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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Mar 2018
    Posts
    1

    Default Running Up Charges on a Borrowed Tablet, and Refusing to Give it Back to the Owner

    My question involves criminal law for the state of: Tennessee

    I'll just jump right into it. I'm fourteen years old, and I have been friends with a girl and her mother for about three years. It sounds odd (it was a little), but her mother only had a fifteen year difference on us, so we got along well. Ill call the girl my age "A", and her mom "M". They were my best and only friends. Long story short, they were thieves. I had clothing, makeup, skincare products, food, towels, and much more stolen from me. I never got the impression they were having financial trouble, as they lived in a nice house, moved to an even better one, had nice things, and overall seemed to be living a nice life. Their excuses for stealing were "you're like family to us, it's as if we're just borrowing from a sister". Borrow. A word that didn't sit well when it came to these people. Everything they ever "borrowed" from me was either never returned, or brought back to me months later, no matter how often I asked for the item. I didn't even trust them around money, and it started to go missing. A $150 Visa giftcard went missing right around the time we went on vacation to Florida, and they were watching the house.

    To cut to the chase, my friend broke her phone, and asked my mother if she could BORROW a tablet that was given to my mom by her family friend, K. This tablet was still in the box, never used. A used that tablet, but never gave it back. I did tell her, "you know my mom never said you could have that, right? She said you could borrow it that one day, and you never gave it back." She proceeded to laugh it off, and never talked about it again after that. After A got her phone fixed, M broke her phone, and used that tablet. Their use of this device started in November of 2017, and is carrying out until now, March of 2018. I stopped being friends with them, as A tried to sell clothes she had stolen from me. They refused to give me my things back. But, that's besides the point. K, at first, didn't know what the bills were for, so he paid it anyway. Then the bills got outrages, the last one coming in at $2,700. The bills, in total, have equaled in around $4-5,000. K came over, thinking I was the one using the tablet. I had never even touched that device before. When he found out it was a person he had never even met making him pay so much money, he was furious, and rightfully so. Right after my mom called M, I get a text message from her, saying she will bring my things back. I put some items of hers in a bag outside, and she dropped off a bag of my things. She didn't even give back all of the things she tried to sell, nor other things I asked for. M didn't even bring back the tablet.

    They claim they didn't know, and that when they were setting up the tablet, something came up and they clicked 'yes', allowing them access. M is a grown woman. She knows that every wireless device has a monthly bill, and she chose to ignore it. That tablet had 3GB, and they went over that every single month. The most expensive bill was, unsurprisingly, the month that I ended that toxic relationship. I know they did this on purpose. They thought it was connected to my mom, and they wanted her to pay outrages amounts of money. They're those kind of people. She's told me stories of her brushing the toilet with a toothbrush of a person who has wronged her. I got a new toothbrush when I ended the friendship and they came over for the last time. She says she would beat up a child if they wronged A, not stopping at me. I used the phrase "I find it funny how" in an argument, and she responded with "you gangster now? We'll see how gangster you really are when I come over there". She claims she meant "just talking" by that, but I'm not an idiot. She clearly meant getting physical by that phrase, she's just trying to cover herself.

    The cellular company that K uses filed the tablet stolen, and they say they must have been using it 24/7. When my mother called M, she said her responses were quick and planned out; not shocked in the slightest. M claims A stopped using the device in December, which is true, but then M started using it. I know this because she was constantly on it when I was with her, and I even have videos she sent to me that were recorded on that tablet. Let alone the bills that prove it was being using until now. Anyway, to the question, my mom says it's a class D felony, but I wanted to ask on here. I wanted to know what she could be charged with. Theft? Fraud? Would there be a fine? Thanks for any answers in advance, and I apologize for such a long post. Also, I was unsure what topic to put this under, so I just did the most general one that related to my situation. Thanks for any answers in advance, and I apologize for such a long post. Have a nice day!

    (Just realized after posting that indentation did not work, so I had to separate the paragraphs. I apologize, I was told not to do this since the third grade, lol. I also noticed the post got rid of my double spacing after the end punctuation, which is something I've always been told to do. Sorry about that)

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Oct 2014
    Posts
    8,238

    Default Re: Stolen Tablet and Insane Bills

    Quote Quoting madima
    View Post
    Anyway, to the question, my mom says it's a class D felony, but I wanted to ask on here. I wanted to know what she could be charged with. Theft? Fraud? Would there be a fine?
    This would appear to amount to theft of services. Tennessee is a state that has consolidated its various theft crimes into a single theft crime law. Theft crimes are classified by the amount stolen. If the amount stolen is at least $2,500 but less than $10,000 it is a class D felony. By definition felony offenses are crimes that can be punished by a year or more in prison. Specifically, for a Class D felony the statutes provide for a sentence of no less than 2 years and no more than 4 years in prison, though there are a number of other provisions and alternatives that a court may consider when imposing sentence for the crime.

    Quote Quoting madima
    View Post
    (Just realized after posting that indentation did not work, so I had to separate the paragraphs. I apologize, I was told not to do this since the third grade, lol. I also noticed the post got rid of my double spacing after the end punctuation, which is something I've always been told to do. Sorry about that)
    You evidently were taught the rules that were common for typing on a typewriter. Typewriters had the same fixed space for all characters, which is why double spacing at the end of sentences was necessary. It was the closest way to approximate the extra bit of space professional typesetters put between sentences. (On a typewriter that extra space ends up a bit too big, but it was the best you could do.) When using a word processsor you don’t need to do that since all modern word processors put a little additional space between sentences automatically, just like professional typesetters do.

    As for indenting a paragraph or putting a space between them, the usual rule used by professional typesetters is that you do one or the other but generally not both. So what you did here with separating the paragraphs with a line space between but no indenting is actually fine.

    If you really want to get into how to make your computer produced documents look like those that professional typesetters create, a book called The PC is not a Typewriter (and there is a version called The Mac is not a Typewriter if you use a Mac) is a great resource. It’s the book I used as my introduction to the topic. It will help you make any document you create more readable and professional in appearance. These books are apparently still in print, now in second edition.

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