My 17 year old son has bought plane tickets to texas in America to meet a girl he met online, he is from scotland, I really need advice please.

[scottishmother]

He has made his mind up to go, to be honest I thought he would have saved up more money but he has sprung it on me and is going in 2 weeks time!! I have asked him things and he has told me, and it seems fine, but he does not like me to ask him anything as he thinks it is invading his privacy lol. He has been very secretive, and this is not helping my worrying, I have said to him I will not let him out the door without him giving me a address and letting me speak to the girl who is 2 years older than him first. I need advice as to what to do please as I am going out of my mind.

It is a heck of a long drive from Arkansas to Texas and your DS could not get there by himself if things go tits up in TX. Even a Greyhound bus would cost money.

£350 and no way to prove he has a job in Scotland waiting for him or that he is in school or that the girl's family will be supporting him or that you will be sending him £50 per week = next plane home.

ICE would want to see several thousand dollars.

How could you possibly not even know what the exchange rate is and happily send him off?

Parents who are afraid their children will hate them for not giving in are asking for trouble.

I am in the US and was going to offer a contact phone number for your son but since you think I get my ideas from MTV and have my knickers in a twist I am sure he can do without my help now.

Good luck lady and I hope you and your DS don't need it.

So I should take a contact number from you? A complete stranger , that is even worse than me sending him over there , thanks but no thanks

'stop getting your nickers in a twist lol'?

Oh, FFS.

£350 for a three-month stay is absolutely, absolutely ridiculous. He will be dependent on this girl's goodwill for everything from toothpaste to transport. There is so much potential here for humiliation.

He's a seventeen-year-old kid who's not in education or work, who lives at home, who's socially withdrawn after bullying, and who spends most days in his room. He is vulnerable and his plans are impractical.

On the other hand, if he gets asked anything much by border control, he's almost certainly not going to get through: £350 for an 86-day stay with a girlfriend raises pretty much every single red flag possible for immigration. So if he wants to waste his flight money, go through the stress and embarrassment of secondary questioning, and return to the UK without seeing his friend plus set his future travel plans to the US back, since he'll be marked after that as a potential problem then he's doing the right thing.

If he was mature enough to deal with this trip, he'd be doing it properly. The mindset of someone who's prepared to let a nineteen-year-old girl pay for all his meals, drive him around and house him for nearly a quarter of a year is not that of an independent adult.

What an obnoxious and, frankly, daft reply to mathanxiety's input. (How is taking a contact number from a Mumsnet poster 'worse' than your kid being 2000 miles away and essentially penniless?) Everything she wrote was spot-on. You seem determined to ignore as much as possible and wave him off with a oh-well-he'll-do-it-anyway shrug.

I agree that there is a lot of hysteria in this thread. People terrified that Texas is 'so far away' and 'huge'. Get a grip. It's a phone call away. It's a long day's journey from the UK away. Its physical size is completely irrelevant.

Worst case scenario? Some posters think it's him getting shot. Unclear why, except that Texans have guns. Fine. But Londoners have knives and stab each other. Are we going to get hysterical about that too?

Worst case scenario to me seems to run like this:

• He gets turned back at immigration. Fine. Waste of money but no drama
• He doesn't get on with the girl or family and comes home early. Fine. Again, maybe some cost to change the plane ticket but no drama
• He gets on great with the girl and family but runs out of money. Fine. He has a bank card for emergencies. If combined with not getting on with girl or family the OP can wire him enough money for him to get to Arkansas if necessary. Yes, it's a long bus ride. It will not kill him. No drama

This thread would be quite funny if it weren't so absurd.

The OP clearly isn't as out of her mind with worry as she'd like us to think or she'd stop being so bloody nasty to people trying to help her.

When you drop him off at the airport though- I'd hang round for a bit if I were you. You know, for when Junior is refused boarding and needs a lift home. Because as others have said, it would be completely incredible if going on what you've told us so far he even saw the inside of a plane. All carriers are fairly hot on pre-immigration immigration, especially where the US is concerned, because they are the ones who get into trouble with the authorities for letting daft teenagers with fanciful ideas onto their planes only to be turned round.

Which is why it tends not to happen.

Rafterplease, simply typing 'no drama' after every scenario is really easy. Everything you've listed realistically involves quite a lot of drama, emotional and otherwise.

I love the concept of Texas just being a 'long day's journey' away: yes, very true, if you have instant access to the thousand-pounds-plus it'll take to get on that next-day 12-hour indirect flight.

And the physical size of Texas doesn't matter from a distance, but it matters very much when you have >£350 to your name and no car.

Hmm, all these Americans getting their 'knickers in a twist' on behalf of the OP, just as well she knows better.

