Lorene Pounds is 86 years old and says she hasn’t shopped at Macy’s in years. That’s partly why she was surprised when Macy’s called her up and told her she was delinquent on her credit card account. The other reason she was surprised was they said she owed $19,791.

After lots of back and forth with Macy’s, Pounds finally figured out that her daughter, who died last year, had opened the account in her name without telling her.

One interesting issue this story brings up is that sometimes people are a lot more skeptical of identity theft claims when the crime happens between family members. However, that doesn’t mean you suddenly have an obligation to pay for a relative’s bill. As the lawyer who spoke with ABC7News points out, if your name was used fraudulently to obtain credit and you never agreed to anything, you don’t owe the company anything.

ABC7News says they spoke with Macy’s and got the department store to drop the charges.

“Elderly woman gets errant $19,000 Macy’s bill” [ABC7News] (Thanks to Cat_in_a_Hat!)

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