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…

You are both wrong and the whole situation is a mess

You have let her down by paying late on occasions. Just because you have chosen to overpay sometimes doesn't mean she should be paid late next time.

You not paying her made her not be able to pay a bill. The fact you were paid late by your ex and haven't worked this week is not her problem

She is massively wrong for using your card. I would cancel that card and never let her be in the situation where she can do that again

You both sound like you are struggling financially and doing crappy things as a knock on because of that

Agree. I think people are confusing fraud compensation with unauthorised use. OP’s friend has used OP’s card without her permission - the fact that she had the details or how she obtained them is irrelevant.

Which, re-reading the OP, would seem to be what the friend had.

Are you late in paying her back?

I think it's really quite bad of her to just use your credit card details but it must also be frustrating if you owe her money.

Please tell me you didn’t buy ‘stock’ for one of these MLM companies

This. I’ve seen similar attitudes on MN and l really don’t understand the mindset. OP’s child lives with her and her ex’s payments are part of the household income which supports the child. Do people really expect CM payments to be kept separate and every penny accounted for ?

Get a new card from your bank. This will have different card details and your old card (and associated historical payments which have been set up) will be void

Set up a standing order to repay your friend £100 a month with an end date

If you report her she will probably demand that you pay back the outstanding amount in full, immediately, as there doesn't seem to be a written agreement. She shouldn't have loaned you the money really. I don't think one should loan money they wouldn't be happy to write off. She's been a good friend. I would cancel the card and get a new one, and make a serious plan to pay her back immediately. Perhaps your parent's can help you settle the loan? I dont think you can be preachy given that you owe her a lot of money.

OP is £100 ahead of the loan repayments (£700 repaid in six months). I agree that she should be paying on time if there is a specific payment date agreed, but l don’t think friend has any reason to think OP won’t repay the loan.

This. I would also be making sure not to divulge new card details under any circumstances. Am l the only one who thinks it’s quite disturbing that OP’s friend felt entitled to access her bank account to take the money herself ? I think l would be paying off the loan ASAP and rethinking a friendship with someone who thought this was an acceptable thing to do - especially since OP had messaged to explain the circumstances and that payment would be made the following day. It all sounds haphazard and a bit financially incontinent on both sides.

I just can’t get past booking a holiday when you are so broke you have to borrow money off a friend and then can’t feed your family.

A civil case as OP owes money and has no contractual way of paying- word against word. Police wouldn't be interested and SCC wouldn't take it on as a civil case. If OP "won" the case anyway, what would she "win"? She would just have to pay the "winnings" to her friend, who she owed the money to to start with.

OP if this is genuine you urgently need financial help, perhaps from Step Change. A single parent who has apparently maxed out her credit card and overdraft and is self employed should not be borrowing from friends to set up a new business and should not be booking a holiday! Your friend was wrong but you can easily avoid it happening again by cancelling the card.

Is your business making no money? Lots wrong here. There should have been a more reliable contingency for repayment then relying on payments from your ex to clear this debt. She's obviously retained your card details to do exactly this sort of thing with, there's no other reason she would need to keep a record of your card details. Either way using those details without your knowledge is fraud and what you should be doing is reporting it and getting the card company to take the money back and cancelling the card. But being you owe her a lot of money it complicates things. There seems to be a lack of boundaries on her part and a lack of a clear plan for repayment on yours. What sort of business are you running that can't find £100 a month? And why can't she afford her phone bill? if she's got £2000 to loan you did she clear herself out by lending it to you?

If you’re having to wait each month for your ex to pay you money before you can pay your friend £100 back then you maybe need to re think your business!! Even after a couple of weeks off work you should still have £100 in a business account to pay back your loan.

Your ‘ friend’s’ behaviour is highly antagonistic. She clearly regrets making the loan, and it sounds like she couldn’t actually afford it, and she now resents you.
Her taking the money by using your card tells you this.
I think you should pay her back the entire sum as quickly as you can - could you get a credit card or formal loan? Borrow from your Dad? Sell possessions?
Obviously you’ll have to cancel the card, and sadly, accept that the friendship is over.
Sorry if I’ve missed this, but did she offer to lend the money in the first place, or was it you persuading her? It’s a lot of money to borrow from a friend, and you should never have accepted it.

But OP, you can't be a 'a day or two late' when repaying money. She might have a direct debit or bill to pay that's due, or perhaps she needs to buy food for her own family.

It was wrong of her to use your card, and she was follish to lend you money she couldn't afford to lose, but I think you need better financial planning. Your company has been running for 6 months, yet you have zero safety net or clear plan of how to repay debts (it's not ideal to be using child maintenance). You need a paid job until your business gets off the ground. And you need a business plan.

I don't agree. It's relevant because she wouldn't even have been able to do it if she hadn't kept the details and by doing this she's proven that she had dodgy intentions for keeping those details and always planned to use them if she needed to.

l mentioned the same thing upthread a bit. It seems the friend knew the payment was coming but still accessed OP’s account to pay a bill, so had OP’s card not been declined she wouldn’t have been aware of it and would have paid twice.

There’s fault on both sides here - OP clearly agreed to pay on a certain date each month and has admitted she’s been late a couple of times, but has also overpaid a couple of times, and by the figures in the OP, she’s currently ahead of schedule by £100. Unless her friend is relying on OP’s payments to pay her own commitments, she has nothing to complain about because OP is paid up to date. If she needs OP’s payments to make ends meet the she really couldn’t afford to lend the money at all.

Perhaps the friend paid her bill over the phone or online through the provider's website but would she not have also needed the three digit security code from the back of the card?

She shouldn't have used your card even if you owed her money, that is fraud. However, it sounds very much like you are both living hand to mouth and overspending. She couldn't pay her phone bill. You booked a holiday together a few months ago despite your financial position being self employed in debt and no back up savings for times when you are unable to work.

It's great that your Dad was able to bail you out this time but you should take this as a wake up call to have a better plan.

You really need to have a savings buffer, which I know is hard when you are on a low income but it's more essential than a holiday on a credit card. Others have suggested taking on some additional work which I think is sensible. Even if it's doing ironing for people in the evenings when your dd is in bed so that you can still run your business in the day.

If her friend took her to "small claims court" she'd have a legal judgement against her business, which would potentially cause more issues in the future.

Both friend and OP end up with some sort of legal stuff on their records,, which wouldn't be ideal.

Yes I was going to ask about this ‘business’