Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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 Angry 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:
theycallmemellojello · 09/02/2016 15:11

I agree lweji - With a paying order, they were still -40 and would be now something like +10 (for the discount). If the business is solvent I'm not sure why this position is worse than what the position would have been if there had been no debt - ie +40 with the discount or +50 if she'd turned down BIL's request. In either case, all that has been lost is the value of the discount.

GloGirl · 09/02/2016 15:11

YANBU, and I'd have great delight in never making a cake for him again.

He definitely did that on purpose and thought he was being clever.

I hope you made him a nice dry cake that makes him cough.

GloGirl · 09/02/2016 15:12

Call Me jello - value of the discount, value of good will, value of being able to help another customer, value of making it last minute and causing extra aggro.

NoSquirrels · 09/02/2016 15:13

I wonder how many times he had to ask for repayment before taking this step? As for your DH, it will be a timely reminder that he should pay his debts. Your Bil has probably had a lifetime of your DH conveniently forgetting his debts.

Glorious, if you read the OPs replies you'll see she says BIL had never asked for the money back, and BIL has on at least one occasion owed them £300 for more than a year! So I don't think BIL is the saintly one, honestly.

OP has lost a paying client. OP and her DH could have paid BIL in cash, OP could have made a small profit on difference between mates rates and normal rate, and bad feeling would have been avoided. BIL was wrong to do it this way without asking first - and I bet he did it just because he knew she'd say no at the last minute otherwise. So he did "trick" her even if it wasn't a "free" cake.

fascicle · 09/02/2016 15:19

The show was last year and BIL hadn't asked for the money back. They do it all the time to eachother, BIL owed us £300 for two years once!

So your dh and his brother have got form for this.

Does your bil know that you have joint finances?

If your bil had said beforehand that he would like you to deduct the payment from your dh's debt to him, would you have refused to make the cake?

TempusEedjit · 09/02/2016 15:21

But OP didn't lose a paying client as she had already decided to make BIL's cake at a discounted rate regardless. If the discount rate was say £20 and the ticket cost was £20 how are her family finances out of pocket?

Grapejuicerocks · 09/02/2016 15:21

Sounds perfectly OK to me. We are always offsetting what we owe each other in my family.
I suppose as its your business I can sort of see your point but if Bil knows it's a joint pot, then what's the problem? Otoh I'd be annoyed at dh for "forgetting" to bay bil back.

To those saying about earning more from a paying customer, it's irrelevant.
Same net result, just less actual effort/transactions. Presumably bil would have got a discounted cake whenever. Just get dh to pay you and put it through the books if it actually makes a difference to your business.

What a to-do about nothing. I bet bil hasn't been even given it a thought, let alone set out to be devious. It was the obvious thing to do.

0verNow · 09/02/2016 15:23

I honestly can't see the issue. Quite the opposite. It seems sensible and pragmatic to me.

theycallmemellojello · 09/02/2016 15:23

Yes glogirl - the point is this

Say OP/DH owed £20. If she started with 0 in her account, the cake would normally have been £40, and she charged BIL £20, but he set it off against the debt, then she ends up with 0. If she had declined BIL's request but charged another client £40, then paid back BIL, she'd end up with £20.

If on the other hand she didn't owe the debt, she'd have charged BIL £20 and ended up with £20. Or she could have declined BIL's offer and ended up with £40.

In each case, all that is lost is the discount. Which she knew she was giving.

If BIL owes them money, then that's a different matter - OP should not have accepted the set off.

LeaLeander · 09/02/2016 15:23

Why do people keep talking about joint finances? Are the OP's household finances and business finances mingled? Mine aren't; I run a side business in addition to my salaried job and the side business is a separate pool of money from my household incomings and outgoings. Accounted for separately, taxed separately and spent separately.

If BIL owes the business money at the commercial level, that has nothing to do with the DH owing the BIL money on a personal level. BIL was utterly wrong to not clear his scheme with the OP and her husband BEFORE placing an order.

I imagine the responses here would be QUITE different if the OP ran an auto repair shop or similar, and her SIL came in for an emergency repair at a discount and then said "Oh, by the way, get the money from your husband, he owes me for last year" after driving away in the car. But because cake-baking is a feminine-sounding "business" she's supposed to suck it up and pursue payment via the household accounts. Unreal.

