20yo DD was home alone- 2 Proovia delivery came into house and stood over her until she transferred £60 into their own bank account- raging at response

[fanothetan]

Delivery came significantly earlier than agreed, and these men were angry that I had not answered the phone. I work in CAMHS and never take my phone into clinics- . beside the point anyway, I had no reason to think I needed to.
DD knew nothing about the delivery so totally blindsided by how they were behaving. From their demeanour she assumed I had messed up. They brought the item upstairs (I’m third floor) came into the hall and demanded £60 because they had been paid to deliver to the first floor. True, but would not have been an issue if the delivery has arrived at the agreed time. They stood over her while she transferred it on her phone. Understandably she felt scared and did not argue with them, which was the right thing to do.
The response feels like a parody. I phoned and repeatedly ‘corrected’ with variations on ‘your adult daughter’ ‘yes, but she is an adult’. The initial reply to an email was a bald ‘the transaction was cancelled by you’. This was untrue and anyway are either of these responses the point?
After providing evidence and much to-ing and fro-ing there’s no dispute this happened and they say the driver no longe works for them. Having said they would refund the money, they are now saying they won’t, and asking why it’s taken so long to request a refund. Now it’s only £60 and hones, I honestly could not care less, but it speaks volumes and makes me extremely skeptical that any action was taken by them to address this.
The question is can I do anything? I have one of their full names from the bank transfer and their phone number from the repeated phone calls. Taking it to the police seems trivial if it’s about £60 but it’s not, it’s about grown men intimidating a 20 year old girl in her own home. It’s about an employer who clearly give no fucks at all about this and is happy to prevaricate and hand out platitudes rather than respond appropriately.

AIBU to not just suck it up and accept this is how things are? Or should I post the entire email thread which would be hilarious were it not so totally enraging? If there is a constructive way to get this addressed I might be spared an ulcer.

She didn’t know she had to pay 60…

The reading comprehension challenges are strong on this thread. I have only skimmed it and still feel like shouting It’s a TABLE! she didn’t KNOW she had to pay until they were inside!! She took the delivery because it was furniture for her mum!! The delivery didn’t come at the time arranged!!

and surely all these posters saying my omniscient omnipotent daughter wouldn’t have accepted it… in real life if they had bought a table, and their dd knew mum had bought a table, which she probably did as tables arent books or socks and you don’t usually have 10 of them, then delivery men arrived with the table you had bought and your dd knew you were expecting, she’d say oh great thanks, bring it in! Not OI YOU! That table is one my mum ordered and addressed to her but she’s not here, off you fuck with it! No you can’t bring it in the door! What’s that you’ll take it back to the depot as rejected delivery and mum will be lucky to get it back in a month or ever? That’s totally fine she probably doesn’t even want it, just bought it for shits and giggles. Now put it back in the van and leave.

But DD didn't know it was expected because OP didn't bother to give her a heads up

Editied to tag @Kibble19 as well

I am not the one being ridiculous about the age because my point is that the OPs daughter's age has no bearing on what the issue is - which is the unprofessional behaviour of the delivery drivers in acting outside of their contract and intimidating a young woman who was not their customer.

Let's not be so patronising, ridiculous and insulting in pretending they are children and their brain are not developed.

I am not pretending they are children, in fact, I quite clearly said that the OP's daughter was "not a child" but it is not patronising to point out that a 20 year old will not have the same reactions to a situation as someone aged 25 and over. It is medical fact that adolescents brains are not fully developed until they are 25. The prefrontal cortex is the last part of the brain to fully develop and that is the part that is responsible for decision making and planning, and therefore reactions in the situation outlined by the OP.

There is increasing recognition that 18-25 year olds are a distinct group that need specific approaches in different spheres of life. The minimum wage, student finance, the criminal justice system, SEND provision and support for care leavers all treat under 25's (under 21 for minimum wage) differently to those who are 25 and over!

As for what 20 years olds can do - yes, of course they can be independent - as I said, I owned my own house by then and was working in a professional environment while attending uni, but the majority of 20 year olds still live at home with their parents and many are still in education, apprenticeships, training or entry level roles.

Even owning my own house at that age, having been well prepared by my parents for independence, there were still unexpected situations that came up where I needed their advice and support - there is no way that parents can prepare their children for every single unexpected and unanticipated eventuality.

Not having prepared her daughter for this particular eventuality is not some failing on the OPs part. Nor does it excuse in any way the behaviour of the delivery drivers which, as you yourself acknowledged

The op is very clear her daughter was not expecting the delivery, with good reason as it had been scheduled for a different time, so no need to mention it to her daughter. That doesn’t at all mean her daughter doesn’t realise her mum is buying a table. It is a 2 person job to carry this table, so it’s decent sized. Unless you live in a palace and do not ever have casual chats with your mum who also lives there, you tend to be aware if there is no breakfast /family meals table or formal dining table or if you need a new one or if your mum is making a big purchase like that. Most houses only have two dining tables at most.

@Kibble19 - The expectations on under 25s is so incredibly low because of that shite attitude that they need mummy or daddy to hold their hands. They can’t be expected to do too much - like pay a bill, go to the doctors themselves, to sign a contract with a company for a service. They can’t cook, don’t understand how to manage their time, can’t handle change, don’t know how to change a lightbulb, need their clothes ironed.

It’s ludicrous. What do they think happens? You hit that magical 25th year and suddenly function as an adult?

