Cheeky Fucker - Group Gift

[TulaOfDarkWater]

Friendship group of six. One member has a birthday coming up & the other five people decided to get together & buy her a big ticket item.

Site A sells the item for £500 so £100 per person, everyone agreed & was happy with this.

Site B has a deluxe version for £700 so £140 per person, everyone agreed this was out of budget & unanimously decided to go with the £500 option from site A.

Just before the item could be purchased, a member of the group, let’s call her Anne, said she had a 20% off voucher for site B which was due to expire soon & it would be silly to waste it so how about we use it to buy the deluxe version & pay a little extra as birthday girl has had a shitty time of it lately etc.

In the group chat, we discussed:

£700 - 20% = £560

£560 / 5 = £112 per person

Anne thumbs up emoji liked this message!

Everyone agreed they could stretch to the £12 extra & it was decided that we would buy the deluxe item from Site B. The ONLY reason we agreed to this was due to the discount voucher, everyone was happy to purchase from site A otherwise.

Anne purchased the item using the voucher & sent everyone her bank details asking for £140. When this was queried, Anne said the 20% voucher represented her 1/5 contribution & so everyone else owes £140.

1. Anne knows the reason the £700 option was vetoed in the first place was because everyone - including Anne - agreed £140 was out of budget

1. At no time did Anne say the 20% voucher was her contribution & the rest of us had to pay full price. Another member of the group had the exact same voucher & we could have used hers if we had known

1. There are text messages where the group discussed the maths & agreed to £12 extra each & Anne did not dispute this & in fact thumbs up emoji’d it. Her excuse for this is she didn’t read the messages properly, the thumbs up was a mistake / she didn’t do it deliberately / know it was there & she is bad at maths anyway so tuned out!

So am I being unreasonable to think Anne is a cheeky fucker & deliberately mislead us? If we had stuck to the original plan then Anne would have had to pay £100 but this way she pays nothing & the rest of us an extra £40!!

Just to be clear, this voucher was one of those promotional email ones that are sent to those on the company’s mailing list, it wasn’t a voucher that had any monetary value or was a gift to her which would be different & like I said, another member had the exact same voucher which she was happy for us to use instead if we had known this is what Anne was doing.

I honestly don't get group gifts... there is ALWAYS one CF pocketing or benefiting from it.

Its like the ones the self appointed PTA (like PITA) mams did every year at school... everyone expected and guited into paying £5 for the end of year class gift (£5x 30 kids = £150) but then the teacher gets a gift worth £20-£25 (which was always something I would never choose and I garantee the teacher does not want like a HUGE poster with a self drawn portrait of each kid, I dont even want a self drawn portrait of my own kid cluttering up my house lol).

Where did the rest of the money go?

Every damn year the same thing, I fell for it the first time but never again. You can hound me and chase me down the street after pick up all you want but I am hard to guilt and you will find I have always conveniantly 'forgot' my purse because I see you coming and Im perfectly capable of deciding on a buying a gift myself.

Whats worse is another of these PITA mams (usually the first ones bestie) would always then do a second drive expecting everyone to pay £2 to get the mam from the first one a 'thank you' gift... for what? shaking us down for money and being a control freak?

I'd explain (unless the voucher cost anything) why their being a CF, and if they didn't back down suggest the following:

Splitting the cost of the £500 item between the FOUR of you and pay £125 each - and the CF can do whatever she wants with her £560 luxury whatever it is.

Anne is a proper cheeky fucker

Perhaps amongst your friends there’s always a CF!

The fact that your friend is unwell at the moment makes Anne’s actions even more fucked up. She’s a selfish cow and the epitome of a CF (a term which is thrown around a bit too lightly on here, but not in this case). I’d be sending her this…

Hi Anne,

There has been some confusion over your request for £140. We have agreed that we will all transfer £112 as originally planned. It wasn’t made clear that you planned to deduct the value of the voucher from your own contribution, thus increasing everyone else’s commitment. In any case, lets please
stick to the original plan and Friend X who also has the voucher will forward hers on to you, that way you can still benefit from a discount, but it doesn’t have to be at a cost to everyone else. That seems fair to all.

Anne needs to be ousted from friendship group

Im sure that the friend will still love it, even I’d she can’t have coffee and it can be used for lovely frothy hot chocolates in the meantime. (My friend was allowed coffee while she was undergoing treatment though).

OP it sounds like three of you aren’t happy and want to return it or only pay £112, two wanting to keep the peace (which won’t happen anyway as there will be bad feeling), so hopefully CF friend won’t get away with it.

Well I think there should also be a whip round for the bestie who did whip round for the mum who did a whip round for the teacher. 😁

Well I think there should also be a whip round for the bestie who did whip round for the mum who did a whip round for the teacher. 😁

And I will take on the whip round for you, @BellePeppa , for making this excellent suggestion.

