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.

Op, at this stage i would message CF Anne this:

I speak for myself here, but your response to us questioning the fairness of contributions is disingenuous. It was very clear from the chat that some of the group could not stretch beyond £112, hence the agreement to buy from site B with the voucher. If it’s a misunderstanding on your part on how to use the voucher, then it’s because you didn’t read our messages properly and the right thing to do is honour what we typically do for birthdays, and pay your fair share of £112 as per the majority have agreed.

And add that if this is a problem for her, she should return the £700 machine and they can repurchase it using someone else's code.

As someone else pointed out earlier, I wouldn't be surprised is as well as this CFery, she used a cashback website so is actually making money off you all!

Update

Anne sent a message in the group chat saying we have until the end of business today to pay our share or she will be sending the machine back for a full refund as she shouldn’t have to put up with our “tardiness” regarding payment. She also said she would be doing her own individual gift if that should happen. Rather than get into it all again, we agreed that yes it should be returned for a full refund but that the rest of us would still be going ahead with the original £500 machine & that she was welcome to still take part if she wished but she declined.

I thought that would be the end of it but Anne has sent several more messages basically saying she doesn’t appreciate our “attitude”, that this isn’t how you treat friends & basically insinuated that WE were trying to take advantage of HER. She’s also said she was giving us one last chance to make things right by sending her £140 each but we reiterated that wouldn’t be happening.

The other member of the group then sent Anne her discount code for 20% off so she would be whole & we all thumbs upped that message (petty I know but we couldn’t resist).

Thanks to all who have taken the time to respond, I really appreciate it. We all plan to leave the matter here for now so I don’t think there will be anymore updates. We will address what’s happened with Anne after the birthday in person but it’s safe to say, the friendship has been ruined.

Reading your update, the best bet is to tell her to send it back and reorder the cheaper one and get her money upfront!

X posted, sorry

Hope you all send a coffee cup emoji in every message for a good while to come op!! Well done!

Thanks for the update OP - I am SO glad that you all stood your ground, and are not enabling - well done to you all! (As a side note, if I was Anne, and four of my closest friends, whom I had known for decades, ALL told me I was being unreasonable, even if I thought I was in the right, it would still make me take a step back about of my actions/how they may have been perceived and affected others).

Glad the other 4 of you are still going in with the £500 version for your friend. I know it's a £125 each (so more than the £112 you were all expecting to spend), but I too would spend the extra £13 out of principle. Also. £125 is a saving on the £140 that Anne is demanding from you all 🙂

Well done that pal who sent her back a voucher code as a refund 👍😂

If Mumsnet had a Cheeky Fucker of the year award I'd nominate Anne!

Glad you and the not cf friends came to an agreement. And I hope your friend loves her gift.

Anne, the cheeky rat, can get to fuck.

Oh dear, Anne has just lost herself five friends!
She's shot herself in the foot with this one. You and the others have handled it perfectly.

Good to see that the rest of the group have taken a united stand against such blatant cheeky fuckery. Anne is no better than a con artist and a very unpleasant person to boot. I would definitely be ending any relationship with her.

Hope you manage to get the coffee machine you originally wanted to buy.

I also hope your friend's treatment goes well and that she enjoys her lovely coffee machine for many years to come.

@TulaOfDarkWater

The other member of the group then sent Anne her discount code for 20% off so she would be whole & we all thumbs upped that message (petty I know but we couldn’t resist).

Are any of the other (non-CF) members of your group able to get another 20% code and purchase the less expensive item? That would be the Cherry on the cake, if possible. 🌹

Having read the updates and the last message, I just want to make sure you know that the friendship might be ruined, but you and the rest of the group aren't the ones who did it. Anne did it all herself with her greedy behaviour.

Also if I were your sick friend, I would HATE to have heard about my friends being taken advantage of for the sake of not upsetting me, so I'm glad to hear Anne has fixed that problem (that she created!!)

Well done for standing your ground op and friends (ex-Anne).
Sending happy birthday best wishes to your friend

She's a manipulative little minx isn't she.

So relieved that you all stood your ground.

Anne is really throwing her toys out of the pram!
Once she realises you're not going to capitulate her next step will be some "woe is me" story to try to distract you from this incident and reinstate her position in the group.

As an aside, I bet there are 700 people reading this thread who would happily contribute £1 just to ensure Anne doesn't get away with it 😂

Wow she really tried to brazen it out and claim she was the victim. It’s almost impressive, that level of brass neck.

Well done op and friends.

Anne's reminder of payment and her reprimanding you all for tardiness backfired on her!

Excellent update!

I thought that would be the end of it but Anne has sent several more messages basically saying she doesn’t appreciate our “attitude”, that this isn’t how you treat friends & basically insinuated that WE were trying to take advantage of HER. She’s also said she was giving us one last chance to make things right by sending her £140 each but we reiterated that wouldn’t be happening.

I was right before, wasn't I? I realise you swapped the sexes to make it less outing, but she IS Count Arthur Strong, isn't she?!?!

Your friend is a conniving little CF bitch and clever at playing the 'no good with maths, my thumb slipped on emoticon' bit.

A few years ago I was close friends with 3 other women, Y, C and P.

We all went out for birthdays, got gifts separately etc.

Then C had some issues in her life, financial and personal and she was really upset and depressed about it all and having counselling and didn't want to come out but I saw her for drinks sometimes. P complained a bit about this 'Why didn't C want to come out etc?' and I had to point out to her that C was in a really bad way and we should be there for her. P was still very much of 'she should pull herself together'. I didn't mention this to C but apparently both of them bumped into each other on public transport and there was awkwardness and P wasn't that friendly to C. After that my opinion of P went downhill a bit, but we were still friends and still all socialised.

Funnily enough P was always the one who'd split the bill up to the very last penny and another friend of mine called her out on this once.

P also wasn't poor either, she was careful with money but did earn a good wage and saved a lot.

The cheeky shit. I love the audacity of her latest messages. Safe to say that's the friendship pretty much done and dusted, there's not much coming back from that without an apology from her which you won't be getting, clearly. Good for you all for not losing your shit, it's so much better to have the moral high ground.

I suspect her maths isn’t anywhere near as bad as she is pretending it is! What a CF!