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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

My friend kept dds money and used Tesco vouchers

791 replies

jammyjamjam · 03/09/2014 12:24

Hi, ds had inservice yesterday and a friend (a mum from school) offered to take her, her own dd and 2 others to an amusement park, entry fee was 25 pounds. When ds got back in the afternoon, we chatted about the day and it turns out the mum paid for my dd and the 2 other children with Tesco vouchers, ie, she had redeemed her Tesco points to pay for the 4 dcs and then kept 75 pounds form my dd and the 2 other dc. Surely she could have told us that this place took in Tesco vouchers and I could have used my own points and saved the money? I'm grateful that she took dd but surely she should have been upfront about her intention of using vouchers....AIBU?

OP posts:
FishWithABicycle · 04/09/2014 09:33

YABU OP - you could not have used your own clubcard vouchers as the clubcard owner has to be there to redeem the vouchers, they are not transferrable. You still have your vouchers and can use them on a different occasion.

The vouchers that this other mum used were not "free" - it would have taken her a long time to save them up, and you have no rights over them at all. If she had used your £25 cash to pay for your DDs ticket, and kept her vouchers, you would be no better or worse off. The idea that she should have just charged you the £6.25 "face value" of the voucher and allowed you to have the full benefit of something that was rightfully hers, or that she should have just given you the voucher for free, is completely laughable. YABU.

PhaedraIsMyName · 04/09/2014 09:33

I don't shop in Tesco so don't know how vouchers work but to me you are being unreasonable and ungrateful.

PhaedraIsMyName · 04/09/2014 09:35

Fish just read your post. If that's how it works then OP is indeed being very unreasonable and petty.

Original poster
jammyjamjam · 04/09/2014 09:40

ok....so if she really didn't mean to make any money out of this, then why did she use her vouchers for everyone instead of only for her dc? Why didn't she pay dds and the 2 other dcs entrance with the money their parents had provided? Why did she exchange her points for entrance tickets for 4 kids when she only has one child?
The answer is....because she was being clever and realised she could make 75 pounds! She has effectively changed her tesco points into cash. Very wrong to do this with friend's money

OP posts:
SirChenjin · 04/09/2014 09:40

Not sure that is the case....if you read upthread others have explained the whole voucher thing and how the friend benefited financially by paying this way.

Regardless, she should have been upfront with her friends.

Original poster
jammyjamjam · 04/09/2014 09:41

Fish, I never said I wanted her to give me the vouchers for free.

OP posts:
kittykatsforever · 04/09/2014 09:42

Yabu if you wanted to use club card points then you should have looked into it, the cost to get into a theme park was £25 it's up to you to look if you want a cheeper entrance fee, I can't believe the poor women took your dd and others out for the day without charge - child care is about £40 aday btw to a park that they'd have loved and your ungrateful Hmm in my mind she'd have deserved the extra cash for effort and time, I'm sure non of you offered her petrol etc
I'm also sure if you'd have got the tucked yourself and said I've resembled points to get my dds she'd have been more then happy. Talk about doing some people a favour

SirChenjin · 04/09/2014 09:43

She should have used her vouchers for herself and her own DC if they were so precious and used the cash she had been given to pay for the other children she.had taken.

Notso · 04/09/2014 09:44

It might not have taken her a long time at all Fish as I said up thread we bought a few expensive items that had extra points offers and managed to get enough points to pay for 4DC to get into a theme park. We only needed £12.50 worth of points to get one ticket.

SirChenjin · 04/09/2014 09:45

The cost of childminders has nothing to do with this....they are friends, they help each other out, they do favours for esch other, they take e a ch others kids if it suits them. You don't (or shouldn't, if your morals are intact) try and make a few grubby quid out of your friends on the sly.

mamalino · 04/09/2014 09:48

OP has she told you this is what she did?

Original poster
jammyjamjam · 04/09/2014 09:48

kittykat, please read the whole thread. I don't work so she wasn't helping with childcare and I took round a bottle of wine to says thanks. She didn't want petrol money as we take each others children to places without charging petrol money. It's also quite easy to accumulate tesco points, I have them coming out of my ears

OP posts:
Original poster
jammyjamjam · 04/09/2014 09:53

Thanks SirChenjin :)
mamlino....dd told me that she did this, she's used to seeing me use t vouchers but she's never seen anyone else do it, so it registered with her. I then asked another mum who also went on the trip with her dd and she confirmed that my friend used the vouchers to pay for all the kids in her car.

