Archived Forums

First cancel your card.... We have a safe and all cash/cards go into it as we have also had problems with theft. I think how you handle it will very much depend on you and your son and what's behind this...a few questions to ask yourself Have you asked him about it? How comfortable are you to ask him? Can he admit it? Does he know/can he accept its wrong? Is he able to reflect? Do you know what the money was spent on? How much did he spend? Is it an amount you can afford to lose? Is this a first offence? Are there siblings? Are you and your partner in agreement over this? Can I also suggest you take a look at Potato - a support group for parents of older adoptees - sadly you'll find you are not alone in this. https://thepotatogroup.org.uk/

It’s also very easy when cards are registered to Xbox, PayPal, Amazon etc to “accidentally” buy things - ie you are toying with the idea and before you realise it the thing is bought. My son has done this many times and I’m sure it’s quite common - it’s how some of these companies work. Could this have happened? Rather than taking the card - I know it’s still theft but it’s slightly different. You can also block your card being used for certain transactions - eg for Microsoft - by ringing the company and you can remove it from any on line account you have control of

He has spent over £4000 on apple!!! We only found out today and it all happened on Monday night luckily apple flagged this up to our credit card who have been in touch with us. We have yet to talk to him - he refuses to work and has left his college course sleeps most of the day and then goes out most of the night. Underneath is lovely and thought by all that meet him that he is lovely BUT there's obviously more going on underneath. We thought we had locked everything away as jewellery has gone missing in the past... he denied this and there is little we can do to prove it. I will look on potato.

If it’s on apple/iTunes then there’s a good chance it can be refunded. My son did similar with games, apps but provided you cancel them the money can be refunded. https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204084

Recently my 10 year old managed to buy about £10 of stuff on iTunes. Some sort of glitch because I certainly didn't enable in app purchases! They don't make it easy to figure out what is going on! I think at 18 apple assumes they can spend anything without your permission. So in the end I think you will need to kick him off family sharing. Good luck! BdF

We found out my son was in a whole heap of financial trouble over a period of about 12 months - as soon as he turned 18 he signed a phone contract, which he has never paid (he's 21 now), he also signed up for various credit cards, the first of which we helped him to pay off - he had to get a job to pay it. Then we found a receipt for a apple computer - he said he was being forced to by a gang who said they would beat him up - one week later he had a letter from Cash Converters that they wanted the password to that computer. He had actually sold the brand new computer worth £1500 for £350 an hour after he bought it!!! We also went on to find out he signed as guarantor for a load of his mates from the hostel. He applied for cards then sold them to someone in Manchester who used them, and then he claimed he'd had his card fraudlenly used and the bank believed him (because we live in a very nice area). He committed all sorts of financial fraud and got away with it. His favourite thing to do was steal a bike and then sell it to cash converters. When he was younger he looked so young and innocent that he got away with murder with teachers, police etc noone ever held him responsible, however now he's older he doesn't look as innocent as has found out noone is believing him any more. Just be careful we found out about one little thing, and then the avalanche came crashing down over a period of 12 months. Thankfully he has now screwed up his credit rating so much that he can't borrow a penny.

We have been very lucky - he realised what he had done and sent most of the products back. The rest apple have managed to divert before they had been delivered so money being repaid ... phew! As you say though this could well be the start of something so trying to nip it in the bud. He 'seems' sorry but we will wait and see. They seem to think they don't need to work and it will all be handed to them on a plate. He has an interview for a job on Monday so if he can get it and stick to it (!) hopefully he will be choosing the better path but who knows. He also used my card on a gambling website so we are insisting that he pays that money back to us, now bought a safe so he can't be tempted again.

Just watch though that he hasn’t kept your card details somewhere. My son had photographed mine so even though the card was in my purse, he had still had the details!

The card has been cancelled and a new one which different details being sent to prevent this! But thanks for the warning.