Kind of see where I am going?
Sounds a lot likewhat was going on was when people "pad" political petitions with fake signatures. That is not forgery. But there ARE serious ramifications.
And exactly what do you mean the schools "gov't" is being audited?
And again, "who" is auditing? Do the people who paid the group want their money back? Are we talking about a great deal of money?
These are all important questions you need to answer, in order to be able to give you an honest answer.
None-the-less...I think everyone is confused by the "unknowingly made a mistake" part. Might help if you clarified that too.
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