I never ever get a straight answer - Update

[Nancy]

difficult child called me at 7:45 this morning on her way to work to tell me she stopped to get money out of the bank and the receipt said she had $5,000 in her account. I told her that was not true and all she had was her paycheck from last week minus what she has taken out and when I got up I would go online and check it.

So according to her statement online she has $96 minus the $20 she said she took out. She withdrew $240 on Tuesday and another $180 Thursday and she has none left. She claims she took out the $240 for rent and forgot to give it to her roommate and sent it so she had to take out $180 Thursday.?????????/ She has no answer for what she spent it on. And she owes $50 on this Care Credit Card that she got to pay for her cats shots and that is due next week.

So this leaves $79 to last her til next Friday for food and gas and she still hasn't paid her credit card.

And what's up with this receipt showing she has $5,000? Oh and another thing, she said she lost her ATM card the other day again (she lost it last week too) and had to get a new one.

I have no idea what the true story is and I never get a straight answer to anything I ask her.

Nancy

 

[Kathy813]

Nancy, I am trying really hard to put a positive spin on this but having a hard time. Losing an ATM card . . . totally a GFGish thing but not all that worrisome. However, not remembering how she spent $240?? That one is harder.

The $5000 sounds like a bank mistake. Did you ever see that in her account?

The right answer is to let her have to live until next Friday on $79 and pay her credit card late. I guess she can get by on ramen noodles. Personally, I would probably cave and buy her some groceries.

She has been doing so well that I hope there is an some innocent explanation for this. We all know difficult child's are notoriously bad with money.

There must be a full moon. I have texted and called my difficult child to tell her about a job opportunity and she has not responded. Makes me wonder why . . .

~Kathy

 

[compassion]

((( Nancy))) The financial side is something I am constantly dealing with with both my young people. They both are very impulsive, have a lot of adhd traits and it take massive paitence on my part. I try to be realsitc. Both of them would rather "play" than to have to spend money on groceries, morgtage, ultities,etc. I think your daguhter is doing good. I know with my daughter, age 18, I have to giver her so much a day, as soon as she has any money, it is gone. Planning ahead does not exist. My son, age 21 is pretty much like that too. He has had bank fees, etc., I think he really gets distracted, has memory issues etc. I am ultra reapsonible, aa plnner etc. so it can be maddening. He just got a job as a secuity guard that starts next month, yeh! He has light years to go in living in menas. So does daughter. I try to be realsitc and pateint and some days I do better than others. My experince, Compassion

 

[Nancy]

Kathy when I checked her account it did not show any $5,000. Her balance was $96 and it did not show the $20 she took out this monring. I checked all day and it still does not show the $20 withdrawal. So I'm wonderingif she used someone else's ATM card. If the bank made a mistake wouldn't it show online? Here's theother thing. She called me last week to get her checking account number and routing number so she could pay her Care Credit bill online, so she said. I gave it to her but she did not pay the bill. So I'm wondering why she wanted the number and what she did with it.

I have not been looking at her bank account or cell phone calls for weeks now. I have stepped back fromall that. I would not have looked now if she didn't call with this question about the $5,000. I think she thought we gave her $5,000 hahahahahaha. But you're right, she is goign to have to get by with $79 until next payday and be late on her credit card. I am not bailing her out.

Nancy

 

[Kathy813]

Maybe it was the money fairy who randomly deposits $5000 in people's bank accounts. I hope she visits my bank.

Good for you for not bailing her out!!

~Kathy

 

[Signorina]

Yes, you will get a straight answer but likely it will take years. difficult children lie so often that they automatically lie rather than tell the truth. I have a million second guesses to add --- but for now anyway --- I am going to STOP second guessing. And you should too. Yes, there are a millions reasons to do so and nothing about the lost card(s), $5000 balance, "forgetful" spending makes ANY sense. Complete absence of logic. But I think that learning to let go means learning to stop second guessing. Because - IMPE (my new acronym -- In my Painful Experience) the second guessing doesn't provide answers, just more anxiety. So, I am going to leave it as "I call Shenanigans" and I am not going to wonder exactly what those Shenanigans are; cause frankly, I'll never know and it doesn't really matter.

However, I wonder how she was able to lose and replace 2 ATM cards so quickly. Every time ours has been mislaid or lost - it usually takes about a week to get it replaced. Maybe your bank is quicker or maybe the ATM "ate" them and they were returned to her? I know the ATM will eat a card if it gets left in the slot and it's usually returned in a day or two.

Nancy, I hope she figures it out. I don't think the lying is so much a bad sign as it is a bad habit...Know what I mean??

Please don't worry too much. {{hugs}}

 

[susiestar]

Sig, our bank is a local credit union NOT a large national or even statewide bank and we get replacement debit/checking cards on a walk-in basis with no wait to have them mailed. I know because husband recently learned that the numbers on his all wore away and so did the name so they couldn't accept it at the store. A hassle but better than them letting someone else use a card with the name worn off that was stolen, Know what I mean??

So that may be how Nancy's difficult child got a new card. Or, she didnt lose it and wanted help and thought that dear old Mom would give her help if she "lost" her card.

