<prompt> Human: Hey personalfinance. Throw away account. My best friend is getting married next year to a nice girl. The problem is that from the time she was born until 12 or so, her father took out a lot of loans using her identity and information to finance his gambling addiction. This debt has been a problem for her for many years as it was very difficult for her to get school loans, financing for purchases, and even approval for small things like utilities companies. My best friend loves her and says they will just get married, he will assume her debt and they will pay it off eventually. Neither of them wants to come forward about the debt for fear of legal ramifications taken against her father. I have not been able to talk sense into my friend about his and their soon to be financial pickle, nor have I been successful getting his fiancé to tell creditors that it was her father.Is there any way to remedy this situation and absolvereduceeliminate her debt obligations without leading to any charges being pressed against her father for identity theft, fraud, or anything else? I dont think she would care having the debt transferred to him something he wont agree too as long as he did not get arrested or charged with anything.  <response>: Please contact the police or another authority about this - his actions and manipulation will only get worse and burden their relationship if you do not get a lawyer or someone to take care of it NOW. Very similar situation in my family - we just managed to get it declared as theftidentity fraud and we are in a much better place than before.If you pay off these loans for him, you enable his behavior. Gambling addictions cannot be controlled like this, and there is nothing stopping him from using you and the new wife to get more cash. Please dont make the mistake my family did years ago!!! Report him, get identity insurance to make sure he wont do this again, and NEVER lend him money. If you need to - GIVE him money, but dont lend it - relationships will be ruined. In my familys case, a gambling family member lent money that was supposed to fund my college - never got it back, you can imagine the family estrangement and panic. Set up accounts in daughters name with her social security number - this is identity theft and illegal! Saving him now will make it worse in the long run. Trust me. Its not worth their suffering. 