Thread 50 - Covid GCSE Cohort - New Year of Adulting

[OrangeSpicedBun]

2024 here we are... our young people are still getting used to adulting and we're still doing that adulting thing ...it's tough !

This is a support thread for our young adults post GCSEs 2020, regardless of their educational setting, and their results ( or life updates for those who went into work or have had results earlier). It is respectfully requested that all are supportive and helpful to each other. If you want to start a debate, e.g state vs private, uni vs employment please don't within this thread.

Some of us have been here since first thread back in yr10, some will be new. Everyone has been friendly and helpful in the past. Everyone is welcome. It is hoped this will continue. We were previously on the secondary board and then further education, now we shall be here in 'Parents of Adult Children' gulp

Our DS/DD may continue down various pathways ( employment, apprenticeships, higher ed). Experience is that everyone is welcomed wherever, whatever their child is doing we have some in work, gap years , apprenticeships etc too. Lots of contributors with different experiences and always sympathy and advice to be had.
Previous thread
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/parents_of_adult_children/4922401-thread-49-covid-gcse-cohort-the-nights-are-drawing-in?page=10

So I managed to just check his location 3 times, but the third time he hadn’t moved since the 2nd time and he was on a residential road so I called him. Apparently the clutch was slipping 😬 but they happened to run into a group of bikers who’ve fixed it for him! Aagh!

Oh dear @craggyrat 😬

@AnneOfCleavage I wish DS had someone like your DD in his flat. The merry group of 8 from yr1 has split into 2 groups and they barely acknowledge each other anymore.

Craggy and others in the estrangement boat sorry to find you here but we can all support each other while here with kind words, thanks to everyone and the sympathetic words.

I was just about to push the post button when I saw your 2nd message about DS's 'internship'. Rats! is he sure? i can't imagine why someone will advertise a scam internship, did he interview for it or do assessments?

@ealingwestmum Wishing your DD lots of luck for March, fingers crossed for her.

@crazycrofter Oh my God! I wouldn't be able to sleep if DS got on a bike. Wishing him safe journey to and fro and always. Best not to look at the tracker!

@Shimy it's an American charity allegedly but unpaid and they are expected to fund raise from friends and family so doesn't sound good. I've looked at reviews now and they are poor. He's a bit gutted.

Thank you Shimy

is it just me or are we all waiting to hear your boy has returned home safely Crazy? 😱

I nearly got scammed. You know that old classic phishing scam of : mum I've broken my phone I need money for a new one.
Phoned ds1. Spoke to my bank fraud dept. Escaped losing the £1240 they asked for. Then they had the cheek to ask for another 790. I was on the phone to my bank fraud team twice. Can't believe I was so silly to even believe it initially. I even know it's a classic scam!

Gosh motorbikes really freak me out. Growing up in a wildly dysfunctional impoverished immigrant household, I used to wish for the normal family everyone else seemed to have. Now I’m not sure anyone has it!

How you going piccolo. And shimy?
And zebra and estrangements.
Take care of that lovely dd AnneOfC. Well done craggy ds.

He got back @ealingwestmum ! And then promptly went out again for a ride with friends ! I’ll never be able to fully relax again 😱🤣

I rode a motorbike (well, four different ones) for a large chunk of my life! Toured bits of the US and Canada, and most of Britain and Ireland, either on my own or with friends, and commuted to work. Incredible experiences, but I wouldn't want to become a "Born Again Biker" (the powered equivalent of a MAMIL).

@craggyrat I thought unpaid internships were banned? There are so many paid internships advertised, they're competitive but your lad has got drive. What type of internship is he looking for and what's his subject? I'm always getting emails from Bright Network about internships. At least that way you know they are credible and paid.

@Oblomov23 That was a narrow escape. I got scammed online shopping. I saw a Clarks sale and purchased 3 pairs of shoes totalling £58, i pressed the payment button and 5mins later found out it was a fake website. I now always check out the URL properly to make sure its the original site.

Had a slight setback last week. Pulled a muscle in my stomach last week and by Tuesday everything was throbbing. Pain got so bad and i thought i had an obstruction again. Thankfully I had a heat pack at home and slapped it on and its calmed down.

