to confiscate her bank card?

[WongaWoman]

Today I opened the October bank statement of my eldest DD (19) and was horrified to discover that she was overdrawn by £280, had been charged nearly £90 in authorised and unauthorised overdraft charges, had accrued over £40 so far this month in charges, and she had received a payday loan of £100 from a well known online payday loan company earlier in October.

She is only on apprentice pay of £2.60 per hour! I have now nearly killed myself to pay off her payday loan and overdraft. With back up from my DH I have confiscated her bank card until I get all my money back as I thought it was the cheapest option for her. She was in floods of tears tonight in embarrassment and at losing her independence.

I don't really know what else I could have done. AIBU?

I would normally say YABU to open her bank statement and confiscate her bank card, but the pay day loan puts a different light on things IMO. They are a REALLY bad idea and can escalate so quickly.

YABU. If you had suspicions that she was in over her head, you should have challenged her on it and offered advice and help. You may have ended up settling her debt anyway but the difference would have been that she was taking responsibility. The decision to stop using the bank card should also be hers. It's not yours to withhold. I'm pleased to see that she's going to pay you back but my concern is that all she has learned from this experience is that she doesn't have to worry about what she spends, Mum will always be there to cover the cost.

I agree with Cognito and she has learnt entirely the wrong lesson from it.
Opening someone else's post is just not on, whatever the age. You needed to question her without opening it and given her advice on how she was going to deal with it.
If you treat her as an irresponsible DC she has 2 options

1. behave like one

2.do as Honeydragon did and move out.

I can only think that shineoncrazydiamond has younger DCs if she thinks that it is 'behaving like a parent'.

Or probably she can't afford to move out so you are stuck with a DD where communication and trust has gone and she will never view you in the same way.

I can't blame you for opening her statement, you had an idea she was in trouble. That's what I call parenting. You have saved her from the slipperey slope of debt, hope she has learned the lesson.

Those payday loans should be banned.

It isn't what I call parenting. No wonder people have problems with MIL! When do you stop? The lesson she has learned is 'never mind-the bank of mum and dad will sort it'.

I think you sound like a kind and compassionate mother. It sounds to me like you firstly spent your own hard earned money on bailng her out and then had an adult discussion and decided on the best course of action going forwards. I don't know how anyone can give you a hard time for that.

I don't think that opening a bank statement or loan statement is the same as opening a private letter. Whether it is "reasonable" or not depends on your relationship. If your daughter is still quite dependent on you, then it is reasonable that she loses some autonomy. If she is very independent (i.e pays you rent, manages her own affairs etc) then she has earned the right to absolute privacy.

I have a DB that is now mid-forties and has no clue about money management because all the time he was growing up and living at home our DM made similar mistakes to the OP. Paying off credit cards, not insisting on rent or contributions to bills, even paying a court fine on one memorable occasion. All the time justifying it as 'helping him get on his feet', not realising he was laughing behind her back for being a soft touch. Cautionary tale...

YABU. You shouldn't have opened her mail. Yes it's worrying that she had overspent but a lot of 19 year olds and even older people do this. Okay you have paid of the debt but if I were you I'd sit down with your DD and work out a budget with her so that she can pay at least some of it back. Then give her back her bank card and leave her to manage her money. DD2 is 21 and in her 3rd year at uni. I know she regulary goes into her overdraft. She tells me. But we have 'learnt to leave it to her and not to worry about it. Well we try not to worry.

To all of those saying she is being unreasonable, do you realise Wonga type loans have IRRs of thousands of percent? Do you realise she could have got into huge debt very very quickly? And then what would you suggest the OP did? Borrowed more to bail her out or help her file for bankruptcy and have her credit rating blotted for years?

It is easy to be absolutist about things but clearly the OP feels some responsibility towards her daughter even though she is technically an adult.

I think its unreasonable for a 19 year old to have a current account which allows herto have an overdraft

fucking hell

you sound like my mum. i couldn't wait to get away from her. i'm still trying to switch her off parent mode and i'm 25.

it is illegal to open another adult's mail. regardless of what yo think is inside or how concerned you are about them. what you do is treat them with a bit of respect and talk to them. give them the opportunity to tell you if there is a problem. they have no obligation to share with you either. they are quite entitled to sort their problems out their own way. even if you are their parent and even if their own way is harder. it's NOT YOUR CALL!!!!

and i agree with andrewofgg. you have only taught your DD that mummy will always sort out any shit she gets into. so well done for that. you know this means that the next debt will be left lying round for you to see? she may even milk it and make up a few debts so she can have a night on the piss with her mates. i know i would if yo were that soft to have cleared the first debt i ever got into.

and as for taking her bank card? that's theft dear. you have no right to take her card. she is an adult. she can report it stolen (which it has been) and get a new one. you can't stop her.

and you should have thought about your holiday plans before spending money on a debt that wasn't anything to do with you, without permission.

did your DD agree to pay the money back by jan before youu paid the debt? if not then you cant just start making life hard for her because you suddenly remembered you have left yourself short.

"It sounds to me like you firstly spent your own hard earned money on bailng her out and then had an adult discussion and decided on the best course of action going forwards."

perhaps OP should have done it the other way round. have the adult conversation first rather than taking over, doing it her way and then demanding the money be paid back in 2 month's time.

this is exactly the sort of thing my mum would have done. she is controlling too.

Heresthething,

If you really want independence, move out and don't ever take a penny from your parents. Independence and respect have to be earned. There seem to me to be a lot of young adults who want the best of both worlds.

