What's reasonable here?

[hotstepper4]

Last week, myself and dh went to a fete with our 4 dc - my ds7 and his dc, my dss8, dss5 and dsd10.

Dsd wanted to go on the bouncy castle, so she took off the charm bracelet she was wearing, and gave it to dh to hold on to. He put it in his fleece pocket.

Later, there was a sudden downpour of rain. Torrential and totally unexpected. All the dc were only wearing t shirts, dh hurriedly took his hoody off and put it on dss5. We were then running across a field to get shelter.

When we got home, dh took his hoody off dss5, and we realised that the charm bracelet was missing. We think it must have fallen out of the pocket when dss5 was running.

Dh exw has gone mental, apparently the bracelet was a Pandora one and is worth 500.00. We had no idea.

She is demanding we replace it. We don't have that kind of money. Dh thinks she shouldn't have allowed dsd to wear such an expensive bracelet to begin with.

Who is being u?

Well enough people have said it could easily be £500 for that to be a pretty pointless post.

To those saying it can’t possibly be £500, take a wander over to the website and take a look

ExP and I went halves on a Pandrora bracelet and 2 charms for her latest birthday, it came to £125. DD has had a very hard year with lots of upheaval and we felt she deserved something special and grown up, that can be added to at Christmas etc.

It’s on my home insurance; we agreed that whichever adult DD is with IF she ever loses it, pays the excess.

My DSis has a Pandora bracelet with close to £1500 of charms etc on

Unless someone can claim on some insurance I would say your dh needs to pay something towards replacing the bracelet, if that is what his dd wants. If not, is there something else (hopefully cheaper) she'd like instead, e.g. necklace, earrings, Switch console etc? Maybe she'd like a necklace and you/dh could buy her a pendant she'd like for Christmas to go on it. (Be careful if someone claims on insurance though, after paying an excess then increased premiums over the next few years it might be cheaper to replace things yourself rather than claiming.)

If she'd want the original replaced there is no way I'd be spending that much. Technically everything was no longer new, it is now classed as second hand so wouldn't be worth the price of new anyway, I'd be looking for second hand replacements online etc. (If it is 2 or 3 years old and she sold it it wouldn't be worth what you would get for a new bracelet.) Yes, an insurance claim could be 'new for old' but premiums are normally higher for that, some insurance would pay out for a replacement of the same value/age.

Before replacing anything I would also rather see some evidence it was a Pandora bracelet and the charms were genuine Pandora. Unfortunately lots of people wouldn't keep receipts for things like this (I wouldn't), and gifts might not have receipts either, so it would be hard to prove if they were genuine. Is the mum the kind of person who would try to get someone to replace something with something better? (I guess your dh would be the best person to know if she is like this.)

OP I hope you/your dh get it sorted out. It sounds like it was a genuine accident so if I were the mum I wouldn't expect a full replacement and I'd offer to help replace it if I could. If I was in your situation I would rather replace it with exactly the same thing, but wouldn't be able to afford it so would offer a compromise.

The poor child if it isn't replaced, though! It is clearly precious. The charms are probably presents. What's he going to say, yes, you gave it to me to look after, yes, I lost it, no, you can't have another one because it's your mum's fault?

^^ this

the child was obviously being careful with it, and the mum may not even have known she had it with her that weekend. it's not an unreasonable thing (altho I'm not a fan of pandora) to buy your dd one of the charm bracelets and add to it over the years. my dd has her own little jewellery box where she keeps all her bits (nowt worth 500 though ) and she chooses what to wear as and when she likes.

honestly I think it would be harsh of the dad not to replace. your dsd wasn't to know he'd lose it. perhaps she likes bringing her small special things to her dad's, particularly as, according to your other thread, she doesn't have her own room there

@Bluelady sorry I hadn’t read every page, I’d perhaps only seen one or two people saying it could be over £500 compared to loads posting links to obvious fakes stating it was not possible.

Some people don’t realise that this isn’t something you can really buy from Amazon, if people are not familiar with the franchise I can imagine it’s very easy to buy a fake item believing you’ve struck a bargain. If the OP is going to replace it then it is only fair to replace it with a genuine item and not an eBay knock off IMO.

This reminds me of a similar incident when I was a teenager.

My Dad (parents divorced, not civil) bought me a nice phone for Christmas (Ericsson T20 if anyone fancies a gander at vintage mobiles ) because it was the Lara Croft phone and I was obsessed.

I’d had it for 2 months when my Mums drunk friend broke it. Completely fucked it. Snatched it off me, then fell over and the flip bit snapped off.

It was £100. My Mums friend offered me £20 and told me I was lucky to get that My Mum wouldn’t replace it either. I was absolutely devastated.

What sort of fool sends a 10 YO to the fair wearing a £500 bracelet, or even buys them one at all?