@Zebracat ooh! I knew a few people who had the perfect family. Mum and dad together forever, lots of love and attention for the kids. Doting older siblings, sweet last born. No want of money, all have brains so smashed all their exams and went to high flying unis - Law, Medicine etc then married men/women who continued to spoil them exactly the same way their father's did . Happy for them really, there's too much sadness in this world.

@PhotoDad Part of my fear bikes is that motorbike accidents are so much more dangerous than car ones.

Just to add, yesterday DS was caught on the bus to campus and the bus had an accident. Somehow the driver lost control on the motorway and started swerving wildly left to right. DS said everyone including the driver was screaming, oncoming cars swerved dangerous to avoid the bus . I was terrified when he messaged us. I asked him what he was doing he said he was gripping a rail in the bus but screaming too. Finally the bus came to sudden stop right in the middle of the motorway and everyone got down. No one was hurt but the bus windows were all completely shattered.

@Shimy glad the hear pack has calmed things down. Gosh what an awful shock for your DS (and you) re the bus. That sounds very scary.

I think for the internship he just applied for so many he has lost track as to what they all were as the unpaid element should have been an alarm bell as I think they have to be minimum wage. He is doing history which isn't an easy subject when it comes to internships. He has applied for consulting and finance and HR type ones I think. Some finance too. He has got quite a long way with some of them but not over the line. He really fancied security services or civil service but they were for specific demographic so he was rejected straightaway. I think he would take anything at this point. He can work at home over the summer but he wants more than that now sadly!!

Sorry to hear of scary bus.

I do feel really stupid re yesterday's phone scam. At the end I was teasing scammer asking silly questions from childhood that only ds1 would know, ie what is your special name for Band Aid - 'Do they know it's Christmas' song. But I feel such a plonker that I even let it get that far, that I had to even phone the bank. What a twat.

@Oblomov24 I was commenting recently on some counter fraud stuff, one of the lines started ‘scammers aren’t stupid, but …’ My response was ‘why would anyone think that - scammers are, in their way, incredibly clever’ and your experience just proves that. They’re not stupid, and neither is anyone who falls (or nearly falls) for them.

They happened to get one of the things that bypasses a load of your defences - only have to look at this thread to see that anything pertaining to our kids is going to switch off a load of ‘is it a scam?’ concerns and switch a whole load of different ones instead.

You lot are so lovely. She's having a relaxing weekend thank you and we off out for a big family lunch soon so she'll catch up with a cousin she's v close to.
@Monkey2001 don't know how you knew but you're so right, yes I too was the sensible friend who mostly always drove to make sure we all got home safely after a night out and who opens our house to all DD's friends as a safe space.

I also wish our lot could all live together as your DC on here all sound amazing.

Scary bus ride indeed @shimy and the scam stories just make me realise how easy we can all fall for them esp where our YP are concerned. I've nearly come a cropper too.

Dh was scammed out of a large amount of money in an international investment fraud years ago. He did due diligence beforehand & it all seemed plausible. It involved a group of very well spoken public school boys. He eventually realised it was fishy when he got worthless paper in return, instead of the overseas banking shares promised & reported it to the police. He agreed to meet one of the so called investment guys in conjunction with the police & they nabbed him. They were prosecuted & he got some of the money back but not all. They had taken life savings from some & had millions stashed away.
Since then he's been very risk averse - not surprisingly 🥲
@Shimy that sounds absolutely terrifying for your ds. I wonder what was the cause for the bus to go so out of control ?

My DH nearly got scammed by people saying they were his credit card fraud department and they'd spotted unusual activity on his account. Made up some transactions that obviously weren't his. They had info that made it sound real though. Said they were stopping his card but gave him a code for a special Apple Pay account he could use instead until his new card arrived.....

DH is not part of the 21st century and didn't really know what Apple pay is. Doesn't do phone banking etc so couldn't immediately check his account etc When he told me saying how fab it all was I pointed out that he didn't have an IPhone and no credit card company would use that anyway!! Luckily he didn't lose any money and reported it, cancelled his card etc

But DH is an intelligent being who has spent his whole working life in banking and financial organisations and works in the Governance side of things. He was convinced he would never be caught out. These scammers are really clever.

