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?

but what if they couldn't fix it for you maryz?

OP had no idea how much her DD's debt was before opening that letter. it could have been £10K. and OP has said she needs the money she spent on the debt back by middle of jan so i am assuming she wouldn't have much more than what she has given her never mind £10k.

would it be ok for your 19 year old to open your letter even though they didn't know if they could help you or not? would you be pissed off if they opened it but couldn't help you out?

To me it would border on sadistic for someone to allow their own child, earning £2.60 an hour, to end up falling victim to a mountain of debt via mushrooming payday loan charges.

OK, so she opened her DD's bank statement. But if the girl hasn't been independent that long, and has been acting shifty about money recently, then this - while a bit intrusive - isn't that far beyond the pale.

Hopefully the OP will be able to have a sensible chat with her DD about budgeting and managing money. And it seems likely that the DD has learned her lesson and will be more sensible in the future.

It seems likely to me that OP post's DD will think-'she thinks I am irresponsible and she needs to sort it-she can get on with it and I will be irresponsible in the future!'
DCs live up or down to expectations IMO. If you don't expect much you sure won't get it!

"DCs live up or down to expectations IMO. If you don't expect much you sure won't get it!"

totally agree.

and no it isn't sadistic to let your adult child deal with the consequences of their actions. she wont be letting her DD starve, she is providing her with a home. it's up to her adult DD to do the rest. we all make stupid mistakes, most of us when we are young, but part of the maturing process is learning from those mistakes, and the only way to really learn so as not to repeat is to have to deal with the real consequences.

as far as OP's DD is concerned, the consequence of taking on debt is that mum will find out, probably go ballistic, take control and sort it for you, yeah you now owe your mum, but mum has proven how much of a soft touch she is by letting you away rent free for 3 months and then making the nasty debt collectors go away. mum wont do anything if i dont pay any debt back this month...or next month, in fact i could probably take on another loan and she'll clear it if i leave the letter where she can see it.

Jeez, this is exactly why I've been teaching my daughter from 13 to manage her own money and giving her independence.

I think the biggest mistake here (aside from opening her post) was to pay the debt off for her. Yes it was the cheapest overall but you haven't taught her anything except "If mum finds out, I'm in deep shit"

Better to have sat down with her and helped her by creating a payment plan or words of support. Taking control away from her at this age is treating her like a child. At her age she should already be aware that she and she alone is responsible for any mess she causes.

Exotic,

I have no idea of your personal circumstances but would you seriously let any of your children default on a debt when you could help them? Do you think having a blemished credit record for a minimum of five years is a reasonable price to pay for some 19 year old irresponsibility?

People are too absolutist. For me this is about the lesser of two evils. Of course one wants adults to learn their own lessons but, as a parent, some are just too hard. There is nothing magical about 18 (except in law). Some 16 year olds are perfectly capable of living on their own and managing all their own finances but some in their early twenties are still a bit chaotic. Of course, in a Darwinian world, these would just fall on the scrapheap of living in a squat or reverting to crime, but most of us parents would try and give our children another chance, while trying to explain to them the error of their ways. Personally, I think that the OP has achieved a reasonable compromise. As she said, her daughter was mortified to lose her financial independence for a while but also did not complain that the punishment was unfair. I doubt she will rush to repeat the error.

I am an old(ish) parent of toddlers so most of my friends have older children. A lot of them are cushioned from the harsh realities of life while at Uni by generous donations from their parents and finding it far too easy to get extra support by merely claiming poverty. In this case, it seems to me the OP's daughter was trying to manage on her own and got a little out of her depth. At that point, her mother stepped in and helped her out. Are some not missing the big picture by focusing on the detail of her breach of privacy? This was not a billet doux or a private letter that got opened.

yes it was a private letter.

"would you seriously let any of your children default on a debt when you could help them? "

i would give them the option of taking that help. i wouldn't take over and force the solution upon them giving them no say at all in what was happening. it isn't up to the OP how the DD clears her debt. it is up to the DD. if OP wants to help, fine, offer help and let the DD choose to accept or decline. taking control and doing it all without being asked is not letting the DD deal with it like an adult would. nor is removing her debit card!!