Whoever picks up on this to organise MY whipround, can you please ensure standards are upheld? I expect you to approach your victims whip-roundees in immaculate beige clothing a la Amanda out of Motherland, complete with coiffure & full make up

Bonus points for insinuating that contributors lack funds & are therefore devoid of all moral fibre, while remaining sneeringly persistent in extracting the cash.

PS I don't want a coffemaker. Can I have a pony instead?

That’s what I would have thought! Why all the egg shell walking?

I'll do a whip round for you. I've got a discount code for 20% off a pony, so that's my share sorted, OK?

I really hope she doesn't get away with it.

Anne is the one causing the problem, she's not bothered about upsetting the friend

The gall of some people.

Going on for decades supposedly

it would appear they don’t have a backbone between them

Why be so rude? OP's already said what she's going to do. Why should she have to put up with heckling comments when nobody here even knows the people involved?

@LyingWitchInTheWardrobe

it is an anonymous chat forum.
entitled AIBU

She doesn’t have to put up with anything
ahe can just hide and move on

and some of us remain baffled at notion of having someone in your group who you all seem to despise…. For decade

Im confused by people who claim to have never encountered a t*wt within a friendship group.

Every friendship group I ever have known (childhood, college, uni, early adulthood and even now) has one sometimes even two because friend groups are caused by different people bring people into the fold (the friend of my friend isnt always my friend lol).

Basically its that person you're 'friends' with only because one of the genuine friend in the group insists on bring them along to everything because for some baffling reason they seem to like them and as such everyone else has to deal with it.

I dont find its CF money based stuff in my personal circle of friends as we are all equally low income and not money oriented but theres always one insufferable loudmouth who 'banters' (insults) everyone, drinks too much and never knows when to stop.

But it totally normal to have someone in the friend group you dont actually like and would never hang out with if not for the others.

Intrigueddotcom - they arent my friends its school mams and co-workers

My friends don't really do gifts, usually a home cooked cake and a get together.

Just to answer a few questions:

• Of course we’ve spoken to Anne & tried to sort it out, that’s why in my OP I said we queried it with her, showed her the messages & then relayed her response which was basically that she’s bad at maths & has no recollection of any agreement of £112 per person (apparently the thumbs up was a mistake & she didn’t read the messages properly / tuned out). She sees nothing wrong with the voucher being her 1/5 contribution & expects the rest of us to hand over £140 - she thinks she’s in the right even after we’ve explained the maths / showed her the messages / pointed out we vetoed £140 in the first place. The reason we are pissed off is because it’s obviously NOT a misunderstanding as she’s maintaining her position even after the explanations, she thinks it perfectly fine to pay nothing while the rest of us pay £140, I’d challenge anyone not to be pissed off about that.

• The reason we were walking on eggshells is because we didn’t want to outright call her a CF & exacerbate the situation when we have a sick friend to think about but neither are (some of us) willing to be taken advantage of either so we wanted to strike a balance - I don’t think wanting to take time to send a considered response means we are lacking a backbone.

• To those querying the money, I already explained upthread how we arrived at the figure & I don’t think it’s unreasonable as it’s in line with what we would usually spend, I know it sounds a lot if you just look at the overall price but it is a a group gift rather than an individual one.

• Birthday girl definitely wants a coffee machine despite treatment, we subtly checked. You can also makes a range of other drinks on it until she can get back to her usual caffeine intake but thanks for the heads up.

TulaOfDarkWater

I think you were very clear in your posts. I hope you get it sorted soon.

I also think Intrigueddotcom got out of the wrong side of bed this morning.

i would honestly prefer to go 1/4 on the original £500 machine and leave Anne out.
i suppose i would suggest - can't afford £140, over everyone's budget AS MADE CLEAR BEFORE so we'll retyurn that and go 1/5ths on the £500 one.

Anne may moan if she has ordered £700 one and paid, may be hard to get refund so i'd have in my mind that i'd have to pay 1/4 of cheap one. Byt at least Anne is not "winning then"

But I'd want a decision from Anne as to how she is proceeding - split £112 each or refund and buy £500 by end of today. Else the other 4 will sort own present out.

I'd message and say

Oh, good one Anne, for a minute there I thought you'd taken leave of your senses, sly joke, you had us all thinking you were being super tight and weird. Phew. £112 being pinged over to your account tonight. I was thinking we could go for pastel wrapping, I've got a bow. It cost £5 so actually I'll transfer £111.

I know this brings nothing to the discussion but I'm astonished that Anne thinks throwing in a voucher she got free AND banging up the cost for the 4 people she is cheerfully expecting to pay for the gift is remotely fair!