I think at the core of scamming is one lesson that if it's sounds too good to be true, it probably isn't e.g me thinking I'd grabbed a bargain of 3 pairs of shoes from 'Clarks' for £58, but we tend to ignore it or if it sounds illogical e.g the credit card company offering a special Apple pay code to use in the interim. We just need to have our spidey senses on all the time.

...and whilst we're on it, i still don't understand how Apple pay works , my phone keeps saying I need to set it up.

@Cantonet International 'investment' fraud is another level. Glad your DH got some of his money back.
DS has no idea what happened with the bus driver or why he lost control, he seemed to remember hearing a bang against the bus, and then all hell let loose. He was as hysterical as the passengers he was carrying. DS couldn't get off the bus fast enough so didnt stick around to find out what caused it all.

@AnneOfCleavage Enjoy your family lunch, nothing like a nice family meal together on a Sunday. I just asked DS1 if he'd like to go to Toby Carvery for Sunday lunch and got a, 'No, thanks, I don't wanna go out'.

Sorry to hear about all the scams. I was caught out recently buying clothes in a sale from what I thought was the Mountain Warehouse website - but it wasn’t. Thankfully I only spent £25.

Ds admitted this morning that he came off his bike yesterday, skidding on some gravel, and has hurt his wrist - he’s worried it’s broken, but I don’t think so. I’m actually kind of pleased he’s had a scare early on, hopefully it will make him more cautious. I’m also relieved it’s his right wrist as he’s left handed!

The bus incident sounds really scary @shimy 😱

@shimy The bus sounds terrifying! Sorry to hear about scams (and about @crazycrofter DS' tumble).

Had a panicked start to the morning when DW realised that she was booked on the 8.55 not the 9.25 train. Rushed out of the house with shaving foam still on my face like a sitcom episode, and got her to the station with one (1) minute to spare. She is meeting DD in London to visit the British Library's "Fantasy Literature" exhibition together and treat her to a meal.

@crazycrofter I missed that your DS fell off his bike. Thank God he's alright. If he's really worried he should just pop into A&E they'll X-ray it, better to be safe.

@PhotoDad Hope they have a lovely day at the museum, the literature exhibition sounds very interesting.

I’m glad he told you Crazy, definitely get it checked out if it feels beyond sprain.

Shimy, what a lucky escape from that bus ride!

We are in the horrible throes of what might happen with possible identity fraud, if docs have ended up in wrong hands. After my feeling very smug that 4 years of pain applying for DD’s Irish foreign birth citizenship was successful, her end to end passport application sent via registered RM post that included original birth certificate, Irish one just issued and NI number letter from UK Govt, all sent 8 Jan has been finally been declared ‘lost’. Was received by Dublin 9th Jan but due to supposed taxes due (that the sender is not notified of, even though passport apps are exempt), it was sat there with a tracking number until…it wasn’t. Neither in Dublin nor in UK, they cannot find because it wasn’t given a container number to return on.

So DD now has an online passport app in progress with no physical docs to complete the issuance. I have to report the missing docs to Home Office and Police and reapply for replacements, but knowing the system, it’ll reject if I declare these docs missing (I have no faith they’ll get this right), and I cannot sleep knowing 3 pieces of identity are out there somewhere, and she’ll have future financial applications subject to a ‘marker’ on her to clarify if she’s a bonafide applicant of anything. It’s shit. And keeping me up most of each night after daily lack of resolution.

@ealingwestmum that does sound worrying. I really hope you get it sorted - stress you could v easily do without.

@crazycrofter - glad your DS told you re the wrist. Wrist injuries can be difficult to spot on xray. I hurt mine a few years ago and had to go back a couple of times to A &E at their request before they were happy it wasn't broken. The breaks can take a while to show up. I'd get it checked out if you can. Do you have a minor injuries near you?

@PhotoDad - close shave! Exhibition sounds really interesting.

You were right @craggyrat , we spent 6 hours in minor injuries only for him to have it put in a cast as they’re not sure if there’s a fracture. Someone in orthopaedics will review the X-ray and get back to us in a few days.

He’s now adjusting to the reality that he might not be riding his bike for several weeks and he can’t train his right side at the gym either - disaster! At least he’s left handed so he can still do school work!

Oh no @crazycrofter he could end up very lopsided if he keeps training the left side! Wonder if it will put him off the motorbike!