A young man recently took to Reddit to ask for advice after he discovered that his father had withdrawn $3,500 from his bank account without his permission. This is his full story.
His Account Was $4,000 Short!
OP is an 18-year-old man living in Winnipeg with his 53-year-old father and his 48-year-old mother. OP has been working in the same warehouse where his mom works for the last 7 months.
Recently, a co-workers asked OP to lend him some money for groceries. OP had loaned money to him before, and the kid had always repaid on time, so floating him $20 was no big deal.
But when OP opened his banking app, he was shocked to see that his balance was about $4,000 less than he expected.
Paging through recent charges, OP found memories of his weekend exploits, including movie tickets, the cost of his new piercing, and a night at the bar.
Suspect Online Banking Charge
But his jaw dropped when he discovered a charge of $3,500 labeled as an “online banking charge” from the previous Saturday.
Panicked and confused, OP sprinted up the stairs to the office where his mom was working. He asked her if she recognized the charge, and she initially claimed she didn’t.
After a few seconds of thought, though, OP’s mom changed her tune and said, “Oh, I do know what that is.”
Naturally, OP asked his mother to give him the details about the strange bank charge, but she said his father would tell him about it later. She did tell OP that the charge was related to taxes.
He Felt VERY Uneasy
This really confused OP since he’d only been employed for 7 months and made just $15 an hour. He didn’t have any property and lived at home, so he couldn’t imagine any way he would owe as much as $3,500.
Besides all that, OP had already filed his tax return for the year, and he was square with the government as far as he knew.
Still feeling uneasy about the situation and not wanting to wait, OP began to text his father asking for details. When his dad didn’t answer, OP started speculating with his co-workers about what might be going on.
Theories were all over the place, with some of his friends even suggesting OP might have inherited something big from his dead grandfather and owed taxes on that windfall.
His Hopes Were Dashed
Any hopes along those lines were dashed, though, when OP got to the car for the drive home with his mother that evening.
OP’s mother was visibly upset with him and told him he shouldn’t have texted his father. She started crying and then finally spilled the beans.
The issue was that OP’s parents owed the $3,500 in property taxes, and they didn’t have the money to pay for it with the bill coming due. So his father had dipped into OP’s account, intending to tell him about it in the coming days.
In an update, OP said that he thought he had removed his parents from his bank account when he turned 18. But when he went in after the incident, they still had access.
He Feels Bad for Pressing Them
OP had his parents removed immediately and worked out a repayment plan with them that will get him his money back over the course of a couple of months.
Now, OP feels bad for pressing his parents about an embarrassing situation, but he also feels violated that they took money from his account without even asking.
Redditors overwhelmingly support OP and say he did not overreact at all.
It Amounts to Theft!
Many point out that what OP’s parents did amounts to theft, no matter how you slice it. Several suggested that OP should go to the police, but he said he doesn’t intend to do that.
Some Redditors urge OP to move out of the house as soon as possible, and he agrees with that idea. He wants to make sure he’s ready to stand on his own, though, so he never has to move back in.
So, what do you think of this story?
Was OP right to press his parents for information about the bank charge, even though his mom told him his dad would fill him in?
And is rapid repayment good enough, or should OP consider pressing charges against his parents?
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The post $4,000 Missing in His Bank Account! His Sneaky Parents Took His Money and Tried to Keep It Quiet. What Would You Do? first appeared on The Net Worth Of.
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Source: Reddit