Growing up, I think I cost my parents quite a hefty sum of money. Toys, CDs (do they still exist), overseas school trips, accessory expenses that probably added up to hundreds of dollars.
Yeah, I was pretty spoilt.
However, nothing compared to this kid who wiped out tens of thousands from her parents’ bank accounts.
Cheeky Accident
One fateful day, a couple went to an Audi Showroom bringing their child with them.
For just a moment, they were not watching the kid.
And that turned out to be a costly mistake.
They did not know that the child was armed with a stone in her hand. As such, in Guilin, China on November 24, she went around and scratched ten brand new Audi vehicles on display.
One of them was even the latest model, the 2020 Audi Q8.
Talk about a costly mistake.
Although she is none the wiser, the parents were in hot water.
At first glance, it may seem that the scratches were not a big deal. It would be easy to just repaint the area that was scratched, right?
Wrong.
According to the car salesperson, the Audi vehicles that were scratched can no longer be sold as ‘brand new’ cars, no matter the paint job. If marketed as ‘brand new’, they would be liable for fraud. Therefore, the damaged cars can only be let go at a lower price.
At first, the car dealer asked for 200,000 Yuan (~S$38,650) as compensation for the scratches on the car, but the parents refused to pay such an exorbitant amount.
Unable to come to a compromise, they settled on a court mediation. In the end it was decided that the couple would pay one lump sum of 70,000 Yuan (~S$13,500).
According to the court, reasons like the “the kid is still young” or “the child doesn’t understand” are not valid mitigatory factors.
The couple should have watched over their daughter better, and not let her out of their sight.
Parental Negligence
In other countries, they have laws about parental liability, for both civil and criminal cases. That means that if a child gets in legal trouble, the parent will probably be held responsible to some extent.
In Singapore, that liability is divorced and placed solely on the child. That is, if the child runs into legal trouble (for example, steals a pen), the parents are not necessarily implicated.
That is unless they are negligent. Negligence here is a legal term, that means that if the parents were present, and they could have reasonably exercised proper oversight of a child that could prevent hurt or damage but did not, they will be held liable.
For example, if you hand your child a knife and he stabs someone, then you were negligent because you did not provide proper oversight of your child.
However, if the child took a knife by himself when you were not present, and stabbed someone, it would not be your liability.
Well, at least I can tell my parents they did not spend that much money on me relatively.
