Au Pair - stealing

I had an au pair since September who is now gone home for Christmas. She is supposed to return and stay until September, though from something she said I am not sure she will return.

However, I have my doubts about taking her back myself for a number of reasons. I used to give her money for taxis to take the children to activities, but she would say that she never got the money. When I rang the taxi driver who I know quite well, he would say he was paid for the journeys, yet she would be asking me for more money saying the journeys weren't paid for. Think the taxi driver said something to her as she was very caustious in relation to giving me back change for a while after. Then it happened again, said I didn't give her the money for taxi, though I know I did as my little son was about to put his hand on it when she told him it was for the taxi. This time she siad I hadn't given her the money and she had to raid my son's piggy bank for a five euro note. However, taxi driver said that he gave the money back to my son, and that my au pair had lots of money on her (10s and 20s) from which she paid the E15 euro for the taxis.

Then at my son's birthyday recently she collected the money he was given, it was E100. I put it away safely in the kitchen, out of kids reach, when I came back to retrieve it, some of the money had fallen out, and there was only E80.00 left. Didn't challenge her about this incident. Challenged her about previous taxi incident, but she became quite defensive and stroppy. In between this, English credit card also missing. I bought her some vouchers from Amazon, took out my English credit card from my purse, while she was sitting watching, and bought her the vouchers. Only use this card to buy stuff from Amazon. A few days later when I went to purchase stuff from Amazon myself, it was gone. Another old English credit card with a plastic sticker on it was still in my purse, but the other one was gone. Also postbank card missing recently, and a few small but new items of cloothing for the children.

Looking for advice as she was brilliant with the children, but feel I can't trust her now. Thinking about getting a safe in my house for cards etc. Also, she absolutely refused to take her camera to shop to download pictures of my children at a local feis so I could have them. Now kind of suspicious about what was on the camera. Any advice greatly appreciated. Don't want to go over top with this but have young children 5 and 6. Thanks.

Are you seriously thinkin of letting this girl back to mind your kids? If it was me there'd be no chance in hell of here stepping back in my house.

Despite all this you say she's brilliant with kids?
A thief and a liar can't be that good an influence on your kids. If all of this is true then I would get rid of her immediately and report her to the au-pair agency if one is involved.
I can't believe how long you put up with it and how much you put up with!

i agree.you should not let this girl back into your home.there must be plenty of other au pairs available that are very good with kids and can be trusted.you don't need this worry in your own home.

Thanks everyone for your advice. It was the confirmation I needed. I allready told the agency about her but they just said I had no proof, though the taxi driver is proof in relation to those incidents. Hopefully I will have more luck with another au pair, but I am very wary of letting another person into my house. Thanks again.

elainem said:

Thanks everyone for your advice. It was the confirmation I needed. I allready told the agency about her but they just said I had no proof, though the taxi driver is proof in relation to those incidents. Hopefully I will have more luck with another au pair, but I am very wary of letting another person into my house. Thanks again.

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Well there's definitely nothing wrong with being wary of anyone in your house. Another thing to be aware of is that problems with au pairs is not uncommon and most people have some sort of horror story about them, be it personal or a friends story.

I think you're right not to take her back, but you were possibly a bit harsh on her. She is quite entitled to have her own cash, and you can't draw conclusions because "my au pair had lots of money on her". She is also quite entitled to have whatever photos she likes on her own camera.

Hi! Complainer, yes I agree she is entitled to have whatever photos she wants on camera, but she didn't want to bring the camera to get just the photos from the feis downloaded and printed, so that I could have a copy. My own camera was broken. I couldn't understand her reluctance to do so, unless she had something to hide on the camera - as the camera shop doesn't look at the photos, you just put in the memory card and choose the ones you want to print. Made me think that either she had photos of maybe documents, bank details from my house, as these would have been easily accessed, or maybe even compromisimng photos of my children. My friend suggested that it may have just been kinky photos of t.v. programme, as she had NTL in her room (we have sky) and I didn't realise this was on that package as we only got it for her - she seemed to spend a bit of time watching it - and had to ask her to be careful that children did not see it.

With regards to the money in her wallet - yes she is entilted to have her own cash, but she told me she had no money for the taxi as I had not left it for her, that she only had my son's piggy bank money, but yet she was able to pay the taxi without my son's piggy bank money. If I had forgotten to leave taxi money, she could have tel. me and I would have arranged to pay taxi driver later as I know him quite well.

Thanks for your comment.

Sorry meant to say that her NTL package had Sexcetra on it, and she spent quite a bit of time watching it.

I would fire her butt.CaLL HER UP ASAP AND TELL HER SHE IS NO LONGER NEEDED.iF SHES ASKS WHY TELL HER.

Why did you buy her the Amazon vouchers with her sitting with you while you were doing the transaction?
How did the money from your son's birthday "fall out"?

