Ohio woman says her ex-boyfriend secretly spent nearly $17,000 on her credit cards. The Ramsey Show says she should fight the charges as fraud

According to the CFPB, if unauthorized use of a card occurs before you report it missing, the most you’re liable for is $50 — and many cardholder agreements hold you to zero liability. If your account number is used without your knowledge and you never lost the physical card, you generally have no liability at all.

She’s far from alone

Marie’s situation reflects a documented pattern. According to the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence, financial abuse occurs in the vast majority of abusive relationships, and 78% of Americans don’t recognize it as a form of domestic violence. Misuse of a partner’s credit — without their knowledge — falls squarely within that definition.

Beyond the relationship angle, a report from Security.org found that roughly one in three U.S. adults experienced a fraudulent charge in the past year alone, totaling an estimated $6.1 billion in unauthorized charges. And 22% of fraud victims reported recurring unauthorized charges from the same source, nearly double from the prior year.

Where to go from here

The show’s advice to Marie was simple: cut off all financial access, close any compromised accounts and freeze her credit with all three major bureaus — TransUnion, Equifax and Experian — so no new accounts can be opened in her name. As Cruze put it, “Who knows what he would do when he gets pissed that you evict him.”

Beyond that, the National Consumer Law Center advises submitting any dispute in writing to your card issuer, not just reporting it over the phone, as written billing error notices carry advantages over verbal reports alone.

If the credit card companies don’t budge, Marie may be left paying what the show grimly calls “stupid tax” — a hard financial lesson with no legal remedy. But the steps she takes now can limit the damage and ensure history doesn’t repeat itself.