3luckystars · 09/02/2016 15:26

Well it's a cheap lesson, no you can never make cakes for family again without the money up front. Dh can make you a little sign in a frame and that's your new policy.

Very sly of him.

theycallmemellojello · 09/02/2016 15:26

Lea the reason people say that the finances are joint are because it's in the OP - our finances are completely joint, BIL knows this, it would be utterly pointless for DH to pay me

RB68 · 09/02/2016 15:29

I'd be letting the recipient know what a cheapskate he is

Lweji · 09/02/2016 15:30

Why do people keep talking about joint finances? Are the OP's household finances and business finances mingled?

In which case, all the OP has to do is transfer the cost to her cake account.
And then back to her joint account, apparently...

I wonder if she does keep books and pays tax on it, actually, but that is a separate issue.

The OP did say
our finances are completely joint (...) it would be utterly pointless for DH to pay me
This is why people are mentioning the joint finances.

Lweji · 09/02/2016 15:32

Actually, if I knew about the joint debt, I'd be the first to tell BIL not to pay anything for the cake, as there was no point, and to offset it against the debt.

LeaLeander · 09/02/2016 15:33

yes, i belatedly saw that.

Well, as the expression goes, doing business with friends and family is fraught with peril. In future OP I would decline their custom and say "I find my business works better when I am at arm's length with clients." or "I find it best not to mix business and family any longer."

I'd also be rather cool about socializing or otherwise interacting with someone who would hoodwink a small businessperson that way. All he had to say was "Can you take the cost out of what DH owes me for the tickets?" and you would have been prepared.

Lweji · 09/02/2016 15:33

It would have been a different case if the BIL had left saying he'd pay another time. Or the cake would pay the time he had helped you with something.

NoSquirrels · 09/02/2016 15:33

^To those saying about earning more from a paying customer, it's irrelevant.
Same net result, just less actual effort/transactions. Presumably bil would have got a discounted cake whenever.^

I don't think the paying customer is irrelevant. OP fit BIL in lastminute at a busy time of year because of goodwill. She may not have agreed to do this and turn down the paying customer if BIL had been upfront that no cash was changing hands. She may have preferred to say no, pay off the debt in cash, and make her small profit.

OP says The bigger picture of course is that we haven't lost money, but I certainly would have made money if I'd taken the paying order instead of BIL's.

It should have been her choice. He was commissioning a service - he can't dictate payment terms!

Lweji · 09/02/2016 15:35

All he had to say was "Can you take the cost out of what DH owes me for the tickets?" and you would have been prepared.

And the difference would be? Just that the OP would be prepared mentally?

Yes, she needs to take a breather and think this through properly and stop being so angry at BIL.

theycallmemellojello · 09/02/2016 15:36

I'm just not seeing the hoodwinking. Don't see why OP could not have declined the proposed payment, or what advantage it would have been for her to do so. It's pretty normal for customers dealing at arms' length to offset debts - in fact no sane arms' length customer would agree to pay money for goods supplied by a party that owed them money. They would insist on off-setting it - that's the only commercially reasonable thing to do.

0verNow · 09/02/2016 15:37

But she wasn't going to take on a customer paying full whack. She hasn't been hoodwinked at all.

theycallmemellojello · 09/02/2016 15:38

I agree that there are commercial reasons why OP might have preferred not to pay the debt right away, or why she might have needed to charge more if she'd realised about the debt. But I don't think either of those things mean that BIL has to give them longer to pay... if anything , OP needs to be pissed off at the DH for accruing debts that she doesn't know about.

Coffeethrowtrampbitch · 09/02/2016 15:38

I'd be really cross.

It sounds like he couldn't be be arsed to pay, remembered your dh owed him money, so decided that justified him not paying you.

I would.not say a word about it, then make him a chocolate cake for his birthday full of ghost chillies. But I'm a petty vindictive person.

ClarenceTheLion · 09/02/2016 15:39

It really was not fair enough. It was an underhand way of him getting his money back instead of simply asking. And you gave him a discount too, instead of accepting a job at full price. She lost out on money because of this.

If he asks for another cake, I'd be sourcing a few 'special' ingredients for the filling... (Do they still make laxative chocolate?)

Lweji · 09/02/2016 15:42

I don't usually say this, but I'm really shocked at many pps on this thread.