OP posts:
slithytove · 04/09/2014 09:53

YANBU, this was sneaky and dishonest of her.

She should have given you the chance to use your voucher, presumably your dd has the same surname as you?

Failing that, she should have limited the use of her voucher to her tickets.

I went with friends to an attraction and used clubcard vouchers. DH and I got in for 'free', and I charged my friends the face value I lost in the clubcard vouchers, would have felt so wrong to charge them the value of the entrance ticket.

At the moment, it costs £2.50 clubcard voucher for one odeon ticket. Would it really be acceptable to charge a friend the £9 for the actual cinema ticket when that money has not been spent?

IsItMeOr · 04/09/2014 09:54

I wouldn't do it, and it would also leave a bad taste with me if a friend did this to us.

However, perhaps the solution is that you take them next time and do the same deal for her?

mamalino · 04/09/2014 09:54

What does the friend think about it? I honestly can't decide on this one, part of me thinks you are being ungrateful when someone has done something nice for your DD, but then again I wouldn't have used the vouchers myself and not said anything!

Original poster
jammyjamjam · 04/09/2014 09:55

tempted ;)

OP posts:
whatever5 · 04/09/2014 09:56

ok....so if she really didn't mean to make any money out of this, then why did she use her vouchers for everyone instead of only for her dc? Why didn't she pay dds and the 2 other dcs entrance with the money their parents had provided? Why did she exchange her points for entrance tickets for 4 kids when she only has one child?
The answer is....because she was being clever and realised she could make 75 pounds! She has effectively changed her tesco points into cash. Very wrong to do this with friend's money

The answer is that cash doesn't expire like vouchers or gift tokens and you can use it anywhere so it is more flexible. If I get the chance to swap tokens for the cash value (in this case the price of the entrance) I always do, not because I would make a profit, but because I then have more flexibility.

whatever5 · 04/09/2014 09:56

ok....so if she really didn't mean to make any money out of this, then why did she use her vouchers for everyone instead of only for her dc? Why didn't she pay dds and the 2 other dcs entrance with the money their parents had provided? Why did she exchange her points for entrance tickets for 4 kids when she only has one child?
The answer is....because she was being clever and realised she could make 75 pounds! She has effectively changed her tesco points into cash. Very wrong to do this with friend's money

The answer is that cash doesn't expire like vouchers or gift tokens and you can use it anywhere so it is more flexible. If I get the chance to swap tokens for the cash value (in this case the price of the entrance) I always do, not because I would make a profit, but because I then have more flexibility.

minionmadness · 04/09/2014 09:59

YABU

It doesn't matter how long it would have taken the friend to acquire the vouchers they were still hers. Why should she then give your dc the benefit of them.

I presume she had your dc and the other dc for the day without charging childcare so why are you being ungrateful. If she had given you the vouchers at a reduced rate plus charged you for childcare would that have been more acceptable to you.

slithytove · 04/09/2014 10:02

If that was on the cards minion, OP could have declined. She should not have given the OP's DC the benefit. She should have let OP either use her own vouchers or pay actual cost.

And do friends charge friends childcare when they do play dates and days out? I don't!

And tesco vouchers have a 2 year expiry or something like that.

GhoulWithADragonTattoo · 04/09/2014 10:04

Jammyjamjam - I am astonished anyone things it OK to take advantage of a friend like this.

My friend and I took our kids to one of the theme parks last week. I'd done a Nectar point deal before I knew my friend was coming which was closed by the time we arranged to go together. I asked her what she was planning to do about tickets and mentioned that she could exchange Tesco points if she had enough. If not I offered her a 2for1 voucher that I wasn't intending to use. I would have felt bad if I'd got a deal for my entry and didn't mention it to my friend. This case is even worse as the friend is pocketing the difference in the cash.

One of the reasons these attractions are so expensive if you buy tickets direct is because they like to offer discounts so that people think there are getting a bargain rather than charging a fairer price across the board.

Notso · 04/09/2014 10:04

Who on earth offers to take friends DC out for the day and charges for childcare?

SirChenjin · 04/09/2014 10:07

Friends help each other out (if/when it suits) - they don't charge their friends childminder rates or use it as a way to make money by keeping the entry costs they have been provided with in cash. What an odd friendship that would be.

DamnBamboo · 04/09/2014 10:08

She didn't for one minute think of telling me or the other mums that we could exchange our vouchers and hence have a free entrance for our child

Why didn't you check this yourself?

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