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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be irritated by this technophobia?

70 replies

AnachronisticCorpse · 01/01/2018 10:39

Sparked by a conversation with DH’s brother and his wife.

They still have the same contents insurance as when they bought their house 20 odd years ago, costing £800 a year, they won’t change it because it’s too much faff to go and see a broker. Ditto car insurance. I dread to think about their mortgage, I haven’t asked. I suggested changing it online and was met with a laundry list of excuses (what about the piano (?), I don’t trust online, our computer isn’t working etc etc).

Their house is either roasting or freezing because apparently their thermostat needs a specialist to adjust it, they can’t do it themselves.

They only use BIL’s work email address so often miss updates or invitations from school or friends.

Bizarrely, BIL has a Fitbit but no way of syncing it other than his pc that currently doesn’t work, so the clock on it is wrong and I’m not really sure what else he gets out of it other than it being an expensive pedometer.

They won’t shop online (in case of fraud) so ask us to order stuff for them (it obviously doesn’t matter if OUR card details get nicked...) and they won’t use credit cards, only debit cards or cash, again because apparently credit cards get cloned all the time.

I wouldn’t mind but they moan about things all the time. Their house is falling apart but they ‘can’t afford’ to fix it, SIL has to get her parents to take her food shopping as they only have one car and she won’t shop online, they complain about how high their bills are but won’t do anything about it because of ‘reasons’.

It drives me absolutely crackers. BIL earns £££ and SIL is a SAHM (same situation as us), so she actually has all the time in the world to sort all this stuff out and just won’t because, I don’t know really, some anxiety about using the internet and just sorting shit out. They are the same age as us btw, and have a child in yr 6, and I think they are really going to struggle with secondary school if they don’t get aboard the online train.

AIBU to find the whole thing really odd?

OP posts:
Shadow666 · 01/01/2018 10:42

My next door neighbor lost their only front door key. For 20 years they only used the back door even though it was a faff as they were too lazy to get a locksmith out. Eventually they had the whole house renovated so got a new front door.

People are bonkers.

Original poster
AnachronisticCorpse · 01/01/2018 10:45

Oh god, Shadow, that’s exactly what they’re like. Except it would have been that they don’t trust the locksmith not to copy their key and come back to rob them.

OP posts:
ijustwannadance · 01/01/2018 10:45

At the age I presume them to be, yes, they are odd. They seem extremely paranoid and set in their ways.

FellOutOfBed2wice · 01/01/2018 10:46

This sounds like my grandmother who is willfulling not entering the 21st century and so there are some things she now just can’t do. She won’t entertain the idea of the Internet in her home even though she’s always moaning about how she can’t access things like iPlayer.

She also has a dodgy boiler that renders her house either sub arctic or desert like. She won’t get it fixed because [insert complicated reason here].

Hellywelly10 · 01/01/2018 10:48

They do sound irritating. But it's their choice, they dont need the extra money. so what if they have high bills. Stop buying them stuff online and offer to help them do it themselves. At least their child isn't online all day?

BossyBitch · 01/01/2018 10:50

My mum, who's only 59 and has two Masters degrees, is the same. She will actually travel quite a way in order to get herself to one of the few remaining actual travel agents in order to book a simple return flight from London to some other European city - given London traffic, this arguably takes her longer than the flight itself.

Yes, it's annoying, but it's also adorably bonkers, IMO. Grin

Santasbigredbobblehat · 01/01/2018 10:50

Stop ordering them stuff.

Original poster
AnachronisticCorpse · 01/01/2018 10:52

But that’s the thing, they DO need the extra money. It’s painful to listen to them complain about not affording a new conservatory/kitchen/washing machine as theirs is falling apart when in the next breath they tell us they pay well over the odds for energy and insurances.

It’s crackers.

OP posts:
Original poster
AnachronisticCorpse · 01/01/2018 10:52

Travel agents! Yes! That’s them too.

OP posts:
thedevilinablackdress · 01/01/2018 10:52

It's always irritating when people seem to be making their lives more difficult than they need to be and this seems fairly extreme. My DM can be like this and I've fought a few battles over things I really felt would save her money/make life easier but mostly it's too hard. I'd disengage a bit for the sake of your sanity and your relationship with them and stop facilitating - no more doing their online shopping for them. That's taking the piss a bit.

Original poster
AnachronisticCorpse · 01/01/2018 10:55

They also have some complicated set up with their telly so they can record stuff. It would have been far far simpler and cheaper to get Sky, but that’s not the sort of thing they would do.

They also switch the WiFi off when it’s not being used. Which is very irritating when I’ve gone round with my iPad to order stuff off amazon for them.