As for the $5,000, I have a much scarier question. I wonder if she didn't get a credit card with that balance. Wanting the checking account number and routing number to pay a bill sounds funny to me as she could use the debit card number over the phone to pay the bill. So I am betting she applied for a credit card. If her acct is in ANY way linked to your name, Nancy, she may have used YOUR credit score to help get it. If not, it is STILL possible to get a limit that high for a kid with NO or even awful credit history. She will have a HUGE yearly fee and interest that is out of sight, but they might let her have a $5000 credit limit and that would show if she checked her balance with the credit card and not her checking card. One company sent Wiz a "temp" card with a balance about that high when he was just 18 and in his first semester of college.

I hope I am wrong. I hope she made it up or there was a bank error or she has a friend's card and didnt' know it. Unless your credit is linked iwth hers, let her deal with the $79 and all the rest. Otherwise she won't learn.

 

[Kathy813]

It must depend on the bank. It takes a week to ten days to get a replacement card from my credit union.

I don't think that she could have had a friend's card and not know it because her pin number wouldn't have worked.

It certainly is puzzling.

 

[Signorina]

I have to second Susie's worry about a credit card or credit line. That's how my difficult child was surviving. Even though the fair credit protection act of 2010 is supposed to prevent the under 21 set from obtaining credit cards - the banks are finding ways around it. By opening a checking and savings account at the local credit union. difficult child was able to obtain a "secured" Visa card (that wasn't really secured because he was overdrawn in his checking account and had only$5 in his savings account) He had a 1000 visa limit plus an additional 500 in overdraft protection on his checking account - both of which he ran up to the limit. Overdraft protection is usually included in the "funds available" balance. But I think you would've seen it when you logged in.

Plus, $5000 seems awfully high - unless they are using your combined balances to set the limit.

 

[Nancy]

Susiestar you are right, our bank gives a replacement ATM card on a walk-in basis. It is not a debit card, just an ATM card, unless she got a debit card without me knowing and I will check that on Monday, but she told me the card is the same red color as her old one and that is an ATM. The debit card is gold. Her account is not tied to ours in any way,except that my name is on her checking account because it's a student checking account with no fees. I can see her account on-line with our accounts but she cannot see ours.

If she used her friend's card she would have to have their pin, you're right. And if she did that why would she call to ask me why there was $5,000 in her account. I asked her to come over tomorrow so I can see the bank receipt. We'll see if she does that. The $20 withdrawal still does not show up.

I don't like the sounds of it at all.

Nancy

 

[susiestar]

Nancy, with her student account tied to yours she very well might have been able to get a credit line or account based on YOUR income. Her account gets no fees because it is tied to yours. That she cannot get $$ out of your account doesn't matter. If she overdraws it they may ask you to pay the $$ or send a credit collection agency to YOU rather than to her if she ignores it. That $5000 could be for that and if she did this while using something she could have forgotten. There are a LOT of predatory credit card companies out there and the fair credit protection act has just made them more creative. I know people who have done this to their parents recently.

 

[Kathy813]

Why would Nancy's difficult child have alerted her to the $5000 if she had been trying to swindle the money somehow? That doesn't make sense.

I can't figure out why the $20 withdrawal hasn't shown up yet, either. Our ATM withdrawals show up immediately.

I am still leaning towards a bank error. At least that is what I am hoping for.

 

[Nancy]

At our bank students can have a student checking acct on their own with no parent acct. I made a point if making sure last year when I closed her other acct and she opened this one that her account would be completely separate from ours.
When I withdraw money from the atm it only shows the balance from the account it was taken from. It doesn't show any credit cards or line if credits.

 

[Nancy]

I tested her and asked her to read me the receipt. It says withdrawal from checking $20 and shows a balance of 5,163. I think when she went in and got a new atm card they tied it to someone else's account. I don't even know how they looked her acct up except by ss#

 

[InsaneCdn]

Ok, another one from the "stupid" bucket, but... I work in technology, and it is amazing how many possibilities there are for "human error" in supposedly fail-proof systems. All it would take is a bank-card number that was re-used in error - and she's then actually pointing to somebody else's bank account, and spending their money. Not deliberately, mind you, but there still could be a major legal kerfluffle for a while...

 

[toughlovin]

My hope is that you are not getting a straight answer because she really is confused about it. The fact she asked you about it speaks to this possibility. I thnk in this case i would offer to go to the bank with her to help straighten it out.

And i also agree that our difficult children have lied so much and so often it almost becomes 2nd nature and it is a hard habit to break. And we have been lied to so much we are smart not to automatically believe what they say even if they are sober.

TL

 

[DDD]

"Don't worry so much"...LOL. That subject must be covered in the PHD course on Detachment. DDD

 

[Nancy]

ROFL DDD!

Nancy

 

[Kathy813]

So when you look at her account you don't see that $5163 but it showed up on her receipt? The important thing right now is that realizes that she can't use that money even if she somehow has access to it. That would be mighty tempting to my difficult child.

Curiouser and curiouser . . .

 

[Nancy]

Kathy I made it clear to her that she was not to use that account until she went to the bank Monday, that it was not her money and if she used it she would be in serious trouble and her response was "so does that mean you are going to help me with gas tomorrow?" To which I replied "no, it means you should not have spent $240 in two days."

Since she lost her card and no other way to show what account was hers I guess she owuld have had to give them her her ss#, so does that mean the bank has her ss# mixed up with someone else?

Nancy