I’ve been accused of stealing £20

[letmeletgo]

I babysat for a family member at the weekend. One of the kids had to go to an extracurricular and there was £100 on the side for tickets to a show - I was asked to hand it over to the child’s lift.

I did, went about my day. The tickets weren’t available for purchase and I was handed back the cash. I put it back on the side for said family member and that was the end of it.

It’s now come about that £20 of the cash is missing. I’ve received a message to ask if I know anything about it because they think it’s quite suspicious that I got a takeaway while babysitting and now £20 is missing. I paid for the takeaway by card and showed them that, it seems to have quieted them down a little but it’s really annoyed me. I’m not a thief. Never have been, never would be.

AIBU to say if they have that little trust in me, I’ll not babysit again?

It also doesn't make sense since, for the sake of 20 pounds, she would have basically been "earning" less than minimum wage given she was babysitting for free for presumably several hours.

I agree! The children were your responsibility, not the money!

Where in any of the OP's posts has she indicated that she and her family member can't stand each other?

Their communication skills could do with brushing up, to say the least. As many others have said, that's the last session of free babysitting I'd be doing for them.

I wouldn’t even speak to them again until they apologised for falsely accusing.

Are you joking?

No. I read all the OP's posts after yours. Where does she say this or even suggest this?

I wouldn't have counted it before, during or after either. But if you are babysitting for free I'd expect some food thrown in tbh. I always tell people to help themselves to food/drink and get some bits in. But I'd also have put the cash in a sealed envelope if it was me too- easy for loose notes to drop in a gust/breeze of a door shutting etc.

The entire tone and thrust of the thread reads like two family members with quite a history. A negative one at that.

It really doesn’t. It sounds like the OP has been taken by surprise by a suggestion she took £20 and is upset because she’s been doing them favours. I wouldn’t leave my small children for 13 hours with someone I had “quite a history” with, would you? Nor would I agree to look after them if I didn’t like them. I concede there’s every chance the OP has been a bit of a doormat, and the family member thoughtless and cheeky, but I am not reading a history of previous animosity from what she’s said so far in her posts, which is very little. Happy to concede to you being correct if the OP confirms your suspicions in future posts.

Please please tell the accuser how you feel about this! You’ll regret not doing so and they need to hear it! You can do so without being rude.

As someone else has said already, worth checking first what they actually meant. Just in case they meant “trying to figure out if the other parent accidentally short changed me or did you use it? Totally fine if you did.” and just worded it all wrong.

Let us know what happens.

In fairness, from the way she talks I also get the impression OP doesn't particularly like the family member, could be wrong but there is just something off about the way she talks about them/the arrangement, and it seems unclear why she even does it.

At the end off the day money has gone missing while OP was there, it would seem the logical thing to ask OP if she had used any for food before they look at any other option of where it has gone.

I’ve received a message to ask if I know anything about it because they think it’s quite suspicious that I got a takeaway while babysitting.

They haven't said it is suspicious or accused OP of anything

To me it’s an accusation.

Verifying that she hasn't used any of it is not accusing her of stealing.

Food was left for the kids, which I had to cook.

That would be fairly normal arrangement for babysitting, it infers that she is left no food herself and she begrudges cooking for the kids.

At the end of the day she is a nearly 30 year old woman, why would she even be babysitting for someone who doesn't pay her or provide food.. there is something off about this whole thing.

At the end of the day she is a nearly 30 year old woman, why would she even be babysitting for someone who doesn't pay her or provide food.. there is something off about this whole thing.

When I was nearly 30, I agreed to babysit for a colleague as a favour. She couldn't get her usual babysitter so asked if I'd be prepared to do it.

I was single, no ties of my own and lived in the same area as her. We weren't pals, but had a good working relationship.

No money exchanged hands. I did it to be helpful.

A family friend babysat for me when my eldest was really small. She had older kids and she did it because she knew how hard it was to get time to yourself with young ones, and how much she’d appreciated when someone did it for her. She also did it for free because young parents don’t always have loads of money after all the costs of new arrivals. Some people are just kind!

I wouldn't be babysitting for them again. Why if they are well off did they not pay you to babysit?

Yeah, that's why OP babysits for them until the early hours, without any payment in return 🙄

@Monty36 You do come across quite insufferable in this post I’m afraid. Like a ‘I’m always right’ boomer. Shudder

I really don’t understand the fixation with you counting the money or not. Tbh even if you had taken £20, they still would have had an embarrassingly inexpensive days childcare.

It’s interesting that they think you’re the kind of person who would steal money from them, but are happy to leave their kids in your charge, isn’t it?

it must feel really frustrating and upsetting for you that they made the accusation and that you have no way of defending yourself, but you know you didn’t take it, and if they want to believe you’ve stolen money, well presumably they won’t be calling on your unpaid childcare services in the future. And if they do, the only actual way to protect yourself from further accusations is to say no

I think there's two issues here.

The text is not really accusing you of stealing. They're trying to ascertain where the £20 is and maybe wouldn't have blamed you for using it for takeaway.

You've taken the message in the worst possible way.

But that's because the other issue is that they've taken advantage of you, not even feeding you when you have their young DC for 12 hours. So you're probably (understandably) feeling slightly resentful and spiky.

agreed

I wouldn’t counted it either OP, I don’t know why so many posts are banging on about that since you can’t go back in time and do so.

I do think you’ve been treated very poorly by the parents here, they should have insisted you use some of that money for a food delivery.

If it was £10 notes then the person leaving it to be handed over was a fool for not putting it in an envelope or putting a clip or elastic band on it. Accident waiting to happen. Would have been wise for OP to check it was all there when handing it over, you cant count it back in in front of the person giving it to you!

Op i’m about 10 years older than you and I wouldn’t have counted it either. It was not payment for me or to someone from me, so like you, I would have felt i had no business in counting it.

They are outrageous not to at least ensure you had food for yourself, even if a close family member.

I can see why op took offence. Rather than specifically asking if she used the money for food, they could have asked ‘do you happen to know what happened to £20 that’s missing?’

You can iff they are not paying you for 13 hours of babysitting or leaving money for a takeaway 😉 hopefully they were really grateful verbally at least.

TBH personally I wouldn’t have counted it either, even though I mentioned possibly checking the amount with the ops family before they left, but if the op didn’t have cash on her it would have been really embarrassing if the money was short when she handed it over to the trip friend if she then didn’t have any notes of her own to supplement. My sister is organised and I am a bit scatty so she has checked money I have given her before 😂 not because she thinks I am trying to rip her off but she is organised and not at home to cockups!

my comment about checking with the family was more in response to the person who thought she should have been acting like a bank teller checking at every stage including from the friend doing the favour which I felt was unreasonable.