OP posts:
Shadow666 · 01/01/2018 10:58

Thing is, I don’t mind what people do but it’s the complaining that’s annoying. I hate people who complain about money. Then the next week they’ll be posting photos of themselves abroad on holiday on Facebook.

It sounds like they are just lazy rather than having genuine reasons for not doing stuff.

acquiescence · 01/01/2018 10:58

I have a good one. When my uncle wants to get cash he writes himself a cheque and takes it to the bank to cash it as he doesn’t trust debit cards. We are close to them and also order stuff online for them, sort out insurance sometimes. They will let us do it but wouldn’t do it themselves. It is irritating, a bit, but just one of those things.

pigsknickers · 01/01/2018 10:59

Oh god my fil is like this. He wanted to know some train times between two towns further afield than ours, and he actually asked a friend to go into the station in one of the towns, get a timetable and post it to him. Rather than let me look it up on my phone for him right there and then. Totally bonkers (he's not that ancient either, the 21st century has somehow completely passed him by).

mishfish · 01/01/2018 10:59

I thought you were going to say they were a lot older than you indicated.

My granddad was like this and ended up overpaying over the years by roughly £30k on an insurance.

It’s difficult but at the same time it’s their own money they’re losing. You’ve made suggestions. You can’t force them, only make the same suggestion when they inevitably next moan to you

metalmum15 · 01/01/2018 11:00

They sound bonkers. I wouldn't be doing their online shopping for them, if they can't find it in the shops then tough luck. They will be stuck when their dc goes to secondary as they will need to be online for dinner payments, trips, etc, plus a lot of secondary schools have all the homework online too now. They obviously have a lot of anxiety about life.

allegretto · 01/01/2018 11:00

Sound a bit like my husband. Blush We have just got an Amazon Alexa and he can't get the hang of it! First of all he calls her Alexia, not Alexa and he says the name at the end of the sentence. Secondly, he keeps on talking to her in Italian. Grin He also gets our DD7 to turn on the tv - there is no hope!

BossyBitch · 01/01/2018 11:02

I wouldn't really know where to even find a travel agent these days!

Mum also recently had a bit of a health crisis and, because I'm an expat and can't be there all the time, I booked her a cleaner (which I'm paying for, so it's not about card details). She quite seriously feared that me 'getting one off the internet' might mean that she ends up with some sub-par robot maid manufactured in China or something (and I'm only slightly exaggerating). Funny enough, the one cleaner she had before was a local woman in dire straights whom she hired out of charity more than need and who ended up nicking all sorts of stuff. I'm wondering if it's still non-digital if they were hired offline but turned out to be somewhat long-fingered ...

StylishDuck · 01/01/2018 11:05

My DH's aunt is like this. She's in her 60's and only recently retired from a job that required her to use a computer every day but refuses to get a computer for the house or wi-fi because she's worried about "radio waves" Hmm Instead she goes to the library every day and uses the computer there.

She hardly drives anywhere in case she gets caught speeding (FYI she is the least likely person to get caught speeding - in fact she's more likely to get done for driving too slow!)

Refuses to do online banking of course. She also doesn't trust ATMs. Instead she writes a cheque to cash and takes it down to the bank on the bus if she wants cash (because that's so much safer!)

Original poster
AnachronisticCorpse · 01/01/2018 11:08

BIL designs software for a living...

OP posts:
Butterymuffin · 01/01/2018 11:14

As pp said, stop ordering things for them. It won't help them change.

metalmum15 · 01/01/2018 11:16

Bil designs software for a living

Wtf? He should be at the forefront of the technology food chain!

BossyBitch · 01/01/2018 11:17

BIL designs software for a living...

Not that unusual, actually. I'm in the tech industry tech myself and, generally speaking, there's quite a bit of caution towards many things digital driven by the fact that, as professionals in the industry, we're somewhat more aware than the general public of the risks involved. I'm a lot more cautious about what I post on social media than most of my non-industry friends, for instance. The best real techie I know is quite convinced that AI is going to kill us all eventually. Of course, he also develops AI-based software products for a living and loves what he does, so he must be rather suicidal, really.

AssassinatedBeauty · 01/01/2018 11:21

They are odd, but it's their choice. I would definitely stop enabling them and do not do any more online shopping for them. If they complain about their problems then just nod and smile and then change the subject.

Viviennemary · 01/01/2018 11:22

I'm a bit resistant to change too. Didn't want to change the house insurance but gave in to DH in the end. But it is a bit annoying when elderly people who can't manage their shopping because of mobility refuse to do online shops or even have a computer for making orders of other stuff.