How to get out of something that I didnt agree to?

[KungFuPandaWorksOut16]

I am very close friends with a group of 5 ladies, known each other since high school.
We all have children ranging from the ages of 1-6.

Friend 1s child started reception this year and has joined the PTA aswell. Friend 2 & 3 already have children at this school. Friend 1 is the only one on the PTA.

Friend 2 has just text me, saying she didnt know I was offering a prize at the christmas fair.

Me: What?
F2: One of the raffle prizes is a colour & cut at KungFus Salon.
Me : Must be an error and mean another salon.

Cue a whatsapp message of friend 3, with a screenshot of the flyer and the message "kept this quiet. Its lovely of you though"

In the flyer it mentions how the school will be grateful for donations etc etc, raffle tickets go on sale after the school holidays for X price. It then goes on to give a "sneak peek" for some prizes up for grabs and sure enough their is my bloody salon 3rd on the list offering a colour and cut.

Text F1 did she sign me up. Yes she did, that was her contribution (?!)
I asked F1 will she be paying for the voucher. She has responded No, she wont be because its for a good cause and the rest of the community has donated bits and bobs.

Now Im stuck.
I didnt agree to any of this and now leaflets have been given out advertising my salon donating one of the prizes.
All the money goes to the school so it is a good cause, but i just see it as my child doesn't attend that school or any school for that matter. This "donation" will leave me anywhere from £30-£45 out of pocket.

Would i look horrendous ringing the school up and explaining what has happened or shall I suck it up and just do it.

Birds CF told the other friewnds she didn't see why she should pay £15 with xmas coming up! So that wasn't working.

Presumably also this has to be cleared up quickly as the raffle is in the near future and is being advertised everywhere.

Sorry, not Harvest Festival, must be mixing up two posts, fete

Bit - I would normally side with behaving with caution. Nothing ever gets solved when angry but I'm at a loss as to what op should have done.

Cf didn't answer her phone for calls or texts. She ghosted her when op found out.

Even if, and I totally get this might have happened, she got swept up with it and offered ops services without really thinking, surely she'd have contacted op as soon as - shit I'm sorry op I kinda said this. Is that ok?! I can do X y or z for you back/pay for half etc etc. But she didn't. She chose to ignore the op.

That's not a friends behaviour. That's someone who uses other people then drops them when they're no longer useful. Something the op says she has form for.

Whether they can manage to remain friends kinda hinges on if cf can see how cheeky she is. If she still somehow believes the op is in the wrong then I don't see how the friendship could continue, no matter what the op did

When was she planning to tell you that she'd volunteered your services? If you weren't alerted to the flyer by your other friends then you might not have found out until the winner came knocking for their prize!

OP you did all you could. You tried to talk to your friend but she ignored you. Your other friends tried to reason with her and offer up their own money to help her save face but she refused. You were left with two choices, to suck up her CF behaviour or alert the school. You are not the wrong party.

I can't weigh in on what I'd do in this scenario, because I literally cannot with any stretch of my imagination imagine any of my friends doing this to me. I'm not doubting they're out there but honestly think these people are complete aliens. I can see her getting carried away and saying "oh I have a friend who has a salon, I'm sure she wouldn't mind making a donation", making it sound like a fait accompli and then freaking out about having to awkwardly back out if salon-owner refused, but actually declaring the donation, and exactly what it was going to be, and letting it run to print before even informing the friend is just so totally unhinged.

The only shit storm here was CF donating someone else's time and money and taking the credit for it then refusing to pay for the prize SHE donated.
Then repeatedly ignoring ops attempts to communicate wirh her.
Ignoring 2 other people who told her she was wrong.
Refusing to even chip in £15 towards the prize SHE is claiming credit for and demanding op pay it out of her own pocket.

None of the above constitutes friendship.

Op needs to do damage lumitation to her business. Imagin if someone jyst eocjed up to her salon demanding get prize op would be compleyely unaware of it if her froends hadn't told her. Friend has no right to decide op can afford to give away £50+ in free hairstyles on her say so.

aaaaargghhhhelpme perhaps you'd like to pint out where I have justified the F!s actions or said she's not a CF? I agree with everything you've said about her.

I'm just saying that I wouldn't have handled it like the OP did after being egged on here. That's all.

For that reason ^ you wouldn't see me for dust in terms of the friendship, because I'd be terrified to be in close contact with such a dangerous lunatic.