Hi! Isle of Man, probably was not a good idea to buy the vouchers with credit card in front of her, but I trusted her. My computer is placed in the corner of my sitting room and that's where she was at the time.

My son's birthyday money had been wedged between a knife block and a heavy glas vase in the kitchen on the window ledge. When I came in to retrieve it about ten minutes later, some of it had become dislodged onto the ledge.

"She is supposed to return and stay until September, though from something she said I am not sure she will return."

What did she say ?

There are always two sides to every story.

If you knew the taxi driver very well why did you not arrange to pay the taxi driver at a later stage yourself , rather than have the au pair handle the cash ?

Why did you use the credit cards in front of the au pair ? Were you careless there?

Did you need to put sexcetra in her room, and then not expect her not to look at it. How did you know she spent a lot of time watching it ? Do you spent a lot of time watching it yourself ?

What age is your son ? Could he have taken the money ?

You say that at your son's birthday she collected the money he was given. That to my mind was careless. Are you sure there was €100 there?

I think that it is possible that you are right about the au pair, but you could have done a lot to defuse the situation by being more careful .

Rgds
Billo

Hi! Bilo, thanks for your comments. Yes, I agree I could have done more to diffuse the situation, but am a busy working mother who is also studying, and I trusted her. Money is often lying around in handbags in my room etc. I have a cleaning lady and have never had any doubts about her touching it. Would have liked to think I could trust the au pair in a similar way, but have been proved wrong. The taxi driver told me the exact amount of money I needed to give him for the journeys each time, I did this, but she still said I never gave it to her. My son couldn't have taken the birthday money as he is not able to reach the window ledge. In regards to sexcetra, no I don't watch it. Have no time to watch t.v. except for news and maybe prime time. Didn't realise it was on the ntl package she has in her room. Went in to her room a few times to turn off the telly late at night when she was out, as it was quite loud when everyone was asleep.

I think you are over reacting about the whole sexcetera thing. It's shown on Living and Virgin 1, both general entertainment channels, way after the watershed.

As for the money, leaving it go on this long is not a good idea. Issues like this should have been dealt with immediately and not left to fester.

At the end of the day if you don't want this woman in your home and with your kids you need to tell her.

Don't mind about the sexcetra channel, as long as she turns if off when she goes out. Sometimes my children wake up around 10 or 11 and would would go into her room or my room looking for an adult - don't want them to see that kind of stuff as they are only 5 and 6.

With regard to the money, I waned to give her the benefit of the doubt first time - maybe she needed the extra money for something - but it happened a few times again, and I couldn't give her the benefit of the doubt then - had told her if she was short of money to say it to me and I would see what I could do to help. Initially, wanted to believe the credit card had been misplaced in the house, but remember putting it back in my purse and have turned the house and car upside down looking for it.

sexcetra is just a show, it wont be on in the mornin.. I'd just sack her, why put yourself through it? Maybe EVERYTHING thats happened is just coincidence.. I doubt it though..

I have to totally agree with billo on all the points/ questions made.

I also wonder what's the story with a possible language barrier? did she speak fluently english or did she just speak well? i was an au pair myself ten years ago and the language was one of the biggest problems as my au pair parents understood things differently than i did. those "misunderstandings" only came out by talking about problems! the more talk, the better the understanding (in most cases anyway). why didnt you ask her about the money/ card suspicions? it's always easy to blame her and you're probably right, she is probably guilty of all charges. however, i dont understand how you could leave valuable items lying around in your house when you started becoming suspicious (which you said yourself, started with the taxi man and not after she left)?

If you had prove its down to the agency to replace the loss as they have an insurance which would cover such. however, you dont seem to have any proof, do you?

As for the next au pair, put your money out of sight and trust her like you trust the girl in the shopping centre who sells balloons and is nice to your boys

My au pair spoke good English, but not fluent. I think she did understand when I said I had given her the money for the taxis - she clearly said that I didn't, and when my daughter tried to interrupt to say that she thought she saw the money on the table she told her to be quiet as she was having a conversation with her mommy.

Didn't confront her initially, as I really wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. I did try to confront her one time but she got very defensive and agitated.

I'm a single working mother and studying a masters also - just don't need the hassle. I leave stuff around when my cleaning lady (who I have had for 3 years) comes, and there has never been a problem. I need to be able to trust that it's o.k. to leave stuff around as its a hectic household and its easy to forgot to put things away sometimes - it's also a small house, so not too many places to hide things.

Maybe an au pair isn't really suited to our situation - will have to think about things again.

elainem said:

Went in to her room a few times to turn off the telly late at night when she was out, as it was quite loud when everyone was asleep.

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Why would she leave the television on in her room when she was out? Is she that inconsiderate? You say you went in to her room a few times? Why didn't you speak to her about this and put a stop to it?