Mystery with nanny and Christmas bonus

[Anonymous]

It's pretty clearly #1. She's trying to scam you. If I lost a gift from someone, I'd be embarrassed and wouldn't volunteer that information. She's looking for a second payment.

I would not be comfortable with a nanny I think is a liar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s not a scam. She knows from last year that you did nothing to replace the money.

My guess is that someone in her family is stealing from her and she can’t ring herself to face it.

Why replace her? She isn’t doing anything to you. You gave her a gift and she lost it. It has nothing to do with you.

This!! How is it a scam? You didn’t give her extra cash last year when this happened so it’s not like she thought she could pull this again and get away with it? You sound weird, OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s not a scam. She knows from last year that you did nothing to replace the money.

My guess is that someone in her family is stealing from her and she can’t ring herself to face it.

Why replace her? She isn’t doing anything to you. You gave her a gift and she lost it. It has nothing to do with you.

This!! How is it a scam? You didn’t give her extra cash last year when this happened so it’s not like she thought she could pull this again and get away with it? You sound weird, OP.

OP sounds perfectly rational. You’re the one who is dim and naive, PP.

[Anonymous]

Old people lose money all the time. I don't think she is trying to scam you, especially since she didn't ask you to replace it.

Don't replace it, but transition softly. Its only cash.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Old people lose money all the time. I don't think she is trying to scam you, especially since she didn't ask you to replace it.

Don't replace it, but transition softly. Its only cash.

Op here. She’s in her 40s, so not old.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s not a scam. She knows from last year that you did nothing to replace the money.

My guess is that someone in her family is stealing from her and she can’t ring herself to face it.

Why replace her? She isn’t doing anything to you. You gave her a gift and she lost it. It has nothing to do with you.

This!! How is it a scam? You didn’t give her extra cash last year when this happened so it’s not like she thought she could pull this again and get away with it? You sound weird, OP.

OP sounds perfectly rational. You’re the one who is dim and naive, PP.

+1. Why tell OP at all? It just makes her look bad for being so careless. She wanted OP to feel sorry for her and give her more money. It’s a scam and I would replace her asap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s not a scam. She knows from last year that you did nothing to replace the money.

My guess is that someone in her family is stealing from her and she can’t ring herself to face it.

Why replace her? She isn’t doing anything to you. You gave her a gift and she lost it. It has nothing to do with you.

This!! How is it a scam? You didn’t give her extra cash last year when this happened so it’s not like she thought she could pull this again and get away with it? You sound weird, OP.

OP sounds perfectly rational. You’re the one who is dim and naive, PP.

+1. Why tell OP at all? It just makes her look bad for being so careless. She wanted OP to feel sorry for her and give her more money. It’s a scam and I would replace her asap.

Op here. I do think it was a lie, partially because she seemed taken aback when I pointed out that she had supposedly lost a large of of money in the exact same way a year ago. I think she had lied last year and forgotten, and then told me the same story again without realizing it.

Now, I’m not sure why she’s lying to me. It seems likely it’s a scam. I’m not sure what other reason she would have for lying to me about this. She did in passing say something about using a check next time, but I’m not seeing how that solves the problem. If she loses cash she could lose a check, and who knows if I could get the check cancelled and reissued or if it would fall into the wrong hands or what.

The whole thing has kind of soured our relationship a bit and we are looking for how to accelerate our plans to no longer work with her.

[Anonymous]

This story is so hard to believe. The OP leaves her CHILDREN - small defenseless human beings -- with someone who is an irresponsible liar or lives with thieves.

What is seriously wrong with you? Fire the nanny -- immediately before something awful happens to your children while you are trying to understand the nanny.

Honestly -- some people give as much thought to child care as they do to their lawn care.

[Anonymous]

Even if her story is true the nanny shouldn’t be telling you this. If I somehow lost my paycheck from work in a way that was because of my own carelessness they’d never give me more money... if a corporation wouldn’t do it why should you

[Anonymous]

Yeah, it is a scam. But, the reason why she is doing it are most likely the need. Perhaps her husband told her to and he is an abuser? Perhaps she is about to get evicted and needs the money? You know in Va you can get evicted if you are something like 5 days late? Sheriff with come in and watch you pack. They often draw their guns too and you have to leave. I have no idea why, but likely it is a tough spot she is in, some way or another. Her dh doesn't believe her about how much money you gave her? Usually it is the abuser dh in question. I try to think as to why are people doing things like this? I presume she is not a drug addict since she is watching your kid all day long. Have an honest talk with her. She is scared of something.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This story is so hard to believe. The OP leaves her CHILDREN - small defenseless human beings -- with someone who is an irresponsible liar or lives with thieves.

