Friend using my credit card.

[BePunnyDuck]

So I owe my friend a significant sum of money- £1300 or there abouts.

I have had a really really tight month. I’m a single parent, DD has been sick the past 2 weeks and as I am self employed I have had zero income as I have been off looking after her.

Friend messaged me yesterday to ask if it was possible if I could send her £100. I only had £80 left in my account, so I told her I would send her the money the next day as my ex was due to send me money for DD, which he didn't until this evening. I had every intention of sending the money when I got his money.

I went shopping today- only for my card to decline. I checked my online banking and my friend has used my card details and paid her phone bill with my money, meaning I couldn’t get shopping. Luckily- my Dad bailed us out.

I asked her about it and her reply was “you said you were sending me money, I had your bank details (from when we booked a holiday together a few months ago) so I used them to pay my phone bill”

AIBU to think this is wrong? I wasn’t avoiding paying her the money, it’s the fact she’s used my card without my permission…

Do this and then don't speak to her again. You got into a mess but she had no right to do that.

It depends on the banks’ terms and conditions for card use. By allowing someone else access to the card details without advising the bank beforehand, she’s almost certainly broken the terms and conditions. Most, if not all banks will have a clause which holds the cardholder responsible for keeping the card details secure, and the bank may deem OP to have been negligent in divulging them for someone else to use. Had OP made sure that the friend didn’t hang on to the card details after making the payment she authorised, this couldn’t have happened.

Slightly different if she meant credit card, but she must have either maxed out her overdraft or not be allowed one. Just saying that OP is in a dangerous financial situation where she’s self employed and has no savings or borrowing capacity to cover basic expenses in an emergency , not even SSP . Borrowing large sums money from a friend to set up a new business in these circumstances is a bad idea
and so is paying for a holiday. Sorting this out feels more urgent to me than acting against her friend who was certainly in the wrong.

Ah, so all the financial recklessness in this tale was on the part of the friend, after all! You’re right, she had no business being so careless as to lend money to OP. It really wasn’t fair of her!
And after all, she’s had pretty much a third of the cash repaid over the past six months, so the outstanding €1300 is neither here nor there. Tough shit if she needs it asap, she shouldn’t have lent it out.
She should have foreseen the circs that are presently straining her finances, and it’s not OP’s problem. OK.

Wow, I really don’t understand such an attitude. You’re even suggesting that the friend acted in some slightly unacceptable way in order to help the beseeching OP. [Speaking of, we’ve no idea what wheedling and emotional blackmail went on which could have induced this friend to borrow in order to lend. It’d take quite some pressure to get that effect]

I think she is obviously relying on the money to pay her own bills, hence using the card. I do think she’s gone you a massive favour but ondd we that she can’t really afford. I think you should cancel the card and get on top of the payments. You need to budget better so you havd wiggle room not just for this but for unexpected expenses.

Say nothing to a friend using your card details to pay for something you had no clue about??

Your friend is probably fed up with you not paying her back you need to pay her back asap she did cross the line using your card but you aren't exactly being reasonable either

Payments don't get reverse when the account holder has handed out their banking/card details to a third party

Unless you're paying a retailer over the phone (when you'll need to give your three digit security code), the retailer doesn't actually get to see your security code - it's going directly through the relevant payment system.

And, yes, sharing security details outside this context is against banking rules. Nope, you're not going to get de-banked but in such circumstances the bank is not liable to refund.

????

Why would she have maxed out an overdraft. She said she had £80 left in her account and friend paid her phone bill with it. I agree with you though - very precarious position to be in.

That’s quite a rant isn’t it ? And it’s absolutely not what I said. None of it. You questioned OP’s ability to service the debt and I pointed out that she’s actually ahead with the payments. The problem seems to be that despite OP overpaying at certain times, if she’s a bit late with a payment it causes problems for the friend because she can’t pay her bills - as evidenced by the use of OP’s bank account when the payment didn’t arrive on time.

I’m not for one minute condoning the fact that OP has been late with payments, but the fact is that she is servicing the debt - she’s not behind with the payments.

My only point was that if her friend is relying on OP’s payments for day to day bills, then she clearly couldn’t afford to lend the money in the first place. If the money was from friends’ own savings then she would likely be rebuilding the savings with the payments OP is making - which doesn’t appear to be what’s happening here. It suggests that the friend took out some form of credit in order to make the loan. And that’s all I meant. HTH.

I’m assuming she could not get credit or she would have used it for her shopping instead of borrowing from Dad. I’m not having a go at OP, but suggesting that her finances sound perilous and she may need some help.

Hell no, that's a step WAY too far! regardless of your owing money, SHE has committed fraud - very serious!

The OP is not to be trusted either, she's been late paying her friend back a few times

It doesn't. My virginmedia account is in my name, we pay the bill monthly using a card in my partner's name. We don't share the same surname. In ten years neither of us have had a security check regarding using his for for my account

She is bang out of order and fraudulently using your card. Cancel it as you can bet she will keep trying to use it until the money is paid. Pay her a small amount by another method each month then end the friendship.

NotThisShitAgain121

You've resurrected a Zombie.......