Financial Abuse: Manipulating Money To Trap Women In Violent Relationships

“If more people are aware of the whole realm of domestic violence, then less women will have to go through the abuse, less women will die, and more women will leave and stay gone.”

By Courtney CollinsJuly 28, 2016 8:32 am,

From KERA:

An often overlooked aspect of domestic violence is financial abuse. Victims are forced to co-sign loans, open new credit cards and make purchases they can’t afford.

One Tarrant County woman lost tens of thousands of dollars to her abuser. Years later, she’s still working to regain her financial footing.

Most of us have some sort of filing system—like an accordion folder full of important documents like tax returns; 52-year-old Kelly is flipping through hers in the living room of her Tarrant County home. Her tabs are a little different—one’s marked ‘domestic violence,’ another- ‘debit card fraud.’

For five years, Kelly was in a relationship with a man who physically abused her. KERA agreed not to use her last name, for safety reasons.

From Happy To Violent

The first two years of their relationship were happy, the last three were not. She talks about getting hit, having a gun pulled on her, wine bottles smashed against the wall next to her head.

“Another time I was hit with a small wicker decorative thing that had little drawers in it, and he beat me with that. So it wasn’t always with his hands,” she says.

She had a great job when she met him and plenty of money in the bank. Things changed when she ended up in the hospital with brain swelling.

“He was able to log on, change all of my security questions and all of my log in information so I couldn’t log on and then he just wired out all of my money,” she says. “It was over $50,000.”

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