What is seriously wrong with you? Fire the nanny -- immediately before something awful happens to your children while you are trying to understand the nanny.

Honestly -- some people give as much thought to child care as they do to their lawn care.

She is not irresponsible. She is, most likely, a woman in some kind of abusive relationship or in a dire financial stress. Once I had a housekeeper stay late for a dinner party we were hosting. All was arranged ahead. Next day, she came to work bruised to heck. It was her husband who accused her of things....OP would know if this woman was irresponsible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This story is so hard to believe. The OP leaves her CHILDREN - small defenseless human beings -- with someone who is an irresponsible liar or lives with thieves.

What is seriously wrong with you? Fire the nanny -- immediately before something awful happens to your children while you are trying to understand the nanny.

Honestly -- some people give as much thought to child care as they do to their lawn care.

She is not irresponsible. She is, most likely, a woman in some kind of abusive relationship or in a dire financial stress. Once I had a housekeeper stay late for a dinner party we were hosting. All was arranged ahead. Next day, she came to work bruised to heck. It was her husband who accused her of things....OP would know if this woman was irresponsible.

Op here. I worry about her. But I also know we pay a livable wage for the area we live in. But I’m sure her life is complicated in ways I don’t know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m surprised that you didn’t switch to direct depositing her bonus after the first time. This would raise a red flag to me that she has money problems and sees you as a deep pocket. Are you sure she isn’t stealing from you?

Op here. I know she isn’t stealing.

We normally do direct deposit. This is an exception, because it’s a gift, and we aren’t taking taxes out on it. That made me not want to direct deposit it. We normally have a payroll service do everything for us but this was going through a separate channel since it’s a gift.

Just FYI, an employer can’t give a cash gift to an employee without withholding taxes-that’s not a thing. If you are trying to be elegant, you should pay the bonus in the same way you pay the wage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m surprised that you didn’t switch to direct depositing her bonus after the first time. This would raise a red flag to me that she has money problems and sees you as a deep pocket. Are you sure she isn’t stealing from you?

Op here. I know she isn’t stealing.

We normally do direct deposit. This is an exception, because it’s a gift, and we aren’t taking taxes out on it. That made me not want to direct deposit it. We normally have a payroll service do everything for us but this was going through a separate channel since it’s a gift.

Just FYI, an employer can’t give a cash gift to an employee without withholding taxes-that’s not a thing. If you are trying to be elegant, you should pay the bonus in the same way you pay the wage.

Legal, not elegant. Wtf phone!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the family member stealing it and her not wanting to admit it to herself is a good guess. If you'd replaced the "lost" money the first time I'd be more inclined to think it was a scam.

I have friends who used the same cleaning lady for 4 years, and when they were out of town she brought her teenaged son with her when she came to clean. He dumped out a huge water bottle (like a water cooler bottle) of change that he found in their closet, picked out everything bigger than a dime, and put all the pennies and nickels back in. They had cameras, they watched it when they got back. She *would not believe* that he would steal from them, so they had to let her go. In the end it wasn't much money, but it was a judgment problem. Bringing him, not watching him, refusing to believe the evidence. I think it is something about parents - better to believe a fantasy (my big annual bonus is so slippery I must have dropped it again!) then the more obvious truth.

We had a similar experience - our cleaning lady brought her boyfriend (whom we did not know at all) in with her while we were away and we caught it all on camera. And with another nanny, we went out of state for holiday vacation during which period she used our credit card number to buy all sorts of gifts for her family. I guess she thought I didn't check the bills. We had to confront her and show her the charges (Alexandria Bike shop, etc.) and she played dumb and hemmed and hawed. We set up a payment plan so that all of the charges (significant) were taken out of her weekly paycheck but in retrospect we should have let her go that moment.

Growing up my cleaning lady would bring her daughter occasionally. I started to notice my allowance would go missing sometimes. I told my mom and we realized it was the daughter. My cleaning lady absolutely did NOt believe us but set up her daughter anyway. Daughter took the money. She sent her back to her home country literally like 3 weeks later. I always felt terrible but she wanted her to have a good religious education surrounded by a lot of family. No idea what happened to the daughter.