Relationship over, ex keeping ‘joint savings’

[FieldRunner]

First of all, I know I’ve been really stupid here. Ex and I have broken up, we had been together for nearly 4 years and been saving for a house for about half of this time. Ex works in finance and persuaded me that we’d be better pooling our savings as would receive higher interest. I transferred a set amount to him each month to put into an account which he said would be a fixed interest rate. Basically it transpires that a few months in he changed this to be invested in to a Stocks ISA. He says it isn’t simple to give this back to me as the money is tied up and value is volatile as it’s the markets (I don’t really understand this).

Does anyone know if it’s hard to get this money out of a Stocks ISA? I don’t know what to do next, he is ignoring my messages now. I’ve transferred over £15,000.

Well not until he clearly does not pay it back.

But I don’t think he plans to. OP you are acting like this is just a friendly delay from a partner. Treat this as fraud and seek legal advice.

He hasn’t stolen. Stolen requires there to be a proven beyond reasonable doubt intention to deprive. That won’t be proven here.

So this isn’t, and never will be, criminal. However, depending on his actual job, civil ends in a CCJ which may well result in employment termination/inability to find further employment. It will also impact his whole life, ability to mortgage, get credit etc.

So that’s what you focus on. You’ll go to court to get your money back if he doesn’t return it.

Just FYI, not everyone working ‘in finance’ is credit checked etc. I’m an accountant, and I’m not. A CCJ would still destroy my life though.

To work in investment management/banking it’s been a requirement for well over a decade that everyone we offer a position to had to have a credit and criminal check.

We've withdrawn job offers to people whose checks come back showing undeclared CCJ’s. If they’re upfront about a previous CCJ, we would take it on a case by case basis but don’t declare and the job offer is withdrawn.

Absolutely this.
Mention in the call that he never mentioned nor had your permission to invest your money.
It was agreed it was joint savings for your future.

Re the phonecall.
May well not be admissible in court but the police will listen to it if you make a complaint.

His bank may well listen to it.
She can provide a detailed typed minuting of their phone call in which she can say was witnessed by X person.

My friend was viciously abused by her boss for not agreeing to take on even more work of another colleague during Covid working from home.

Her son heard the raised voices and recorded the abuse.
He threatened her livelihood and her son can be heard intervening and telling her to end the call, that it was recorded and he intended to involve the police.

She emailed that night that she was going off sick and would be seeking outside advice on what occurred.
She reserved the right to involve the police.
She typed up what was said word for word from the recording, informing the company she was out sick until further notice.
She retained an employment lawyer.

She won a formal internal grievance. She was off work on full pay for 14 months.

They declined to listen to the tapes but accepted fully the statement from her son and her detailed minuting of exactly what occurred.

He had a "nervous breakdown" due to personal problems, went off sick and apologised unreservedly.
The company did not want this to ever see the light of day, certainly not to go near the WRC.
She works 3 days a week on full pay.
He is not allowed to have any contact whatsoever with her.

Record the call and have someone hidden listening in.

I don’t know the legalities around this, but I do know that if I worked in finance, I’d be very nervous about my employer finding out I’d ‘mismanaged’ aka stolen money…

And dont beat yourself up about it - go to the relationship boards on here and you’ll see thousands of stories where women have given their LIVES to men who have wronged them. £15k is nothing in comparison.

Absolutely. But it isn’t clear what he actually does or if she actually knows what he does. So it depends what his actual role is, he may be bigging up his level of responsibility.

His actions so far do not meet the necessary level for theft and OP does not have sufficient evidence of what was intended for it to get there. She would be wasting her and the police’s time trying to pursue this as a criminal case. She needs to follow the civil route which she should be able to make a good case for especially if she can get any written acknowledgment from him that the money was intended for savings.

This isn't quite true. I had to resort to recording conversations with my ex for my own safety. The one where he was gauding me with his usual bullshit of noone will want me, I'm worthless etc I snapped and said yeah that's why you pushed me down the stairs, dragged me by my hair and mentions to a marital rape and he answered you deserved it...... is being used in court.

💯 record the call in full.

Ignore the you can't use it brigade.

He works in Finance you say? Interesting. If his job is regulated, so much the better.
Quietly gather as much evidence as possible that this was money that you transferred him on the understanding that he was keeping it as cash for your joint investment in property in the future. Old emails, texts etc. and anything recent where he implicitly acknowledges that.
Then if you don't get any sense out of him, you might want to ask him what the "ethical conduct team" at his employers would say about him obtaining funds from you on the understanding he would hold them as cash to use on a future joint house purchase, investing them in a different product without your knowledge, and then refusing to return your funds when requested after it became clear that the planned house purchase would not go ahead.
It's a nuclear option, but it might shake him into seeing sense if nothing else works.

Yet more shite. “Breach GDPR by recording a phone call to her ex discussing their shared savings”

Fuck me 🤣🤣 definitely record the call OP