But then, I guess it's different if you've known them for years before the behaviour emerges. And I'm sure she has other qualities.

Scuse spelling phone having a meltdown!

I think calling her 'cheeky' understates the seriousness of what she's done. It's completely out of order.

If she'd not ignored OP all that time, or tried to get the other friends involved by using them as messengers because she didn't want to speak to OP, and had apologised for offering the prize without even asking OP first, I'm sure OP would have come to some agreement with her.
But she didn't, so I don't think what OP's done is wrong, and to be honest, I wouldn't want to have any more to do with her.

"the seriousness of what she's done"

Now we really are making a drama out of a crisis aren't we!

Anyway, as I said, it's done now. Up to OP and CF to manage the fallout

Well stealing from anyone is fairly serious, stealing from your friends is really beyond the pale though.

"Text F1 did she sign me up. Yes she did, that was her contribution (?!)
I asked F1 will she be paying for the voucher. She has responded No, she wont be because its for a good cause and the rest of the community has donated bits and bobs."

All the "friend" had to do was apologise for not asking first & say that of course she would be paying for the voucher.

CFs are CFs exactly because they can get away with it.

OP did not run to PTA when she first discovered the CFness. She gave the CF several opportunities to sort it out - CF absolutely refused and didn't see anything wrong with what she had done. Good for OP to call her out, otherwise next time she'll have a Mexican House Thief in her hands.

I am curious as to how exactly op should have sorted it out?

Just keep trying to reason with cf and be ignored or be told she wasnt paying for it?
Or just accept it and pay it out her own pocket and let cf the credit for donating the prize and paying for it?
Or do damage limitation and offer something else more reasonable at a time that suits her?

Oh good lord she didn't steal. You'll be suggesting the police next!

Much more likely she said in a meeting something like "Oh my friend KungFu runs KungFu's HairDos and I'm sure she'll donate a cut and colour or something" and the person taking notes ran with it and she forgot all about it!

I think we all need a nice cup of tea and a sit down while we calm down

F2 and F3 must LOVE being stuck in the middle of all of this.

Very curious as to how this will play out.

Hope the phone call goes well.

Why can't you offer a cut and colour ?? It's a one off and as my sister is a hairdresser and owns her own salon I know that you make a good profit from doing a colour and cut

Ffs are people really so thick that they fail to understand how donations work!??

You have handled things extremely well so far @KungFuPandaWorksOut16

CF was way out of order offering your services as a gift without your permission but equally, the PTA who sanctioned the publication of this voucher without terms & conditions being signed by the business owner is where it’s really gone wrong.

CF is not a friend so don’t worry about losing her friendship. You wouldn’t treat your worst enemies like how she’s treated you.

Her behaviour after pledging your services is way way worse than what she did to start with and should tell you all you need to know about the type of person she is.

I don't think the OP has taken a "nuclear option" or that the friendship is over. PTA and HTC have a heads up on F1's cheekiness and can check her "contributions" in future, OP has been generous to both F1 and the school, F1 might feel a bit embarrassed, but I'm sure she'll get over it soon.

And life will go on.

Bit I'm quite sure that if this had happened by accident cf would have been mortified and apologetic but she's not. I'm quite happy to judge her a cf due to her behaviour when op found out about it. When the others offered to chip in she could have agreed and saved face but she didn't because she's an entitled cf who thinks the op should just do it without even being asked. I wouldn't want to be friends with someone who would try to take advantage like that.

“F2 and F3 must LOVE being stuck in the middle of all of this.”

No, they shouldn’t be in the middle of this. They should be right by Kings side.

People who do wrong by others should be ousted. F1 is a twat.

Id be very tempted to let them all get on with it and if the winner turns up in your salon, turn then away & tell them you have no knowledge of the prize and they need to take it up with wherever they got it from. Then the school will deal with F1 and embarrass her as she deserves.

A drama out of a crisis!

Op knew nothing about it. Who does that to a friend? When do you suppose cf was going to tell op she was giving time and money to a school she has nothing to do with cos she thought she should?
When was she going to pay fir her 'donation' answer never as she wasnt paying that much out near to xmas but she thought op should.
She ignored op multiple times. She had every opportunity to sort it out she refused.

What hapoens if she decides to do this for the next raffle and it costs more and the person doesnt find out till its too late? The school are going to look like fools if they get an angry call or letter from another business which may not be so calm in dealing with it as op has.

Cf is a liability on pta and they need to know.

Bit - so what should she have done?!