Couple Used Orphan to Build Reputation in Town – Spent over $200K of Her Inheritance in 7 Years

A couple adopted an orphan girl after her parents passed away in a tragic car accident. At first, it seemed like they adopted her out of generosity, but everyone learned about their actual motive years later.

The orphan girl opened up about her foster parents in a detailed Reddit post and shared how they treated her differently in front of others and in private.

She shared that her foster parents had spent her inheritance money. When she learned about it, she went to the church her foster family went to and did something they didn't expect.

Before jumping to the main story, Redditor FormalYogaPants talked about her parents. She lost them in a car accident when she was ten years old.

Her father had decided to move to a small town after inheriting a fortune from his parents. After moving, he opened an antique store, and his wife looked after it.

She loved collecting precious antique pieces and often displayed them in their store. Everyone in town was aware of the couple's love for antique pieces.

After they passed away, the girl received their fortune, including everything in the antique store. They didn't have any relatives nearby, so the little girl didn't have anywhere to go.

[W]hen they were home and knew no one was watching them, they ignored her and treated her like she didn't exist.

If no one had stepped up to adopt her, the orphanage would have taken her in. However, Mr. and Mrs. Banks, a couple active in church, stepped up and offered to be her foster parents.

They assumed the girl would get along well with their daughter Kitty, but that wasn't the case. OP (Original Poster) recalled that Kitty never wanted to talk to her because she considered herself better than her.

As OP's foster parents, the Banks received a monthly stipend from the state and checks from her father's estate. They were supposed to use that money to improve the girl's life, but that never happened.

Instead, they secretly spent the money on themselves and their daughter. OP also recalled that before a social worker came to check up on them, they would instruct her to praise them in front of the social worker. She always did and said good things about them, so the social worker never doubted their intentions.

Moreover, whenever they would go out in public with her, they treated her like their own daughter. However, when they were home and knew no one was watching them, they ignored her and treated her like she didn't exist

As the girl grew older, she realized that her foster parents were receiving a lot of money, and they only spent a fraction of it on her. She also noticed that they pretended to have a business that allowed them to buy expensive cars and go on extravagant trips to New York. In reality, they were using her inheritance money and the funds they received from the state.

"When I was seventeen, I noticed that my foster parents were stockpiling away my trust fund money to pay for Kitty's tuition to college," she recalled.

The girl's foster parents believed they were entitled to her money as payback for caring for her. In fact, they expected her to give them "material compensation" once she started earning money.

However, OP felt they had already received enough compensation because they took her money and stole antique pieces worth thousands from her mother's shop. Mrs. Banks kept some of them for herself and gave a few to Kitty and her relatives too.

The girl remembered that her mother owned a precious fine China set worth tens of thousands of dollars, but she didn't keep it at the store. She saved it for OP.

However, Mrs. Banks had her eyes on it. She wanted to gift it to Kitty at her wedding, and she didn't even ask OP for permission. She assumed the girl had no idea about the dinnerware's worth.

OP's mother had always taught her not to obsess over things, so she never expressed that she cared about her mother's antiques. This made Mrs. Banks assume OP wasn't interested in those pieces and didn't know how expensive they were.

The girl didn't like it when Mrs. Banks acted like she owned her mother's antique pieces. Once it was time for her to go to college, she had started developing a revenge plan to teach Mrs. Banks a lesson.

After the couple sent Kitty to college using OP's money, they told OP that she needed to pay them back for taking care of her. By this time, OP had secured a partial scholarship to a college in another state. She planned to use her remaining inheritance money to cover the rest of her tuition fee.

But before leaving, she knew she had to teach Mr. & Mrs. Banks a lesson. She calculated how much they had stolen from her in the past seven years, based on records of their extravagant purchases she kept track of, and it totaled over $200,000.

"Things such as a $40,000 car for cash, a used $20,000 car that they gave to Kitty, trips to Hawaii, New York, cash gifts to the church that made them look super generous," she detailed.

OP pointed out that the couple couldn't afford these kinds of purchases on their own because their only source of income was Mr. Banks' salary as an insurance salesman.

However, no one except OP knew where they got all the money from. So she thought it was now time to let others know about it.

The girl knew their local church was hosting its yearly sale, so she told its organizers that Mr. and Mrs. Banks would like to donate something for the sale. Everyone was shocked when they saw what the couple was contributing.

OP brought the expensive China set that Mrs. Banks had saved for Kitty. She donated the entire set on behalf of the couple, making them look like the most generous people.

The couple had no idea because they were busy shopping when she went to the church. After donating the set, she headed to her college dorm with her belongings.

The sales committee was stunned after OP told them the actual price of the set. They knew no one would buy the entire collection, so they sold the pieces separately.

The Banks had no idea that their foster daughter had given their expensive set for sale until the second day of the sale. Mrs. Banks lost her cool when she saw ladies holding the costly set.

She screamed and told everyone that OP had stolen the set from her, but the sales committee told her she had donated in her name and they appreciated the expensive donation.

The woman didn't know how to explain the truth to everyone. She just roamed around and hunted for people who had purchased pieces from the set, trying to convince them to return them to her.

"The entire church thought she was selfish and materialistic and acting very ungodly, especially how she cursed her foster daughter," OP explained.

A week later, the girl asked her attorney to send a legal notice to her foster parents, warning them not to contact her again for money. She had also attached the bank statements for her trust fund which she retrieved from the bank earlier, that showed how much they had stolen from her.

After that day, she never heard from the Banks again. However, Kitty did contact her and apologize for everything. They became good friends and often met up.

OP wrote the Reddit post ten years after that incident. She revealed she had married an accountant and had two children. Meanwhile, Kitty had also tied the knot and was a mother to a four-year-old daughter.

"We both have our OWN wedding china," OP stated. She also shared that the Banks were still living in the small town because they didn't have the funds to move to another place. They had also lost the respect of people in their community who now knew them as the couple who stole OP's money.

"I'm glad to see you and Kitty are now friends," Redditor NeolithicOrkney stated. The Redditor felt Kitty was also a victim of the Banks' toxic behavior.

HoopHereIAm felt bad for OP because she went through the worst. However, the Redditor was glad her story had a happy ending.

"This is the best revenge," Singdancetypethings opined. The Redditor was happy that OP became friends with Kitty later.

Most Redditors praised OP for devising a brilliant revenge plan. At first, they felt terrible for her, but they were later delighted to know how she pulled it off.

Questions to Ponder:

Do you think the girl could file a police case against the Banks?

OP's foster parents had stolen money from her, and she had all the evidence with her. She could prove that they took her money without her permission and tried to get their hands on the expensive fine China set. Do you think OP should file a case against them?

Do you think things would have been better if the Banks asked for OP's permission before taking her money and the antique pieces?

The girl confessed that she wasn't a fan of the dinner set, so she wasn't bothered when Mrs. Banks kept it for Kitty. Mrs. Banks' assumption that she owned everything was what made OP furious. She couldn't stand that she had taken everything without her permission. Perhaps, if the woman had asked OP for permission, things would have played out differently. Do you agree?

If you enjoyed reading this story, you might like this one about a young lady who suspected her father had stolen her money. She checked the hidden camera footage to confirm it.

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