The opening of post is pretty shocking imo BUT there are 19 year olds and there are 19 year olds - I had already left home 16 so by 19 I had been working and paying bills etc by the OP's dd's age. I know other really immature 19 year olds that barely know who to turn the washing machine on.

I think what the OP did was questionable but actually thank God she did otherwise her dd would be in a financial mess very quickly.

What happens about baliffs when you live under your parents' roof - do they take their belongings if debts can't be paid?

larry do you automatically lose any right to a say over money when you move in with a partner? what if that partner earns more? or if they are the wage earner and you are a SAHP? do you forfeit any right to a say just because you are partly dependant on them? no you dont, becasuse relationships, ALL relationships should be about respect. the DD should have been paying her mum the £100 a month. but the OP should have dealt with that like an adult herself rather than sneaking around behind her daughter's back and opening mail. how is her DD to learn respect and independence if her mother is teaching her there is no need to be independant, "i will always check up on you so i will know if you are in teh shit and bail you out"?

I meant to say when you found the payday envelope you should have just asked her about it. Then you could have discussed it with her and yes perhaps help her to pay the debt off. But making sure that you told her it was a one off. DD2 refused to have a credit card when she opened her student account even though they kept offering get one. She knew she would just over spend on it. The only way she could get them to shut up about it was to say my Mun wouldn't like it. She was 19 at the time. I think banks shouldn't push credit cards on to young people.

You are BU. You had no right to open her mail. She's overdrawn a couple of hundred quid and you are treating her like a baby. You sound incredibly controlling. If she gets in a mess in the future she will be scared to death to come to you. I would be livid if i was her.

Let her grow up. Don't bale her out. Let her learn it the hard way. And she will.

Don't have time to read all of this. I can see why you're so worried and why you've done it but one wonders why it came to this in the first place.

1. It is a criminal offence to open mail that you know does not belong to you. Under the Regulation of Investigatory powers Act 2000 it is an offence to open, destroy, hide or delay any post that is addressed to someone else, even if you know that it has been incorrectly delivered.

1. Your confiscation of a 19yo adults bank card is technically theft.

I know you're worried but it still smacks of punishing a little girl. She's an adult now. Do you have a history of opening her mail and invading her privacy beasue this is what coud have led to her concealing it from you in the first place. When I was a teenager, my mum was famous for rummaging through my stuff, opening my mail, going into the room next to mine when I had phone calls so she could listen. It just made me into a secretive paranoid wreck and I would not tell her anything about my life.

Rather than flying off the handle and taking her card away, you ought to have sat down with her and had a talk. You ought to have drawn up a budget together to decide the limit she has to spend per week taking into account the debts she has to repay. Teenagers do not fully understand the consequences of debt at this point and have never been in the position where they've had to put gas bills above buying that new pair of boots. The sooner she learns now the better. But flying off the handle and treating her like a 6yo wont help.

This is why I laugh when I hear of parents of young children going on about the stresses and worries of their sleep issues, food issues, tantrums.....! Adult problems are far more scary and when you have teens on your hands, you'll probably long for the days when the only issues you had were your kids bedtime!

YABU you should not have opened her mail. If you had suspicions you should have sat her down and talked to her.

When I lived with my mum she would open my mail and read my text messages if she heard my phone go off.

I moved out as soon as I could.

Now I will not leave paperwork out if she visits as she will read it and she is constantly asking how much money we have in savings. What a b or c cost us. I'm 32, I'm married and am 2 weeks off giving birth to our first child.

Parents need boundries too.

"but the OP should have dealt with that like an adult herself "

and by this i mean talking to her DD, asking her why she hasn't paid her rent, asking if there are money troubles and then offering to help if she wanted to. if her DD was refusing help, refusing to talk and refusing to pay rent then OP can ask her to leave. having your adult children at home is an agreement between you. you no longer have a right to know everything that is going on in their lives. thsi is harder for some parents to accept than others.

Larry has made an important point. Op it is obvious you care very much. Perhaps say to her you reacted on instinct and you are sorry you did it to protect her. Have an honest conversation about how scary debt is, not a lecture and return her bank card. Say you won't bail in and sort her out if it happens again. But also ask her to be open if she is not managing. Perhaps you could put some of her rent into an emergency fund that she can access for any unexpected expenditure?

What my mother did was controlling and wrong, it was not her place to read my phone bill. Nor call my brother demanding to know why I had been talking to him.

With hindsight you could have pointed out you found the loan stuff and said you were worried from the start. If I was your dd I would be very hurt then very angry about the level of subterfuge you went through after you first suspected.

I think you do need to stop being furious and sit down with dd and now approach her as you would another adult how made a stupid mistake. And also consider why she didn't tell you she was short in the first place.

In answer to Valium bailiffs would be unlikely as the court would realise that it would be difficult to prove what was the childs and what was the parents.

I think its unreasonable for a 19 year old to have a current account which allows herto have an overdraft

WineWasMothersMilk do you have young children? Becasue when i was a teen, student bank accounts allowed you a £1500 overdraft. Some of my friends opened 2-3 accounts to have access to the overdraft. They do now too. Some of the students we had working with us at my law firm were speaking of using their £1500 overdraft facility to pay for a 2 month travel around south east Asia and paying it back when they got their student grant and loan. That would reset them back to zero and they'd use their overdraft ot finance their uni year......!

YABU.

If you had concerns you should have raised them with her. Whilst a pay day loan is not ideal it is along way off requiring the sort of intervention that you have just doled out.

And ultimately what have you taught her? That you will bail her out. Ridiculous.

Try treating her like an adult and you might find that she starts behaving like one.