sister furious at me and DD over DD's prank

[namechangedfri29]

I feel mortified and I don't know what to do or tell DSIS to try and make things better between us.

My DSIS' son is 18 years old and has recently started taking driving lessons. He's got a 10-year-old little sister.

My DD is also 18 years old and very close to DNephew.

My nephew has recently entered an online "raffle" type of competition in the hope of winning a car.

Now, here's the problem. My DD thought it would be funny to pull a prank on her cousin and offer her 10 year old cousin to join along.
From my understanding, they sent a text message from a what seems to be a fake number generated by an online app. The text message was sent to my nephew and congratulated him for winning the car and asked him to come get it from the raffle company's office as soon as possible.
It was only once they were about to go in the car that DD and my niece told them all about the joke.

My DSIS and BIL are now furious at their daughter, my daughter and myself.

what does she have that means a lot to her? Take it away for a month or permanently.

You can’t do this to an adult!

Jesus, sometimes kids get things wrong. In fact sometimes we all get things wrong. It caused upset and it's over, no one died. An apology and a contrite attitude is all that's needed.

Too much drama and too much free time on everyone's hands🤣

It was a prank, which seems something they usually do to each other.
Plus, i would say a good lesson for Scams.
Who enters an online competition and receives a text message saying they won and believes without even looking into it further?

P.S who was going to driving them to the sales office to collect the car? Dont tell me it was the parents?!

I suspect your sister is as angry as she is because she thought she'd got out of paying for your nephew's car. She's also very disappointed it would seem.

However, like pp's have pointed out, no actual harm has been done, so let it blow over.

It’s not amazing but hardly the end of the world. No one was hurt. I think there’s a load of massive over reaction on here about this. Esp if they have form for pranking each other.

Not funny,just mean.

Seem to be in the minority here but it’s a prank (between two people that prank each other). I don’t think it’s that big a deal & suspect ye will laugh about it in a few years. It’s not like she waited til they got to the place to collect the car. Tbh (braces self) I think it’s pretty funny

yes it was the parents

Yes this.

I would send your daughter round in person to apologise to them both - it’s good for her to own her fuck ups.

But beyond this don’t worry about it, it’s one of those things that will settle.

Hopefully! thank you for your reply

That’s bloody mean and it’s not a joke - poor lad

I don't find it funny but it's not that deep.

Unlikely to win a car.

I guess if she sent text then told him soon after it wouldn't be so bad.

she didn't tell him immediately after but it wasn't dragged out all afternoon either. probably around one hour

As you said, "DD and DN love pranking each other, sometimes it's light hearted, sometimes it makes me roll my eyes, sometimes they annoy each other, but I think this one was just too much for all of them".
This is the problem. Sooner or later one of them was going to overstep the mark and cause upset, and it just happened to be your DD. It's akin to rough and tumble, "it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye!". Best thing would be for them to agree no more "pranks", and understand why.

I'd be more concerned that they thought they'd jump in the car to collect their win on the strength of a text message! Good lesson for the nephew. And I secretly admire the DD's cold-hearted commitment to it.

Quite easily if she lived under my roof

I agree

Crying because of the upset she'd caused or because she'd been pulled up?

It was a mean and nasty trick. Shame on them.

How? I'm genuinely interested.

And would you punish your husband/partner if they did something you didn't like? I find this whole concept of adults wanting to punish other adults very disconcerting. It would be considered abusive in a marriage...

People are saying that the DD should receive more punishment. She is 18 and I am wondering how you punish an 18 year old who is seen as a woman, no? Asking for a friend who doesn’t have children.

I wouldn’t punish her. She’s an adult, what are you going to do?

However, she’s an adult who’s behaved like a dick and upset another adult, the consequence of this being that everyone is very disappointed in her and she has (hopefully temporarily) damaged her relationship with her cousin and her aunt and uncle. That is her ‘punishment’.

It’s a useful life lesson for her.

I think some people are over the top here. It was mean but a decent apology should be sufficient.

She's 18, she didn't think. She told him, no permanent harm done, apologise and forget about it.

Maybe the pranks need to stop now.

Don’t be so ridiculous. OP’s dd is only 18, so do you really think she has lots of money lying about, or do you think she should take out a bank loan to give to her cousin?

I agree this was a really horrible thing to do, but OP says her dd and dn often prank each other, so it was only a matter of time before something happened that took matters too far.

Let’s be honest, 18 year olds don’t always make good decisions, but hopefully they learn from the bad ones, like this. Dd should be punished, but suggesting handing over large sums of money (which OP has even said her ds doesn’t expect), is absolutely ludicrous.