Why Is where’s my refund Trending Today?

Is there any chance your mother does not know or understand what the college refund check is or the student loan? Because if she understands, please break free from her as soon as you can because this looks like a symptom to a big abusive relationship.

She helped send both me and my older sister college. She 100% knows how it works. I even more confident she knows how it works because she told my sister “Im not going to over borrow money like i did with you when you went to college for my son” She knows what’s going on

Hey dude come join us at /raisedbynarcissists It might be a harsh awakening but we’ve been through this exact situation of realizing how manipulative and controlling our parents are. Also many of us have been in your exact situation.

Haha. Reminds me of my cousin’s mom saying the same in Tagalog, and he replied, “You’re just talking about yourself.”

I used to have a friend with a 16-yo son. The son was messing with him one day and said something like, “I f-ed your mom” – not angry just in the smart-ass teenage boy way. And the dad (parents are divorced), goes, “You didn’t f- my mom but I f*ed yours.” Omg it was hilarious. Kid’s face turned so red.

My husband whooped my son at MTG and as he was leaving called his stepdad a M’fr, hubby said yes as soon as you leave. The look on his face was golden. They are bestest buddies. Lol

😂🤣😂

My mom made that mistake once and hated that my reaction was to agree with her. Sister was cackling though!

She wasn’t wrong either.

NTA Your Mom was taking your refund check that she was not entitled to. Sad when a parent abuses the innocence of their child for financial reasons.

She’s stealing from you.

Your mom is 100% a liar and a thief. Wake up and see who she is. She will not stop using you until you put your foot down and call her out. Why you would believe your loan money is hers is beyond me. To be straight, she stole not only your loan money, but the $700 your family donated. She’s a con person!

Thank you for replying. Yes, I know I’m dumb. My mom never really told me about debt or anything like that. She told me that the loan money is hers because she got me pell grant for school and without pell grant I wouldn’t be able to get any refund checks. So I thought maybe the refund checks were from pell. I realize now fully what’s going on. I definitely should’ve knew better but the point is I know now and I’m definitely gonna put a stop to it.

No, that’s not how any of that works,

Yeah, I realize that now. The only reason I’m getting refund checks is because of the loans. I’m taking out that she’s telling me to. Also know that pell you 100% do not need to pay payback and it’s a scholarship based off your income. But she keeps telling me for some reason that she ruined her retirement for me to go to school and get me Pell grant. She explained such a long the lines that by giving me a pill, it takes money out of her SSI for retirement or something like that. I know that this is all fucking bullshit and not true.

I’m sorry. 🙁

It’s all right it’s kind of funny now She told me to pay her back her $23,000 of pell when I graduate since I ruined her retirement for no reason. And that I’m a ungrateful child and that she should’ve never ruined her retirement for me. I still have no idea how me getting pell is ruining her retirement lol don’t even know what she got that

Too bad you can’t sue her (maybe you can??) for the student loans you took out that you didn’t need that went straight into her pocket that you’re stuck repaying.

Unfortunately, I can’t because I Zelle her the money and I’m still the one who accepted the loans. I just accepted the loans under the thought that it was her money and not mine.

I’ll say this for her – she knows how to cover her tracks.

Talk to your colleges financial aid advisor about getting that money back she stole. There might be some way and if not at least they can walk you through everything. Sorry your mom sucks.

So if I understand this correctly, your tuition is already paid by your scholarships. And yet you are taking out student loans in your own name and then handing the money over to your mom. I would assume this would be for room and board expenses? And I would caution you to take a really hard look at how much debt you are accumulating. Student loans will follow you for the rest of your natural life and they will drag you down. You cannot get out of student loans through bankruptcy. They will garnish your wages to pay them back. They are relentless. Your mom is supposed to be setting you up for success. And instead, she seems to be taking a financial advantage of you, in many ways.

