Teen stealing online

[TrickyTeens75]

My 17 year old son is stealing.

He is ordering items online, informing the company that they have not arrived and getting a refund while also keeping the items. He is using different names, and also our neighbours address sometimes.

He is highly secretive with his phone which made me suspicious (along with the expensive items, and gas-lighting arguments in return to my queries). He recently changed passwords on his phone and laptop to prevent anyone else accessing.

What do I do? I confronted him after the first lot and before I realised what he was doing – at that point I thought it was just excessive spending - he refused to return anything and said he was entitled to spend his money on whatever he likes (yes true, but hard to swallow when he can easily see how hard I work to provide them with nice-yet-not-designer / high end items they need, gave him a good chunk of cash at Christmas towards a laptop etc).

He has a part-time job, doesn’t want for anything, this is just for kicks.

I am so upset that he is doing this, and also need to get the approach right as he will just deflect and deny.

I think for the part orders I would get in touch with the company concerned, tell them truthfully what has been going on, return anything unused and pay them for the items he has used.

Well done for the way you are addressing this. Its important to not only impress upon him that what he is doing is wrong and could land him in serious legal trouble, but to demonstrate that it needs to be put right and how to do so.

I run an e-commerce company. 99% of parcels are tracked / scanned on delivery (even standard Royal Mail items have a 3D barcode now). We can't prove that it's actually been received even if it is scanned though so if a customer says they've not had it, we believe them, replace it and log the issue with the carrier. If the carrier gets lots of similar reports for the same address, they'll likely take it further, involving the police if necessary.
Given that there aren't that many different courier companies, once the same one has had a problem reported more than once, I'd say he's treading on thin ice and will get caught out.

@ffscovid that's useful to know. I'll point it out to him too. It seems so anonymous yet really isnt. Have you any advice on returning these part orders? Would calling you and explaining be the way forward as a previous poster suggested?

Oh Tricky, well done. You have handled this beautifully if you've got him thinking so quickly. Seriously, hats off.

I also run an e commerce business, and we do have to accept a certain level of lost or missing items, and offer customer refunds. If we have reason to believe that the customer has behaved dishonestly we simply block them. It sounds as though you have dealt with this, and the companies concerned have probably already claimed on the carrier for lost items. Rather than expose him further I would give the items to charity, if applicable, assuming that he has learnt his lesson. You could also oblige him to do some kind of community payback equivalent by volunteering for something.

[quote TrickyTeens75]@ffscovid that's useful to know. I'll point it out to him too. It seems so anonymous yet really isnt. Have you any advice on returning these part orders? Would calling you and explaining be the way forward as a previous poster suggested?[/quote]
As a business, you can't cancel a refund once it's been made. But he could offer to make the payment again by card or bank transfer.

@Justilou1

Kids are so arrogant aren’t they? Do you pay his phone bill? Take his phone. Did you buy the laptop? Take that too. Lock it in the boot of your car or leave it with a friend. It won’t stop him, but he will know you’re serious. Depending on how close to the legal age of responsibility he is (I’m in Aus, it’s different here, and for different crimes too.) I would consider speaking to a friendly police officer to maybe come and” have a chat”. It is actually fair to say (unfair in reality, though…) that people who are imprisoned for fraud frequently get longer sentences than those imprisoned for violent crimes or rape.

A police officer will be duty bound to record and investigate any offences disclosed to them. They might have a friendly chat about some non criminal offence matters but not fraud.