To think this was spiteful ?

[plasticfanatic]

Ex bought me a gift card for a good hair salon. I wanted to change colour and style. He bought it t before my birthday but we broke up two weeks later. He was angry and felt I was too quick to finish with him. ( He gave me the silent treatment for the very last time and I had a snap moment )
But In an effort to curry favour he sent me a card and the gift card which was worth £250.
When I refused to go back with him he suggested I ' knew' I was going to finish with him but stayed together and ' let him go ahead and buy the gift card' which is nonsense and I presume said out of anger and loss of control over my usual nice self.
So it seems he has got his money back and the card is worthless when I called to make the appointment and check whether card was valid .
I had suspicions he might as he told me that he did similar to an ex many years ago .. which I genuinely thought was a joke.
AIBU to think this was spiteful or was he right to do this ?
And would you even acknowledge this with him?

Why would you try and use it? lol

Sad man. The fact that he told you did it to someone else? He must think he's a genius. Fuck him and his shitty gift card.

Again, I had promised to pay him for it so was going to use it in lieu of cash. Hope that makes sense .

It would have been grabby and undignified of you to use the voucher in these circumstances. I think it’s right he was refunded as you hadn’t yet used it

But you said you were wondering if he had given the gift card to his mother or sister, how could he have when you had the gift card with you?

Your different versions of why you are asking aren't quite matching up.

I still have the physical, original gift card. What I meant was the value of it ; that he may have given it as a gift to someone else and cancelling me as the recipient . Hope that clears that up.

Again, I did not use the card. I asked before I refunded him if the value of it was still in my name as I then wouldn't have refunded him etc

I don't think he was spiteful getting his money back. If you've split up it's better he has his £250 them he pays for his ex's beauty appointments. I don't think you could have accepted it.

Well, are you planning on gifting him £250? Weird thing to expect of an ex. He wasn’t spiteful in the least. More, boundaried.

Yes he was spiteful.

I'm shocked at the responses on this thread. If the gift had been of the same value but in a less liquid form, say a bag or an expensive perfume would it have been okay for him to sneakily retrieve it?

No, you don't take gifts back. It's scummy behaviour

Let it go. My ex bought me a pair of Louboutin's. I left them at his house. Month later we had a row and he did something totally unacceptable, so I left. Minus the shoes.

I wouldn't expect to profit of someone I ditched .

Saying you'd pay ? Why not just pay anyway if you want the hair do ? He's not your partner anymore. Why would he pay £250 for your hair doing ?

I'm not fully understanding the timeline here. But overall it seems to me if you had offered to pay him back for the gift card, cancelling it seemed like a simpler solution. I don't think it was spiteful as it appears to be jn line with (if not the same as) what was agreed between the two of you.

It sounds like it would be totally in character for him to do something mean, petty and vengeful.

It wouldn't necessarily be spiteful that he recouped the money from the card, given that he was expecting to get the money back anyway.

What was spiteful was him refusing to be patient by pre-empting the payment from you. That was definitely a 'fuck you' gesture, but I don't think you should be surprised.

He acted out of immaturity and spite with all the silent treatments and other toxic behaviours he dished out to you. Hooray for you and your child having escaped from this nasty, overgrown baby.

It would seem wrong to use the voucher in the circumstances. Sorry, but in a way I don't blame him.

I think that perhaps it might have been.

From his point of view best case scenario is you pay hims £250 and then find out when you get there that the card has been refunded and then he tells you to jog on for the money you sent him. Getting it back would be possible via small claims if you had it in writing in a text or similar, but other than that very unlikely.

Worst case for him, he just gets the refund and the warm feeling of knowing how embarrassed and angry you will be when you get there and find out that it was refunded.

As it was, you checked because he has form for this and found out in advance. So I would say something. Just a very simple "My hair looks fabulous....by the way, nice try dickhead!" but I am petty like that, I wouldnt want him to think that his little plan had worked, I would want him to know that I had been one step ahead.

£250 is a very small price to pay for freedom.

I wonder, if it had been an actual physical gift, would he have asked for it to be returned?

I do think though. that if you are ending a relationship, it's not great to then utilise what is effectively their money. But that's only becuase it was a gift that was given for future use, and could be rescinded in the way that it was - which is also not good form, but semi0understandable if he wanted to make a point/get his money back.
So it's not straightforward.

ETA - I see @Thisisnotarehearsal has said the same thing.
Pardon me for repeating; I hadn't read page 2.

You promised to pay him back, so what's the issue? He didn't trust you, so ensured you couldn't use the card and then refuse to par him back.

Sensible move IMO!

it’s a good thing you’ve got rid of him.

don’t give him the satisfaction of knowing that you found out about the gift card. Cut all contact permanently.

But what makes is spiteful is him not telling her.

If he had said "No its fine, spoken to the salon and they can refund me" then all good. But he didnt. Thats what makes it nasty.

The spite comes from his intention that either the OP pays him and finds the card is useless and is embarrassed and paying £500 for a £250 appointment, or she doesnt pay him and attends the appointment expecting to pay him back afterwards (as he has admitted he has done this before and crowed about it) and is embarrassed to find it useless.

A simple text from him that he didnt send about already getting a refund, coupled with his admitting that he had done this to an ex, tells me that this was pure spite.

I think it depends on the relationship, mine have all been amicable and I've always been treated well so I would find this particularly horrible, assuming you too have brought him expensive gifts. Think you dodged a bullet there

I know you were going to pay him back. But how long since this happened? If you have been saying ‘you can have the money when I get my hair done’ and it’s been months, I can see why he decided to sort it himself.

@PyongyangKipperbang would you say it was spiteful the other way around? She'd given him a voucher for a race day and he'd promised to pay her back but tried to book the race day and use the voucher first.......

I doubt it!

No you didn’t. You called the salon to book a time! You are grabby as anything.