Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 ··· 16 17 18 19 20 21

Original poster

to feel tricked and taken advantage of?

508 replies

OohMavis · 09/02/2016 14:28

I'm a cakemaker. Valentines is a busy time of the year, but last week DH's brother asked me to make a cake for his girlfriend, so him being family, I fit him in last minute with a discount, price was agreed last week.

He came to pick it up today but instead of paying me, he's told me to ask DH for the money, because DH borrowed it from him and off he went with his cake.

I had no idea DH owed him money. It was for some tickets to a show they went to together which his brother bought on his card for convenience. DH just forgot about it.

AIBU to feel as though he's basically got a free cake out of me, and feel really bloody annoyed and tricked? I'm not going to be paid for the cake (our finances are completely joint, BIL knows this, it would be utterly pointless for DH to pay me). My time has been wasted. I turned down a paying order for him.

Just so angry!

OP posts:

Lweji · 11/02/2016 08:28

Actually, that point it's maths.

SerenityReynolds · 11/02/2016 08:52

I just wasn't aware there was an argument. We both agree BIL should have asked first and that is the main issue here. Yes, the debt would have come from the OP's joint account anyway if had been paid in cash. But her husband and BIL at least benefitted from the debt, while it was her time and effort that paid it off - without her permission. So that's why I feel she did lose out, not necessarily in a monetary sense. She's already said she wouldn't have agreed to make the cake or give such a generous discount if she had known all along it was to pay off a debt, so she obviously didn't feel it was fair recompense for what her DH owed.

Adeleslostbeehive · 11/02/2016 09:01

"But financially she ends up the same and she simply should have been given the choice (because it was not her debt)

See where I agree with you? But would please people stop saying she lost out because she didn't."

Lweji you have no idea whether that wouldve been the case. The OPs DH might've paid it off by working overtime, selling something or a similar repayment in task- fixing a dripping tap or something for BIl- which was agreed and took up HIS time.

lorelei9 · 11/02/2016 09:08

Lweji, the OP did lose out. She lost a paying client who might have given her repeat full price business and would certainly have paid full price in the first place.

roundaboutthetown · 11/02/2016 09:09

Of course the OP lost out - it wasn't a mere financial transaction, it was also an emotional one. If it had been about normal business, she would have charged more for the bloody cake (and the bil would not have got away with setting the cost off against someone else's debt). Claiming it is mathematically acceptable is just being obtuse - that is irrelevant to the offence caused and it really shouldn't have been difficult for the bil to see why.

fascicle · 11/02/2016 09:10

AskBasil
I think women are in denial about the lack of respect men as a class have for us and I honestly don't think the BiL would have shown that sort of high-handedness to a BiL.

There is no evidence that the bil's behaviour was affected in this way. I can think of people who would do something similar, including men transacting with other men. The offset would not bother me, although I understand the OP's disappointment from a psychological point of view - she created something beautiful and expected the agreed remuneration; she was unaware of her husband's debt. But the net financial result is the same.

roundaboutthetown · 11/02/2016 09:13

Bil took advantage of his sil's emotions, then failed to acknowledge the emotional side of the transaction by turning it into mathematics... Idiot.

bibbitybobbityyhat · 11/02/2016 09:18

I very rarely feel 100% about anything in aibu, but in this case I do.

For the people who have been arguing that she "hasn't lost anything" for the past three days - I honestly think you are hard of thinking. Or have one of those dominantly logical brains that make me wonder about aspergers or similar.

lorelei9 · 11/02/2016 09:19

Bibbty, wouldn't a dominantly logical brain see the lost business?

Lweji · 11/02/2016 09:22

I've explained earlier. The paying customer is a red herring here. It could have come about or not.
And it was the op's decision to take a discounted order. She knew she'd lose out on that one, with debt or no debt.
But if you want to keep insisting on that, go ahead.

By the way, I wonder what everyone would say he was underhand and a twat if he had given her 30 pounds to hand out to her OH because he owed it and could forget it later

lorelei9 · 11/02/2016 09:25

Lweji, the OP said in her first post she turned down a paying customer. How is that a red herring?

