When you’re in love, it’s easy to gloss over the red flags for a quiet life. But financial abuse affects people of any age, economic bracket, and background.
Around one in six women are affected, and men are affected too - with an estimated nine million people subject to financial coercion, manipulation, and exploitation.
MoneyMagpie wants to help you recognise the signs, for yourself or your friends, and know what to do when financial abuse occurs.
What is Financial Abuse?
Financial abuse comes in several forms but all amount to one thing: control over another person’s finances. It usually happens in romantic relationships, but can also be between a parent and adult child or vulnerable adults in care.
It is a way of controlling another person by limiting their financial freedom. This can also involve fraud, either forcing the other person to act illegally or using their financial accounts to commit fraud without them knowing.
Financial abuse traps people in relationships, as without control of their money it is hard to make arrangements to leave. It can often go hand-in-hand with emotional abuse and is sometimes a precursor to physical abuse.
Joining Accounts Early in a Relationship
If you’ve only been dating a few months and someone wants to open a joint account with you, stop. Setting up a joint account gives them the right to spend the money in that account however they want.
You might agree that it is for bills, but if they spent it all on a fancy car you wouldn’t have any recourse to getting the money back.
Joining accounts can also damage your credit score if they have a poor score. Financially linking yourself to someone is a huge commitment that should be taken seriously.
Questioning Your Spending Activities
This isn’t about asking how you could afford those fancy shoes when you said you’re broke this month (which is about accountability). But if someone always questions what you’re spending your money on, demanding receipts, and wanting access to your bank and credit card statements, this is abusive behaviour.
Wanting to control someone by monitoring – and criticising – what they choose to spend their money on is an early red flag to watch out for. It can come across as being ‘jokey’ or light-hearted. But if you find yourself sneaking new purchases into the house so they don’t notice, ask yourself why you’re scared to have it scrutinised. Are you overspending to the point it impacts your normal bills, or are they controlling your spending by criticism?
Withholding Payment Cards or Banking Details
If someone insists that you give them your banking login, or that they should hold onto your payment cards for safekeeping, don’t let them. This gives them free access to your banking accounts, meaning they could spend your money without you knowing or transfer it to their own account.
Withholding your ability to spend your own money is a form of coercive control. “You can have your card if you do this or that for me first” is a common argument, treating financial independence as a reward for ‘good’ behaviour.
Similarly, someone who insists your salary or benefits are paid into an account that you don’t have access to, with them giving you an ‘allowance’ each month, is also financial abuse.
Insisting on Paying All the Bills
It might seem romantic if your partner offers to take control of the household bills. But this will mean you don’t have proof of your address on any utility bills, or worse they might keep your name on bills and not pay them, racking up debt and damaging your financial standing.
Someone who wants to pay all the bills is being controlling, not helpful. Of course, some people find life admin like bills stressful, so you might ask them to help you. If you agree to one partner paying the bills, make sure both names are on them, that you can access your bill accounts with ease, and that you can check that the bills are paid on time.
If someone isn’t willing to give you access to this information, that’s the red flag to look out for. If you feel you need someone to manage your money because you aren’t responsible with it, set up a separate bank account.
Keep your salary paid into your main current account, and have a direct debit set up to transfer a sum on payday each month into the new account which is enough to cover bills. This keeps your financial independence and prevents them from accessing all your money.
Pressuring You to Change Your Will
Someone pressuring you to change your will is a big red flag. Only change your will when you are confident that doing so will protect the interest of your loved ones you wish to be beneficiaries. If your partner is persuading you that they don’t deserve your money, ask yourself why they say so.
Setting people against their family and loved ones is a step in emotional abuse that isolates a person and gives more control to the abuser.
Think also about getting Lasting Power of Attorney put in place if you feel you’re being coerced to do so. This can give someone the power to make medical decisions for you if you’re incapacitated – but if you don’t think they have your best interests at heart, don’t do it. Ask someone else to take on LPA for you if you want to have one in place.
Asking You to Take Credit in Your Name
When a person suggests they can’t access credit in their name, such as a loan, credit card, or mortgage, they might ask you to take out credit and lend them the money. This is never a good idea. Once again, financially linking yourself to someone with poor credit will impact your own – and that’s if you can even apply for credit in your name.
Forcing you to take out a loan in your name, and transferring them the money (or, they might have access to your bank account already), can be fraudulent. It also impacts your own ability to access loans and lines of credit. If they don’t make repayments, you’re the one on the hook for them, not them.
What You Can Do
It’s easy to say “just leave them” but, in reality, that’s much harder. Not having access to your money makes an exit plan tricky. Your first step is to talk to someone, whether that’s a charity helpline, a friend, relative, or (if you have been isolated from everyone else), a coworker or neighbour. Make sure someone knows about your situation.
Wherever possible, squirrel away cash either into a secret savings account or physical cash somewhere safe.
Set up a new current account and have your salary or benefits paid into it. If you want to avoid letters coming to your home which confirm the account being opened, ask a trusted friend to have them sent ‘care of’ their address for security.
The next steps can cause an escalation in behaviour, so it is best to have a plan to be in a safe place before you carry them out. Stay with a friend, relative, or find a place in a shelter if you can.
Alert your bank to the issue of coercive control, and let them know the person does not have permission to access your account. Change your passwords and cancel your cards.
Request new ones sent to branch to collect, or to a safe address.
If someone has committed fraud, such as posing as you to open lines of credit, contact the lender to let them know.
Finally, change passwords on all your cloud storage, phone, computer, credit card login, and Paypal login. This will ensure the abuser can’t continue to access your emails or financial information.
Where to Get Help
If you feel in immediate danger for your safety, call 999. Surviving Economic Abuse is for anyone who has suffered or is suffering from financial abuse and has a lot of useful resources offer support.
The Financial Support Line for Victims of Domestic Abuse specialises in financial abuse support and is run by the Money Plus Advice charity. Call them on 0808 196 8845.
Women’s Aid can help women and non-binary people in financial abuse situations. There is an online chat or you can call 0808 200 0247.