£350? Seriously? I thought it was a mistype. You must be having a laugh surely. £350 to take with him for 86 days??? What the hell is he going to do for money after the first week? Because by the time he has settled himself in and spent necessary funds (if he gets there), he will be penniless. So then you send him £50, that's a meal out with tips then. Not that he'll be able to get anywhere because he will be totally reliant on this unknown family. MY DC took far more than that for travelling round Europe, you are completely deluded.

And you are thinking of flying out there at the end of May in your words "if they are still together". What is he going to do if he isn't? You don't seem to hold out much hope yourself.

There are pp's on here who know Texas, live there, know the States. I think you need to listen to them as they are talking total sense and they are strongly advising a rethink. There's lots I did at that age too, just because you did, it doesn't necessarily make it OK. The world is a different place for starters. Are you one of those parents who wants to be a friend to their child as opposed to parent them?

Just read the whole thread and my jaw fell open at £350 , then dropped to the floor at the obnoxious knickers in a twist remark.

£350 ????? Hilarious.

Is this for real???

Catfish?

I was going to say that too chasingtherainbow

From urban dictionary:

A catfish is someone who pretends to be someone they're not using Facebook or other social media to create false identities, particularly to pursue deceptive online romances.

If you check everything out and it sticks then fine you will have to ultimately let him go. But I don't see why he has to for 3 months, why not a month?
And money wise. With your input of £50 a week he isn't even gonna have a grand for the whole 86 days! How is that even near enough? I dunno how expensive things are out in Texas but that seems ridiculous for a month let alone almost 3.
Have a frank conversation with him.

Agree with the very valid points raised by so many here.
On the practical issue, £350 is nothing for nearly three months and there is very little chance immigration will let him through because he does not have the means to support himself or to buy a plane ticket home in an emergency.
They will see a minor (in US terms) male with no adult relatives with him or with whom he will be staying with insufficient funds for even a one week stay self funding. His cash works out to less than $10 a day. That is ridiculous.

Immigration will see him as a huge risk. And those guys are tough!

I did actually go to the U.S. for 3 months when I was 18. Difference was that I was staying with relatives, had three times the amount of money (and this was back in 1981) and had an indefinite visa. And I still found immigration scary.

Your son is taking a huge risk on purely practical terms.

Hello, OP.

Well, always assuming that Border Control will let him in to stay for such a length of time with not enough funds, and he goes to stay with this girl he's never met, living on her parent's property, it might be nice, good manners even, to take her parents a gift, present from Scotland?

Border control are fine with the tea bags and Cadburys chocolate my case is loaded with for my trips to visit family, tho I doubt the family themselves would let me in without them, so... a pack of Scottish shortbread biscuits? A tartan something or other? little gift to oil the social wheels?

I worry, tho, that he'll be refused entry and put on the next flight back which, unless he's got an open ticket, is going to cost.

I hope it works out well for him. I wonder if there's been talk of marriage between the two?

Oh don't worry, I'm not getting my knickers in a twist.

He's not my son I'm not the one asking for help on an Internet forum and won't have to deal with any of the consequences (whatever they may be)

Well,if immigration send him back - job done. Expensive lesson but all op can do is make sure he understands this is the likely outcome.

£350 even with your £50 a week is never in a million years going to be enough money. I took £700 for three days in NY and spent at least £300 of that just on food and travelling around!

As he has no hotel accommodation booked and paid for, immigration will probably look for evidence of at least $50 a day in his account at point of entry as a bare minimum.

What happens if he and the girl do not get on and she does not provide him with free accommodation and food for three months? Which seems a huge expenses or her anyway, given she is 19 and not likely to be earning a big wage. How is he going to manage? He can't get a job.

The facts are that DS is immature and has shown this in his lack of planning and inadequate finances. Why does it have to be three months? And what is he planning to do on return home? Does he go to school or college? Has he got a job? How is he able to not go to school/work for three months anyway?

Even if this woman is real and everything she says is true, what's he going to do with himself all day while she's at work? What does he do now?

Obviously as an adult, the OP can't stop him from going but I assume she's providing enough free board and lodgings to enable him to save up for the flight and 'savings'

why do people think border control will ask how much money he has? ive never ever been asked about money at border control or asked how am I going to support myself when going to the USA - been to lots of different states and lots of different airports and never been asked. ive been without a bean in my pocket to having too much money - never been asked about it - bizarre that people think he will be asked to show how much he has...

Just to say I know nothing and have no opinion but curious as to all the comments on how strict immigration are.

I have a friend who was seeing an American girl and moved in with her. He didn't have a green card and just flew in and out the country every 90 days (would fly back to the UK for a week). Different as he was an adult and did freelance work so able to do it anywhere in the world and capable of supporting himself but I would have thought if they were that strict he wouldn't have got away with doing that?