Does she mind that you opened her post, OP? Doesn't sound like it.
fwiw, I don't think you had any good choices, OP. I don't think I could (easily) knowingly let my offspring run up PayDay loan charges, either.

How in the world do people find out about PayDay loans? I wouldn't know they exist except that they have been in the financial press a lot recently.

all letters are private

Heresthething,

The idea that the OP should "offer help" with no conditions strikes me as making her daughter take far far less responsibility for her actions than what she did. In reality, if her daughter were the "independent" adult that you would like her to be, she would have told her parents that she would not take a penny and ordered another card from her bank. Then she would have either defaulted (most probable) or somehow worked her way out of it. She could have done both of the above as an adult. I think the fact that she did not speaks to the nature of her relationship with her parents.

I do think your posts strike me as coming from someone who is happy to take money from a parent, using the idea of the parent "wanting" to offer and the adult child kindly accepting the money pressed on her, but abhors the idea of any conditionality attached to the money. This strikes me as a little juvenile.

I sort of understand where you are coming from re 'twitching radar', OP. My mum would never open my mail (I'm 23 btw) and never has done because I've never got myself into financial 'trouble.' My brother, on the other hand, has had his mail opened, his bedside drawers rifled through, pockets etc etc etc because she felt there was something wrong, and she was right. He went out at 18 and got himself a loan and has been doing things like that ever since. He is 22 now. He works in the city and is desperate to keep up with those around him when they are on much much higher wages. He is in debt up to his eyeballs and really struggles to address it or even care about it I think, and IMO that is because my mother spent such a long time bailling him out. From the age of about 17 she was paying his phone bills, car bills, everything else bills because he would rack them up faster than he could pay them off and she didn't want to see him in trouble.

Now my father is gone and my mother is trying to support herself and my brother on a very low wage and she can't bail him out. He is on more than twice her wage and still has to come and ask her for money because he is feckless and stupid, and a large part of that has to be because someone (my mother) was always there to sort things out for him and so he never learnt how to do it himself.

For my mother, it has been a constant battle between being the soft friendly pushover mother that wants to make life easy for my brother and doing the right, sensible thing, even if it causes my brother stress/worry in the short term. I'm not saying that your daughter would get herself in to as much trouble as my brother has, but just be aware that it is a slippery slope!

i didn't say offer help with no conditions. where di you read that? i have said in previous posts i would offer to lend them money and a repayment plan wold be agreed before any money was handed over.

"if her daughter were the "independent" adult that you would like her to be, she would have told her parents that she would not take a penny and ordered another card from her bank"

the daughter did not act maturely. i have already said this, but this is the point where the parents need to say "well, you need to grow up. sort this yourself" rather than using it as proof she is still a child and taking over control.

"I do think your posts strike me as coming from someone who is happy to take money from a parent, using the idea of the parent "wanting" to offer and the adult child kindly accepting the money pressed on her, but abhors the idea of any conditionality attached to the money. This strikes me as a little juvenile."

can you point out which of my posts say i would take money from my parents? i think that's a really odd conclusion to draw from my posts because i have been saying teh opposite throughout. it was the parent in this case that forced this money on her DD, giving her no choice, at no point did i say she should give her DD the money. read through my posts you will see that if it were me i would have put suggestions forward as to how my child could clear the debt and only when all the suggestions had been tried and weren't working would i offer them loan to be repaid.

to clarify, i have never asked my parents for money. many times i could have done and still could now i have never been so skint in my life, but i wont do it. my financial situation is my responsibility and my problem to sort out.

Exotic,

I have no idea of your personal circumstances but would you seriously let any of your children default on a debt when you could help them? Do you think having a blemished credit record for a minimum of five years is a reasonable price to pay for some 19 year old irresponsibility?

