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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Leaving someone stranded at 1am at night

449 replies

dranaksjd · 30/08/2016 15:32

Honest opinions wanted here.

Here's the scenario. My friend (she's 26) foudn herself having to return home much later than she expected. This meant she had to get the last train home from Birmingham city centre.

There was a mix up on the departure board which meant she got on the wrong train and ended up in a tiny train station in a village quite far from any major city.

She was clearly distressed as she got off the train and a couple overheard her conversation to her friend. She explain she had only £10
On her, no bank card on her and no idea where she was and no charge on her phone to call anyone to see if they could pick her up.

The couple said they would take her to the main train station in the nearest city which was 10 minutes drive away.

So she got in the car. They dropped her off at that train station at 1am.

She then found a pub willing to let her charge her phone and then when the pub closed she returned to the train station at 2 am. It was at 4am before she realised she could do an emergency transaction using her natwest online banking app.
She comes across as someone who would be comfortably well off so I'm guessing the couple thought she had money but she had explained she did not have her card on her.

She then paid a lot of money for a taxi home.

Now obviously it was nice of the couple to give her a lift the the main train station, but it didn't actually help her much. And they left her at 1am with no cash on her, outside a train station which was boarded up and closed.

That doesn't sit well with me and isn't something I would do. Or am I being unreasonable? Obviously it was unwise of her to travel back at that time but she was not expecting that morning when she left the house to be travelling at that time.

Honest opinions wanted here. And I'm genuinely not the person this post is about.

Just genuinely interested in what others opinion is.

OP posts:
FrancisCrawford · 30/08/2016 17:35

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Buzzardbird · 30/08/2016 17:35

More than 10 mins drive to 'Roughcitywithstaringmen' from Telford though Queen...unless they were driving a Lamborghini?

JessieMcJessie · 30/08/2016 17:36

I can't believe I am actually defending the OP here but Penguin you can get a code from online banking that you put into an ATM without a card I order to get emergency cash. It's true, I checked and it's available on my RBS app (uses same IT as NatWest). For all the nonsense this story is, I am actually rather grateful to have discovered this!

JudyCoolibar · 30/08/2016 17:37

So I think they felt she could afford a taxi. If she had looked more vulnerable maybe things would have been different.

But she could afford a taxi. So they were right, weren't they?

If DH and I got off a train at a small station in the middle of nowhere at 1 a.m. and heard a young woman wailing down her phone to her friend I suspect we would have left her to it, on the basis that she was probably pissed and we would not want her throwing up in our car. At best we might have offered to lend our phone for her to call her friend back, or to call a taxi or call the police. I'm afraid I can't see us offering to drive a total stranger somewhere even 10 minutes away at that hour of the night.

One thing I don't understand is why in your book all the blame falls on this couple (if it isn't to be your friend). Why don't you blame the pub owners for chucking her out on the street? Or any other passer-by who saw her sitting outside a major station and left her there?

Buzzardbird · 30/08/2016 17:37

That is true Jesse, I have seen it advertised.

MadHattersWineParty · 30/08/2016 17:38

Oh Francis you forgot the pal who crashed at Op's house for four days and wanted to get smashed and invite guys over for sex Grin

LouchePal

Munstermonchgirl · 30/08/2016 17:39

Could pudding friend not have taken a sideways move to Cockfosters? Or invoked the 1842 Agreement and done a sneaky slide to Ladbroke Grove?

ElspethFlashman · 30/08/2016 17:39

She wasn't that unlucky though - remember that she found a lock in at 1am!

Idliketobeabutterfly · 30/08/2016 17:39

TThe train would stop in Wolverhampton before Telford

wombattoo · 30/08/2016 17:41

OP needs a fast train to GetaFuckingGripVille
As Munster said Grin

JessieMcJessie · 30/08/2016 17:41

God was that really the same OP MadHatters? We are all being taken for a ride indeed (by a nice-but-evil couple).

ilovesooty · 30/08/2016 17:42

Thanks Francis. I remember that thread but haven't seen the others referred to.

How she finds time to post given the demands of her needy friends is a mystery.

FrancisCrawford · 30/08/2016 17:43

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

CandODad · 30/08/2016 17:44

Couldn't she have used the knight bus?
They never charged Harry and even had beds!

FrancisCrawford · 30/08/2016 17:45

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

JustAnotherPoster00 · 30/08/2016 17:45

Does the OP need some burn cream now? Grin

emotionsecho · 30/08/2016 17:46

When your friend was in the pub calling all and sundry did no-one offer to either come and pick her up or send a pre-paid taxi to collect her? Yet you criticise the couple for their actions?

One of the best pieces of advice my mum gave me was never to keep all your money in one place and to always have enough 'emergency' cash somewhere about your person to enable you to at the very least get a taxi home in the event you lose/have your purse/cards stolen.

JudyCoolibar · 30/08/2016 17:47

I would drive about an hour in this circumstance and have done so before for a foreign student I met a few years ago stranded at an airport.

If you were on your own that was a dangerous thing to do.

DesolateWaist · 30/08/2016 17:47

As far as I know an online banking app does not let you withdraw money from your phone/tablet!

There is a NatWest app that will send you a code to be able to take money out of an ATM:
supportcentre.natwest.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2151/~/what-is-get-cash-and-how-do-i-use-it%3F

ilovesooty · 30/08/2016 17:48

Spice Girls Grin

dayswithaY · 30/08/2016 17:48

Is this performance art from the Edinburgh Fringe? Should we clap yet?

TheOnlyLivingBoyInNewCross · 30/08/2016 17:49

Actually can't believe this is the same person as "only a fiver to feed my nephew" person.

Who would let their child stay with this woman???

AnchorDownDeepBreath · 30/08/2016 17:50

So I think they felt she could afford a taxi. If she had looked more vulnerable maybe things would have been different.

Hmmm... no I think if she'd looked vulnerable, they probably wouldn't have approached her in the first place, however sad a view of society that represents.

This is more holey than cheese. She's 26!!

You all seem to be having a bizarre response to this, and it's so stupidly predictable at every level...

She stays out later than usual...and forgets her card
She makes the last train...it's the wrong one
She calls a friend, knowing she has a low battery.... doesn't give her location first
She thinks other people got the wrong train too... she doesn't go with them
She meets a nice couple who offer her a lift... the station is closed
She charges her phone in the pub... she doesn't ask the pub to call her friend
She finally remembers that she can access cash... her taxi home costs a fortune

Now she's going to complain to the train company and you think she's hard done by because the couple didn't drive her home?!

You seem like an enabler, to be polite, or a complete walkover. She needs to learn how to be responsible before going out on her own again.

This is all bollocks. It's like a "hilarious" sit-com that's overegged the pudding. EVERYTHING that could have gone wrong for her did...

And the train announcer would still have said "This is the XX:XX to WhereverStation, calling at NOT HER HOME STATION" many times after she got on.

AnchorDownDeepBreath · 30/08/2016 17:52

When your friend was in the pub calling all and sundry did no-one offer to either come and pick her up or send a pre-paid taxi to collect her? Yet you criticise the couple for their actions?

I suspect friend might have a habit of being very irritating and needy and that's why friends didn't help.

Phone friend must have known, if this was true. If she had such a low battery no-one would call in the first place, it uses much more battery than a quick text, but you'd start with "I've just got on the wrong train and it's going to XXX not home", you'd hardly start with a moan about your life story so far.

ilovesooty · 30/08/2016 17:53

Poor, Pissed, Perfect, Poverty and Pudding. I dare someone to start a thread in baby names.

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