Given what this thread has been like, I won't ever do mates rates again. I am baffled what some people think is okay.

roundaboutthetown · 11/02/2016 09:26

A dominantly logical brain would be saying she should have charged her bil £60 for the cake.

Hygge · 11/02/2016 09:28

"2. OP agreed to give her BIL the cake in repayment of her DH's debt."

Toad you are wrong about this.

OP knew nothing about the debt until the BIL turned up, took the cake, and told her to see her DH about the money if she wanted paying for it.

That's the first time she had heard about the debt, or about BIL using her cake as lieu of payment for it.

There was no agreement between the OP and her BIL to make a cake to repay the debt.

The OP has made that very clear right from her first post when she said "He came to pick it up today but instead of paying me, he's told me to ask DH for the money, because DH borrowed it from him, and off he went with his cake.

I had no idea DH owed him money."

And also in her next post when she says "I'm annoyed because it's not me that owed him the money, but instead of asking DH for it, he ordered a cake from me and pretended that he was going to pay for it."

I don't think the OP could have been any clearly about the fact that she didn't know about the debt, didn't agree to make a cake to cancel the debt out, and right up until the point BIL took the cake she had no idea he wasn't going to pay her properly for it.

roundaboutthetown · 11/02/2016 09:29

As her bil is clearly vey logical, I'm sure he will appreciate that in future, he is not entitled to any kind of family discount!

SweetAdeline · 11/02/2016 09:41

BIL made her his debt collector without her permission and that was sneaky, mean spirited, not valuing her professionalism wrt her business etc etc.

But in financial terms, once dh has given her the money, she hasn't lost out at all with regards to her original deal. It's a shit way to behave when you're getting a good deal anyway but OP asked for £30 for the cake and she got £30 for the cake (all be it indirectly and with more hassle than she should have had).

So I can see why she's upset and feels I'll-treated but she hasn't lost out financially/made a cake for free etc. Sorry if that's too logical for some of you.

quietbatperson · 11/02/2016 09:50

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

roundaboutthetown · 11/02/2016 10:00

But you are conveniently ignoring the fact the offence is about more than making her the bil's debt collector, though, SweetAdeline. He also ignored the fact that the cake had already been made at a 50% discount for him, as a kind gesture to family, not because she had to. He totally failed to acknowledge that - as though he felt he deserved it, or was entitled to it, rather than being done a favour. So, not only did he not acknowledge she had put herself out for him, he then told her she had to put herself out a bit more for him and get the money off her dh...

Floggingmolly · 11/02/2016 10:04

If op turned away a (full price) paying customer to make this cake; the debt hasn't really been discharged at all, has it?
Op's DH has been paid back; but op has incurred an opportunity cost of £60...

SweetAdeline · 11/02/2016 10:10

The fact that she did him a favour/turned down a paying customer makes it more galling that he's behaved like this but the opportunity cost is a sunk cost she would have incurred no matter how he paid her when she agreed to make his cake.

Floggingmolly · 11/02/2016 10:14

That's true...

SweetAdeline · 11/02/2016 10:16

It's definitely an aggravating factor though and I can understand why the OP is pissed off.

roundaboutthetown · 11/02/2016 10:19

Yes, that's why he needed to be upfront about how he was planning to not actually pay her at the time they agreed the price - otherwise she was always going to feel tricked into offering a generous discount that would not have been so generous had she known! And technically, she wasn't paid for the cake, she just didn't end up worse off, financially, for not being paid.

Lweji · 11/02/2016 11:14

Lweji, the OP said in her first post she turned down a paying customer. How is that a red herring?

Because, presumably, the paying customer came about after she agreed to make a cake for BIL. That customer might not have appeared. She didn't know when she agreed to bake the cake if she was going to have more customers. It was a risk she took.

But I think I've already said that a few times. Anyway...

roundaboutthetown · 11/02/2016 11:20

And if you aren't paid for your cake... it's a free cake... What really happened is that bil let his brother off paying back his debt because he'd got a free cake, instead. Very cunning of him to pretend he was paying for a cake when no cash changed hands!

Lweji · 11/02/2016 13:52

Not free. It cost him tickets.

Flip

1 2 ··· 16 17 18 19 20 21