I can't think of any point where I said that I wouldn't help them. HOWEVER I would help them to sort it out, I wouldn't pat them on the head, say 'silly girl, don't do it again' and just pay it off.

And I wouldn't, under any circumstances (other than them having asked me), open a letter that was addressed to them. DS is a student and away from home so if it looks important I might ask him if he wants me to open it or just post it on.

Slightobsession is a case in point-her brother is 22 yrs and has no idea how to handle money because his mother has never let him-she has had 5 yrs of cushioning him. Had she let him take the consequences at 17yrs he would have had to live within his means.

also can i just add, one person's 'need to know' is different from another person's.

for example, for one parent they might consider it their business to know that their adult teen is visiting the dentist regularly whereas another might consider that a complete invasion of privacy to want to know that about their adult child. far better to let the person who owns the letter decide who needs to know what.

What gives anyone the right to open someone else's mail?

To all the posters who support the OP, Does it become justifiable to open someone else's mail if you are very concerned for that person? Is that what makes it ok?
Is it because you want to know what is going on because you don't trust them? Does that justify it?

i have a cousin who got AS results during the summer. (she is 18) she was waiting to hear whether her results had gotten her back into school to do A-levels. when the letter arrived, she wasn't home, so her sister opened it on the basis that "mum has a right to know" and then texted her mum the news that she had gotten back in to school. my cousin found out by her mum texting her saying well done. she was furious. not only did she not get to open the letter herself, but at least 2 people knew before she did. what right did any of them have to know that information before she told them?

To me it would border on sadistic for someone to allow their own child, earning £2.60 an hour, to end up falling victim to a mountain of debt via mushrooming payday loan charges.

Yes it would be. But that does not excuse the invasion of privacy, nor does it justify OP's actions in paying off the debt for her and confiscating her card.

Neither do anything to teach her daughter to stand on her own two feet and/or how to manage money. All it does is teach her that mum will bail her out and she has to suffer a rollocking.

The right thing to do (IMO) would be to sit down and talk it through. One good idea would have been to lend her the money with an agreed repayment plan. Also find out what the money went on so she can (hopefully) avoid the same problems in the future.

If the op hadnt paid the loan then the dd may have defaulted, this would show on the ops credit references

Some people still think that because they gave birth they have 'a possession' and the right to do something that would legally get them into a lot of trouble if they did it with any other adult.

If you have built up the right relationship, over the last 19yrs, the DD would open their own letter and confide their problems. Hopefully you are approachable and they are not too frightened of your response to confide.
You will not built up this trust if you wade in, at any age,open private post and take it upon yourself to know the best course of action.
How is confiscating a bank card supposed to help her learn about money and why does the mother think she has the right? If I was 19yrs I would be inclined to go the bank, ask them for advice and tell them that I had an interfering mother who was no use at all-except in throwing money at the situation and telling me that I was too irresponsible to handle my own earnings.

And, to all the "Ms Outraged of Tunbridge Wells" on this thread, I assume you are not the same people on the relationship threads who advise wives to go through their husband's personal phones and e mails at the first suspicion of infidelity and suggest that wives "confiscate" their husbands credit cards if they are irresponsible with the family money

I think snooping on someone else/opening their mail/accessing their private stuff is wrong full stop.

The OP should not have opened her daughter's mail. Taking her card was theft.

And her daughter, as others have said, will behave like a baby if she's treated like one.

actually i've just realised what this actually means for the DD.

OP took it upon herself to open the letter (controlling what information her adult DD tells her). then took it upon herself to transfer the debt from the debt collectors/bank to herself meaning that without having any say at all her DD now owes her money. as if that isn't bad enough, (the girl has no control over who she now owes, OP now controls the debt and can impose any terms she likes.) OP then confiscated the girl's debit card, meaning this girl not only has to pay back the debt according to terms she never asked for and never agreed to, but she also has to ask her mother for permission to spend her own money that she has earnt and if her mother decides she doesn't agree with what the money is being spent on she wont hand it over. controlling much?

And all because she gave birth!