I do live on campus. My scholarships cover room and board too as well. So the refund check money I’m taking out it’s just extra loan money. I’m basically taking it out for no reason. My boyfriend also attended the same university as me. It’s a public university so tuition isn’t crazy expensive. His student loans are almost $15,000 less than mine and he had the same scholarships as me. (HOPE and PELL) and also lived on campus. The differences, of course he didn’t take out the loans like my mom made me do.

No more loans. Stop that now. Use your internship money for other expenses. You’re going to be paying off those loans for decades. It’s going to seriously impact your cost of living and quality of life.

>he didn’t take out the loans like my mom made me do Consider that line VERY carefully, and **remember it**. Your scholarships cover tuition, room and board, everything else **you** will be paying back, *with interest*. Including whatever your mother got from you. If anyone including your mother asks about who paid for the PC in the future, stick to “my family paid for some, my loan money paid the rest.” If mom wants to argue that remind her she was taking your loan money.

Are you giving the loan money to your mom or using it for other personal expenses? This is supposed to be used directly for your education. It’s ok to take the loan and not use it too. As an emergency fund. Just in case

So I just asked my mom. My mom said that she would use the refund checks in the excess of it to pay for my car repairs. I was gifted at pretty unreliable old Kia, so it did have a lot of issues. But my mom told me that she would take care of it. 100% and I’m not too worried about it. She used my refund checks to pay for it supposedly. Now had that been true I want to be upset, but here’s what the contradiction in the confusion comes in for me. My mom gave me a credit card in my name but she can only access the account. I have absolutely zero access to account so I can’t see the balance, but I do have the physical card with me. I can only use the card if my mom gives me permission to use it since she pays for it. She pays it by Zelle me the money to my bank account, and paying it from her phone. I literally never swiped his car unless my mom tells me to (sometimes she uses the card to buy things for herself and sometimes she uses it for me. It’s about 50-50) So in total, I probably sent my mom about $6000 in refund checks since I’ve been in university. It’s just now my senior year. For my school supplies, I major in a stem program. My mom would buy books if I needed it at times, but majority of the time I would purchase my own supplies and pay for my own groceries with my job. The only time she would help me if I was low on money and she would tell me to use my credit card she gave me because she pays for it. So everything starts to make sense. The problem is my mom has received $6000 in refund checks from me. Every single transaction for me has been made with that card. Anything I needed for car repairs or anything else was made using that card. The problem is despite me, sending her those refund checks. The credit card is still half way maxed out. It has a $4000 balance on it. Which should virtually be impossible if I’m sending my mom $6000 in refund checks throughout my course of being in school. Despite my mom getting refund checks totaling from around $800-$2000 the biggest payment she’s ever made on the Discover card was $400. This credit card is 100% in my name. I’m not an authorized user. It’s 100% my credit in my name I just don’t have access to the account. I’m just now figuring out the balance on the card by looking at my credit report on Experian. Also, because it’s a Discover credit card and Capital One and Discover just merged, I now have full access to the account because of the merger. This is because I bank with Capital One and the credit card is under the same Social Security number as my Capital One bank account. I used to ask my mom for the balance and she refused to tell me saying it was not my business. I hope when I’m seeing is making sense but what I’m essentially saying is that my mom is in fact not using these refund checks on me and I’m realizing that she’s using it for other purposes and just paying small payments on a Discover card. If she was using these refund checks for me than a Discover card should be almost fully paid off or have a very small balance on it. I hope what I’m saying is making sense. It’s a very confusing situation.

I’m very sorry but it sounds like your mom is a grifter and a thief and not only are you her target but she’s using your access to credit and student loans as a pipeline for herself. Do you know your credit score? Because my guess is that she isn’t paying off that card (and there are probably more you don’t know about).

I do know my credit score. Its a 727. I have a good credit score :). My mom never missed a payment on the Discover card. She just never paid off the balance like she said she did when she ran up expenses on it. When she got my refund check that she supposedly used to pay off the balances from last semester, She never put it on the credit card. She was using these refund checks for something else obviously because the balance on the Discover card would not be $4000. That’s literally virtually impossible. I have my very own credit card, which I’m responsible for, and I fully pay for it responsibly.