No one has said that an under 25 can't do or shouldn't be expected to do any of those things - talk about a straw man!

The OP is not complaining to the company because they asked her 20 year old daughter to iron some clothes or change a bloody lightbulb FGS!

She is complaining that two male delivery drivers delivered the parcel outside of the agreed scope of the contract and then forced her daughter who was not the contracted customer to do a bank transfer while standing over her and that her daughter was understandably intimidated.

It is in no way related to any of your examples.

And no, it's not magic that in the 25th year, young people are better equipped to function as adults - its basic biology that has been well understood for over 20 years!

Do you think that's what I wrote? Did you read it, or is that how you interpreted it?

You can be sarcastic all you want but OP didn't make DD aware of the delivery so DD wasn't expecting it

She also says DD swans in and out, she may well not have known Mummy had ordered a new table

It is entirely possible not to know a new table had been ordered. We don't even know whether it was a dining table or a side table or coffee table... OP just said table

(Also you making snarky comments about a Palace and then thinking 2 dining tables is normal 🤣)

for context. dd started uni at 17 and has lived away from home since apart from holidays. She’s home intermittently for graduate interviews at the moment, but was living independently younger than most of her peers.

Definitely not low expectations in terms of autonomy.

@BriefEncountersOfTheThirdKind in whose universe does finishing up a degree while also doing graduate interviews equate to ‘swanning in and out’? Maybe you can offer some context about your own career to help me to understand why this seems so trivial to you? Genuinely interested, it must be awesome.

Your use of ‘mummy’ is weird- there’s some kind of odd, creepy projection happening with here. Can you clarify exactly what you are trying to imply here? it’s far from clear. Very odd behaviour to accuse others of making you all sad then to make these type of comments about my daughter. Not very well thought through at all in terms of credibility. It might be helpful for you take a bit of time to reflect on where these feelings come from.

And I have never referred to DD as a child here. I honestly don’t knowAgain some very strange assumption that has been made.

@ThatKeenShaker I have never described her as a child

I don't know why the OP and her daughter are getting a hard time here.

There's a knock at the door. DD answers door and finds two delivery men, with a delivery for her mum. She tells them to bring it up. They do. She is then alone inside the house with two men, one of whom says that she now owes them £60 and must pay straight away.

Of course that is intimidating, and not okay!

i dont think she should be allowed home alone. no offense

So two delivery men behave badly, but the real problem is actually the young woman who was on the receiving end of their behaviour. Really?

You're the one making strange assumptions but okay

She treats the house like a hotel

You're own words, OP, which is where I got "swanning in and out" from

Complain to the retailer.

Complain to the delivery company - not via customer service but find the UK based CEO and contact them.

Threaten to tell the media unless they compensate you. It is utterly disgusting

@BriefEncountersOfTheThirdKind seriously- as a response, that doesn’t wash. Why are you unable to answer anything that I have asked? These are perfectly logical questions that will give some insight into why you are saying what you are saying.

At the moment none of this makes sense, it just sounds deranged. And to save you the trouble of posting let’s take ‘no you sound deranged’ as assumed to save you the trouble of posting.

@BriefEncountersOfTheThirdKind Really? is this where we are? you have actually taken the time to mine my old posts and this is the best you can come up with? What possible relevance does this have? If this is meant to be a smoking gun because it’s a pretty poor one.I’m actually pretty chuffed I’ve not said worse, I certainly have IRL. Often.

It would be a rare parent of a young adult who has not said this at some point. And FYI….I have 2 daughters, both away at university

I expect someone has already called you out for your ridiculous comment, but I’m going to do it too. Most people think of the panic response as fight or flight, but there’s actually four options: fight, flight, freeze or fawn. The other three are fairly self explanatory, fawn is where you placate the threat in the hope that it doesn’t hurt you too much or goes away. One of the best publicised examples being the rape vicim who goes along with it. OP’s daughter was intimidated and panicked. As to why she didn’t do whatever you being so clever and rational and calm under pressure would have done, it is because the panic response comes from the amygdala (cave man survival part of the brain), which send signals that actually block the frontal cortex (rational common sense bit of the brain) and prevent it from controlling things. Basically the survival instinct kicks in and your capacity for rational thought goes out the window. OP’s daughter felt intimidated and scared and she went into panic mode, so she did what she had to do to placate the threat, ie gave into their demands so that they would leave her alone.

@99bottlesofkombucha I salute your artistry! This is EXACTLY what happened. 😂 She also shouted ‘don’t let the door hit your arse on way out!’ down the street as they departed.

So she's no longer a competent adult who could have handled this better, she's a stroppy immature one who's lying to make Mom feel bad and you know all this because? I mean Op might not even have a 20 year old daughter. She might have a 30 year old son but she's exaggerating for sympathy. Who even knows if it's even a table. Maybe it was a 5 piece suite and a king size bed and she's downplaying the size. What is even the point of commenting if your base assumption is that it must be a woman lying, not a man being a dick because men obviously would never do that?

Well that's what I'm asking. You're blaming parental failure on ops daughter not handling this situation properly, this exonerating the mens behaviour because the daughter should have controlled the situation better. So is this just in this situation or is every instance where a man is aggressive to a woman?

You don't think a 20 yo woman should be home alone because the delivery men turned up angry and intimidating? So again, it's the woman's fault for a man's behaviour.

I don't sound deranged but again, you do you