'WIBTA for suing my boyfriend's friends for destroying my designer purse?' UPDATED

"WIBTA For Considering Suing My Boyfriend's Friends For Destroying My Purse?"

I’ll try to keep it short and sweet. I recently bought an authentic designer purse. I realize the privilege I have to do so, but I work an extremely demanding job that requires I work very long hours and get compensated well to do so. It’s something I’ve wanted my entire life and I’ve finally reached a point where I can afford to do it.

Not super relevant, but I grew up poor so in a way it was cathartic to me to buy something frivolous that I really wanted which is partially why it means so much to me. I’ve had this purse less than a month and have only worn it out twice, once to a work event and once to a nice dinner we went on with my boyfriend and his friends this last weekend.

We were hanging out at my boyfriends friends house after the dinner and I hung my purse on the chair behind me. At this point I trusted everyone in the house and wasn’t really concerned about it. We’ve all been hanging out for years now. We moved to another room right next to the one we were in to play a game.

When I came back, my purse was right where I left it. When we left for the night, I grabbed it and thought it felt heavier but didn’t look inside of it until I went to unload it when we got home.

For some reason, someone thought it would be funny to put uncovered RED JELLO SHOTS into my purse with WHITE interior where they proceeded to leak. The entire inside was stained a splotchy pink shade and to say I was livid is an understatement.

We’re all between 30-60 (we have some older folks that are family friends of people in the group that hang out with us sometimes), so everyone is old enough to not do something so stupid.

I attempted to clean it to no avail. My boyfriend reached out to the group chat that has about half of his friends in it and asked if anyone knew who had done it. One person admitted they saw someone do it and told us who. It was one of the older members of the group who is known for messing with peoples belongings, but never to this degree.

For example, when we went swimming last summer he filled the pockets of my shorts up with Chex mix. It was annoying but didn’t really damage anything. Also no one really finds his antics funny. In my opinion it’s common sense to refrain from putting red goo (that turns liquidy when warm) into a white bag, but he claims that he was just being funny and didn’t think they would leak.

I asked him for money to either repair the bag or replace it and he claims he does not have that much money. He says the bag “looked cheap” so he didn’t think it would be a big deal even if the shots had leaked. I know that he has ample assets (multiple sports cars, a million dollar home, etc.) and can find a way to compensate me for what he had damaged.

When I pointed this out, he told me that it was MY fault for bringing around an expensive bag and that something could’ve easily been spilled on it instead. While I would’ve been upset if that had been the case obviously, I wouldn’t have been anywhere near as upset because this had been done INTENTIONALLY and is now being blamed on me.

I can take responsibility and say I shouldn’t have left it out of my sight, but I knew no one in the house would steal it or the contents in it and I never would’ve thought someone would fill it with sticky red goo regardless of how expensive or cheap it was. I told him that he needed to find the money or I would be suing him for the damages and a couple people in the group think I’m going too far.

My boyfriend is thankfully as angry as I am and I don’t want this situation to come at the cost of any of his friendships, but I also want compensated for my property that I worked my butt off for. WIBTA if I take legal action, or should I try some other method to recoup my losses? I personally don’t think so because this wasn’t an accident, but some people seem to think I’m going too nuclear.

What do you think? WIBTA? This is what commenters had to say:

nickisfractured said:

Small claims court 10000% he will learn his lesson

ManicMondayMaestro said:

I would likely go to small claims over this since he obviously can pay. He’s a damn adult responsible for his actions. I think it’s relevant to know the amount you’re talking about. Designer could be $300 or $3000, or much more. NTA.

OP responded:

It was $2,800. My understanding is if it can be cleaned costs would be around $400, if it cannot repairs could be anywhere from $700- it just needing to be replaced. I am taking it in to be looked at tonight and I’ll have a more solid answer.

norismomma said:

Yes - intentionally damaging personal property is something you can sue for. Do it. Not an asshole IMO.

Sufficient_Metal_912 said:

NTA what kind of grown man still plays pranks on people. and if you’re going to play some kind of dumb destructive prank at least have the decency to back it up if you ruin something that belongs to someone. what if they had spilled all over the interior of your car?

