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How to stop family from using my bank & money before uni?

Ever since I’ve gotten a bank card my family have been using it to transfer money into, take cash out of, use it for contactless payments.

This is mildly annoying,, and makes it hard to look through my bank statements or know how much money I have in my bank at any given time. Recently, my mum has somehow given the wifi company my bank details, and they tried to take a payment out this week. this was without me knowing. My family know my pin, take my card to use it without me knowing, which means I never have it on hand.

That’s fine, though. I can cope with it.

The most annoying thing is that I keep “lending” my mum money. I get about £60 every two weeks. She constantly asks me to lend her money. Even though I have an older sibling who doesn’t pay rent or anything who gets SO MUCH more money than I.

This is constant, EVERY time I have money she asks to borrow it. I can’t save money. I’ve got £15 and she owes me atleast £100. I get grants and scholarship for uni, which will give me about a grand a month. I need to save money for my postgrad, moving out etc. I’m worried that this will worsen when I start to get more money. I’m changing my pin and card details, soon. but I feel like they’ll just find a way to convince me to let them keep using it.

I’m really frustrated because I rarely even get any money, the £60 is rare bc I need to have 100% school attendance for it. They manage to cope just fine when I don’t get the £60, but somehow, randomly, coincidentally whenever I rarely get it, they NEED to borrow it. I really need to save up money, it just feels like I never make any progress because I never actually have MY money in my bank.

I don’t know what else to say to get the point across, I can’t move out yet or anything. I keep saying and hinting at my annoyance but it’s brushed off as a joke.

Reply 1

Maybe try setting a boundary quite seriously instead of a hint, but if that’s not possible maybe call your bank to cancel the card/ report it as lost and don’t tell them the new pin number?

Reply 2

Original post
by Anonymous
Ever since I’ve gotten a bank card my family have been using it to transfer money into, take cash out of, use it for contactless payments.
This is mildly annoying,, and makes it hard to look through my bank statements or know how much money I have in my bank at any given time. Recently, my mum has somehow given the wifi company my bank details, and they tried to take a payment out this week. this was without me knowing. My family know my pin, take my card to use it without me knowing, which means I never have it on hand.
That’s fine, though. I can cope with it.
The most annoying thing is that I keep “lending” my mum money. I get about £60 every two weeks. She constantly asks me to lend her money. Even though I have an older sibling who doesn’t pay rent or anything who gets SO MUCH more money than I.
This is constant, EVERY time I have money she asks to borrow it. I can’t save money. I’ve got £15 and she owes me atleast £100. I get grants and scholarship for uni, which will give me about a grand a month. I need to save money for my postgrad, moving out etc. I’m worried that this will worsen when I start to get more money. I’m changing my pin and card details, soon. but I feel like they’ll just find a way to convince me to let them keep using it.
I’m really frustrated because I rarely even get any money, the £60 is rare bc I need to have 100% school attendance for it. They manage to cope just fine when I don’t get the £60, but somehow, randomly, coincidentally whenever I rarely get it, they NEED to borrow it. I really need to save up money, it just feels like I never make any progress because I never actually have MY money in my bank.
I don’t know what else to say to get the point across, I can’t move out yet or anything. I keep saying and hinting at my annoyance but it’s brushed off as a joke.

My mother was a single parent who financially abused me when I was young and up until her death. Your problem is the perfect summary of financial abuse. You need to put boundaries in place, do not lend your mum anymore money, change as many details as you can.

I'd recommend calling up your bank and explaining your situation, they will report your card as lost or stolen, they will send you new information through the post, please consider opening up a PO box so your Mum can't open your mail. Consider changing your details, maybe even change bank. I'm with Santander, they have a new security measure involve which is "your voice is your password".

Join a credit score company, I use Experian. Go through your credit report, when I first joined Experian and saw my credit score was so low. I discovered my mum took out £20,000.00 in phone contracts, loans and credit score in my name. Please protect yourself.
After you change the PIN just tell them it's part of your scholarship agreement that no one else has the means to access the funds otherwise it will be revoked.

Reply 4

Original post
by depressed-chord
My mother was a single parent who financially abused me when I was young and up until her death. Your problem is the perfect summary of financial abuse. You need to put boundaries in place, do not lend your mum anymore money, change as many details as you can.
I'd recommend calling up your bank and explaining your situation, they will report your card as lost or stolen, they will send you new information through the post, please consider opening up a PO box so your Mum can't open your mail. Consider changing your details, maybe even change bank. I'm with Santander, they have a new security measure involve which is "your voice is your password".
Join a credit score company, I use Experian. Go through your credit report, when I first joined Experian and saw my credit score was so low. I discovered my mum took out £20,000.00 in phone contracts, loans and credit score in my name. Please protect yourself.


Did you do anything about the £20,000 being taken out in your name? Could you report it somehow?

Reply 5

Original post
by Anonymous
Did you do anything about the £20,000 being taken out in your name? Could you report it somehow?
This is the total but split over 50+ companies. I reported it to the police, they couldn't do anything as she's deceased and I reported it after. I've been disputing it on my credit union, some have been successful, some not. I'm facing a lengthy battle. It takes me about 20 hours per week to deal with 1 company at the time. I'm getting there though.

Reply 6

Original post
by depressed-chord
My mother was a single parent who financially abused me when I was young and up until her death. Your problem is the perfect summary of financial abuse. You need to put boundaries in place, do not lend your mum anymore money, change as many details as you can.
I'd recommend calling up your bank and explaining your situation, they will report your card as lost or stolen, they will send you new information through the post, please consider opening up a PO box so your Mum can't open your mail. Consider changing your details, maybe even change bank. I'm with Santander, they have a new security measure involve which is "your voice is your password".
Join a credit score company, I use Experian. Go through your credit report, when I first joined Experian and saw my credit score was so low. I discovered my mum took out £20,000.00 in phone contracts, loans and credit score in my name. Please protect yourself.

Thank you for the advice, It’s honestly really appreciated.

I’m changing my bank details today, new card details & pin and I’ve decided not to loan anyone money under any circumstances, someone recommended I tell my family my scholarship will be revoked if anyone else has access to the money, which I’ll probably do as well.

As for the credit score stuff, this happened to my mum - she definitely hasn’t done it to me. She never intends harm. There’s a "Your money is ours” mentality with my family - very few boundaries in place but it’s not serious reckless harm.

It's just poor spending habits (smoking is a major cost lol). I’m a backup even though they could’ve made the effort to save the money independently, which is why it frustrates me, it’s self inflicted. If I get more money though, I’m certain they’d take the mick out of it lol.

(To be fair, if I ever DESPERATELY needed anything, I have no doubt they'd give me their last pennies, but that’s not an excuse to rely on me or expect the same from me, I’m 17.)

I also hope you manage to fix your credit score and clear your name, it’s way too easy to get loans & cards in other peoples names, companies really don’t care. It sucks. Good luck to you and thank you.

Reply 7

You don't 'hint', you take responsibility, draw a boundary and stick to it.

Change the pin, do not tell them it, keep the card with you and possibly disable the contactless option and keep an eye on online transactions/direct debits.

If they moan point out they already owe you a lot and have been signing you up to things behind your back (outright fraud) Why aren't they using their own bank accounts for transfers etc? I suspect the answer to that will be another v good reason not to let them use yours.

If your mum had no issues signing you up to 1 payment behind your back she won't hesitate to do it again if she gets away with it, you could end up just like the other poster with 20k odd debt.

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