Well, that’s something at least. But lock down/freeze your credit, to be safe.

Your mom is financially abusing you. Your refund checks from the loans you took out + the loan amount itself will have to be paid back. Do you really think she’s going to pay those?? Nope. And they are in your name so it’s all going to fall on you.

You have a full ride. Why on earth would you take out unnecessary loans

Honey, at this point I don’t even care about the pc! What I do care about is that as a senior in college, you are way too codependent with your mom. Especially in terms of your finances. First of all, no more loans for no reason. Matter of fact, no more loans at all. Please freeze your credit. Go to each of the three credit bureaus, search for them online, they will have a place where you can freeze your credit. So that your mom can’t take out any more loans or cards in your name. And strongly consider taking a couple of classes in personal finance.

Yes, definitely I 100% try to be independent. My mom literally shame me anytime I try to financially take care of myself.. One time she screamed at me because I tried to buy tires for my own car and called me disrespectful. I understand what you’re saying that I’m codependent on her with my finances, but you have to understand. My mom is super controlling. If I don’t do what she says or if I don’t let her control me, I risk losing my car or losing going to school because she will refused to help fill out FASFA or anything like that. I do 100% take care of myself in the most of the ways that I can. I pay for my own groceries. I pay my own school supplies. I pay for my own cell phone bill. My mom doesn’t like me being independent she will say she’s proud of me for being independent, but she doesn’t truly like it. Anytime I try to do something on my own. She’s threatening to completely cut contact with me or completely support for me. Believe me, I definitely do not want to deal with this crap anymore and I do want to be completely independent and done with this. I definitely don’t want to be codependent on her because I literally cannot take it anymore.

You are doing a great job of being independent! And you are really close to being 100% independent. As soon as your last semester of college is paid for, FAFSA won’t matter. I’m sure you’re already doing this, but start putting money away, just a little at a time, only as much as you can afford, in a savings account that your mom does not know about. This will help pay for your next car. And the other thing that you might want to think about, especially while you’re still in college, go to your student health center and ask about counseling services. And talk to a therapist about your relationship with your mom. It is very likely that you are going to have to cut her off completely at some point very soon. And that’s going to be hard. A therapist will help you with that process.

If she gave you the card, but it’s fully in your name, how did she sign you up? Unless you applied for it she fraudulently set it up. If you didn’t sign anything I’d request info pertaining to that too as she could have forged your signature She’s hurting your start to adulthood while making it seem like she’s helping. And it’s almost too late to fix as you’re pretty much done. I’d lock your credit and figure out if she’s done more. In the extreme you may have to claim fraud

Yes, I did not open the card. Literally one day my mom just called me to the living room and just gave it to me told me only use this card when I tell you to. The credit card was 100% mine in my name. But I literally never use it unless she told me to or gave me permission to use it. I didn’t have access to the credit account at all because she put the login information under her phone number and email address and didn’t tell me the password.

Call the card company and get what you can. If you can’t get into it that way you should think about claiming fraud on the card. Stop using it for anything now that you know

File an ID theft report with the police and submit that to the loan company. Do as everyone is telling you and 1. FREEZE your credit with the 3 big reporting companies, then 2. Run your credit report to find out how much you owe on that card and others she may have taken out in your name

Could I still possibly file a report? I mean, I’m gonna be honest. I’m probably screwed for these reasons 1.) every transaction made on that account. I swiped the card for. I had full access to the card. I just only used it when my mother told me to. That’s it. 2.) she made the payments from her phone, she would just Zelle the money to my bank account and pay it from her phone with my routing number information. (so let’s say she made a $150 payment on the credit card. She would send me $150 and make the payment from her phone.) 3.) I received this credit card all the way back in 2022. So it’s been almost 4 years since I’ve gotten it. It’s definitely morally wrong, but I certainly do not feel like I have a grounds for anything legal sadly 🙁