OP responded:

I’m shocked it didn’t because they were borderline liquid by the time I found them. The fact it didn’t soak through to the exterior of the bag or on the friends furniture or in our car is shocking, but speaks to the quality of the interior of the bag I suppose.

And Margrave16 said:

He needs to be taught a lesson forcibly that he should’ve learned in his teens. I would also go out of my way to poison the entire friend group against him, pointing out how immature this whole thing is and asking everyone if they really want someone like that around. Small claims wouldn’t be enough for me personally. But I’m petty as fuck if you deliberately mess with me.

She later shared this update:

I had my appointment to have the bag looked at. They would be able to mostly repair it, however it’s likely that the liquid seeped through the lining and may have damaged the bag beyond repair. They wouldn’t know until they really got into it. Even so, the smell of crusty old jello and liquor would likely linger and deteriorate any resell value the purse may have in the future.

For these reasons, I will be going after him for the entire value of the purse. Thank you to the person who mentioned that this could hurt resell value in the future, I didn’t even think of this. I asked the person that looked at it and she told me the severity of the staining and odor definitely would. Thankfully it is not a limited edition bag and I can currently buy a new one.

Hopeful that this doesn’t change anytime soon as I really loved my bag. I am going to reach out to my attorney in the morning to see if he can help me or refer me to someone who can. I can update again with what they say, but I am pretty sure I have a strong leg to stand on.

To answer some common questions:

1.) Why don’t I kick this guy from the friend group?

Easiest answer here is that it isn’t my friend group. This man is a family friend of one of my boyfriends friends. He truthfully isn’t around much, but it seems like whenever he is he causes problems so I’m not sure why he is still invited, even occasionally. My boyfriend and I made it clear we would never be in the same place as him ever again, which kind of puts the ball in everyone else’s court.

2. Does he not like you or does he torment everyone?

He has a weird fixation with me mostly, but he does also torment most of the women in the group. I mentioned this in the comments but it may have gotten buried, but during my first interaction with him I had left my phone out while I had quickly gone to the bathroom. At some point he snatched my phone up, went SOMEWHERE else in the house, took a picture of his bumhole, and replaced my phone in the same spot.

I found the picture a few hours later when I opened my camera roll to show someone my dog and my boyfriend asked me horrified why I had a hairy butthole in my phone. I was mortified and had no explanation and it wasn’t until this man was hammered that he admitted he did it. We were all disgusted and he stopped being invited for awhile because my boyfriend refused to be around him.

Last year he started being invited again and immediately started “pranking” me in harmless ways. He liked to do this with new girlfriends especially I noticed and I am one of the newest in the friend group (even though it’s been a few years now).

One of my boyfriends friends started dating a new girl and she got a similar treatment, but nothing as severe. He really likes to tamper with our clothes mostly. I don’t know what the motive is, but he doesn’t usually mess with the guys, just the women.

3. Did he steal anything?

No. As I had mentioned he’s wealthy and I don’t think he’d really do anything like that, he doesn’t seem like the type to get a thrill from theft, rather he wants to annoy women. I only kept my credit card, a small amount of cash, car keys, and a sentimental keychain in the bag. Everything was sticky and coated in goo, but everything was also there.

Small Edit: A lot of people have taken to accusing my boyfriend of some nasty things; setting this up, not defending me, being “spineless”, etc. I just wanted to take a second to say none of this is true and is mentioned throughout the post. The first instance of this man being weird, my boyfriend screamed at him about how what he had done to me was awful whether or not he saw it as a “joke”.

We left immediately after and he told his friends that he did not want to be invited when that man was around. It took several years for it to blow over and for his friends to attempt to have us all together again for a birthday party. My boyfriend made it clear that if he ever did anything to harm me again that would be it, and he promised he wouldn’t.

After all of that situation the offender did calm down towards me A LOT until now, which is why I didn’t feel that worried about him and was comfortable leaving my purse out of my sight for 30 minutes. My boyfriend not physically assaulting this man isn’t him being spineless, it’s him being mature and realizing that hurting him was only going to result in him getting charges that would impact his career and life.

Now that this has all happened, my boyfriend HAS defended me and said we will do everything we need to in order to get me a new purse. It was ME that was worried about it causing him to lose friends, as I know this group is very important to him.