H
hp123
Guest
My husband came in this morning at 4am having been out on the town and instead of going to bed went online, and has lost 34k in an online casino - all in my name. We had 14k, he has now maxed me out on my overdraft of 3k and on two credit card accounts of 9k each (I was only supposed to have one of them and when the bank transferred me to a new visa account they never cancelled the other limit). So basically yesterday we were 14k up, today we owe 20k.
I am in complete shock and haven't a clue what to do. I have committed to having some work done to the house this week which is costing 4k and have a lot of expenses such as holidays coming up in the next few weeks, which is what the 14k was for. Fortunately I'm due to be paid this week so we'll be ok for all the monthly bills.
I rang up the visa company a few months ago to see if they could prevent transactions from betting companies and they told me they couldn't do that, so short of reporting him to the gardai there really wasn't much I could do to stop him using my credit card. I was always afraid of the risk of something like this happening some night, but it has never happened before. I've been unhappy for months about the level of betting he has been doing and we have had many arguments about it, but he never before risked more than a few thousand (which I thought was a lot at the time) and he always considered he had things under control. Talk about being in denial.
This is the craziest thing he has ever done and he is completely miserable today about it, I'mm a bit worried about depressing him any further so I'm trying to hide my feelings a bit, except for insisting he contact gamblers anonymous on monday which he has promised to do.
I'm not looking for comments on his actions. I'm looking for practical advice. What can I do to clear this debt?
We have a low mortgage but were previously refused a topup because he has a bad credit rating (he has always had no respect for money, doesn't bother paying minimum payments even when he has the money). I think the only thing I can do is to approach my bank to whom I owe the money and see what they can do to help me out of it. I can't get a loan anywhere else because I'd have to declare how much I owe on my credit card. Has this ever happened to anyone else?
Apart from clearing this debt I will insist he starts accepting he has a gambling problem and gets help for it, I have no intention of ever letting anything like this happen again. We've installed Gamblock a few times but he's a bit of an IT whizz and has no problem undoing it, and we need the internet access for work.
Can anyone help?
I am in complete shock and haven't a clue what to do. I have committed to having some work done to the house this week which is costing 4k and have a lot of expenses such as holidays coming up in the next few weeks, which is what the 14k was for. Fortunately I'm due to be paid this week so we'll be ok for all the monthly bills.
I rang up the visa company a few months ago to see if they could prevent transactions from betting companies and they told me they couldn't do that, so short of reporting him to the gardai there really wasn't much I could do to stop him using my credit card. I was always afraid of the risk of something like this happening some night, but it has never happened before. I've been unhappy for months about the level of betting he has been doing and we have had many arguments about it, but he never before risked more than a few thousand (which I thought was a lot at the time) and he always considered he had things under control. Talk about being in denial.
This is the craziest thing he has ever done and he is completely miserable today about it, I'mm a bit worried about depressing him any further so I'm trying to hide my feelings a bit, except for insisting he contact gamblers anonymous on monday which he has promised to do.
I'm not looking for comments on his actions. I'm looking for practical advice. What can I do to clear this debt?
We have a low mortgage but were previously refused a topup because he has a bad credit rating (he has always had no respect for money, doesn't bother paying minimum payments even when he has the money). I think the only thing I can do is to approach my bank to whom I owe the money and see what they can do to help me out of it. I can't get a loan anywhere else because I'd have to declare how much I owe on my credit card. Has this ever happened to anyone else?
Apart from clearing this debt I will insist he starts accepting he has a gambling problem and gets help for it, I have no intention of ever letting anything like this happen again. We've installed Gamblock a few times but he's a bit of an IT whizz and has no problem undoing it, and we need the internet access for work.
Can anyone help?