This. Any such bracelet would be worn on special occasions only if I were the parent. If it was valuable the dad and OP should have been warned so they knew to take extra care.

OP said there were 10 charms on it so that plus the bracelet might be £500. I would want proof though that they were all Pandora charms.

I bought my Mom a Pandora bracelet and only a few of the charms were actually Pandora brand the rest were nice ones that fit it and fit my budget better. Plenty of pretty and less expensive charms fit Pandora bracelets.

And dammit now I'm looking at their website and lusting after a rose gold one. 😂

If her mother purchased them from a Pandora store they tend to take your postcode now and have it on their system what you have bought. You might get proof of purchase that way if the receipts are no longer available

Pipe: that's miserable, poor you. Though the H in this case wasn't pissing around with his DD's bracelet; it was an honest mishap and it sounds very likely that neither he nor OP had the faintest idea the bracelet was valuable (like I said, Pandora stuff doesn't look anything special, if you don't know what it is.)

This is an unfortunate accident. Surely the kind of thing insurance is for? I think the mum was daft to let her wear the bracelet to a fete, but the dad was clearly also careless looking after it. I believe it could be £500. Our daughter has a charm bracelet (not pandora). We buy one charm or so per year, things that are special and sentimental. We never let her wear it outside the house. She only gets to wear it for parties at home. She is only 9 and spectacularly careless with her possessions (something we are working on). Btw we always keep receipts for jewellry. Insurers recommend you do this, to prove purchase in occurrences like this.

"What sort of fool sends a 10 YO to the fair wearing a £500 bracelet"

well this happened on the dad's day, so that would be him. the mum may not have even known the dd had taken her bracelet out of their house.

@Reanimated I agree, I’m not remotely into jewellery and was at the price of DDs. I wouldn’t have a clue what is or isn’t expensive in that regard.

Had your DH known the value of the bracelet he would either have
a) made her leave it at your home while you had the day out,
or
b) put it in a much more secure place than his hoodie pocket when she handed it to him

£500 for a kid's bracelet! Really?!

I don't get people on this thread being serious about replacing it as DH's fault.
What kind of a total idiot let's a 10y old child run around with a bracelet worth of £500? And without informing the parents too? I wouldn't let my DD wear a gold chain because I know what she's doing, running around, playing tag, football. I'm not deluded, she's not a fairy tale princess waiting in her tower for the right prince, she has an active life.
The exW should shut up and think about her choices of accessories and how to communicate their value for her kids.

I agree with the posters who are surprised that this is such a shock to your DH. I imagine your DSD has been collecting the charms for a while? Was your DH really completely unaware that this was a very special item of his DD's (even if he didn't realise the exact price?

Maybe he forgot about the bracelet with the panic to get out of the rain.

And unless he has actually been to Pandora and bought the charms, there is no reason to think it is anything different to the sort of thing you can get in craft markets and the like for a few quid. You know, the sort of thing any normal person expects for a child's trinkets.

I used to work for Pandora and the size of bracelet a 10 year old could (comfortably) wear and the amount of charms you could fit on it would never amount to 500 pound.

If you allow your 10 year old to wander around wearing £500 of jewellery you are a total fool. Of course she's lost it. Shes 10.

She didn't lose it. Her dad did.

What kind of a total idiot let's a 10y old child run around with a bracelet worth of £500? And without informing the parents too? I wouldn't let my DD wear a gold chain because I know what she's doing, running around, playing tag, football. I'm not deluded, she's not a fairy tale princess waiting in her tower for the right prince, she has an active life.

The child took her bracelet off to do an activity for which it was unsuited. It isn't her fault. It isn't her mum's fault. She gave it to a responsible adult WHO LOST IT.

Pandora isn’t cheap. Bracelet could easily be £500+.
I’m sorry but if anyone gave something valuable to their mum or dad to look after and mum or dad lost it, I’d totally expect mum or dad to pay for it!

It was an accident.

DH I assume would've avoided it had he known in advance and not taken it on the trip, but he didn't do it on purpose.

I would get an idea from DSD about what she had and then look to replace it gradually, as £500 is a lot of cash. I would also look into house insurance.

EXw needs to pipe down.

It's the little girl I feel sorry for out of everyone here. She's given her father something important to look after. He's lost it. She has made no fuss, no demands. Most kids would be sulking. She sounds lovely. Is the message you want to give her really that her trusted adults will try to weasel their way out responsibility for their mistakes? Doesn't sound like a good example to me.

£500.00 for a Pandora ... are you sure? These are cheap as chips .... you should be able to pick up a replacement cheap enough.

A genuine Pandora bracelet with the number of charms OP has said it had on it could certainly be £500. I don't know why people are insisting it wouldn't.