It’s one thing to make a mistake. It’s another to build a side hustle out of someone else’s stuff.

What would you do if your teenage niece came into your house under the pretense of helping out, then stole hundreds of dollars’ worth of perfume and sold it to her friends online?

Would you chalk it up to just ‘being a kid’ and give her another chance?

Or would you hand her parents a bill and ban her from your home?

In today’s story, one aunt finds herself dealing with this same situation and chooses the latter.

Here’s what happened.

AITA for demanding that my niece, or her parents, pay me back for the hundreds of dollars of perfume she stole from me?

I have a perfume collection that I started when I was a teenager slinging burritos at my first job.

I have over 400 bottles at this point, I take great pride in my collection, and I use it.

I’m also happy to give people decants (samples) of most of my bottles, let them sample a spray or two, or even give some bottles as gifts.

What I have a HUGE issue with is my 17-year-old niece coming into my home under the guise of walking my dog, decanting bottles on her own, and SELLING THE SAMPLES to her little friends.

She thinks that because I have so many bottles, I wouldn’t notice some missing or getting massive dents in them.

Unfortunately for the teen, she figured out what was going on thanks to Instagram.

Well, little miss entrepreneur failed to realize that her “private” Instagram wasn’t “friends only” or whatever, and I saw each and every story with every price and sample she had.

I tallied it all up and got a pretty good estimate based on cost per ounce.

Thankfully she mostly picked the “Tiktok famous” perfumes like Bianco Latte and Escapade Gourmand and didn’t go for the most rare, niche perfumes.

She did snatch an entire 2.5-oz bottle of Baccarat Rouge, though, which runs $300+ at most retailers.

She also took a few full bottles of perfumes you can get at Sephora, like Marc Jacobs Daisy, Burberry Her Elixir, Flowerbomb, etc.

She wants her money back, but her sister is not happy about it.

Petty or not, I printed out the entire list of what she’d taken, price estimate, and handed it off to my sister (her mom). I said that I expect to be paid back in full.

And of course, her sneaky little self is never allowed in my home again.

My sister got super mad at me, and started going on about how my niece is just a kid, kids make mistakes, etc.

I said yes, kids make mistakes, and this is a GREAT way for my niece to learn from hers.

Their argument is that now the money she was going to use for a car has to go towards paying me back. I don’t care.

She is lucky that I have no interest in involving the police, small claims, or any of that.

AITA?

Yikes! That girl has a lot of nerve.

Let’s see how the folks over at Reddit would handle this situation.

This reader thinks that by 17, the teen should know better.

Here’s an excellent point.

According to this person, she may not get the money back without the help of the police.

For this reader, the teen is lucky the consequences aren’t worse.

Apparently, decants from vintage scents sell for a lot.

Repayment is more than fair.

Her mother should be thankful that she’s not pressing charges, because theft is theft.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.