u/Flimsy_Plate2763

I’m going insane in my house. I keep getting the short end of the stick. I feel like I get stepped on, and when I try to make my point my whole family act like I’m aggressive (I’m the only one who doesn’t have a short temper). I’m a pretty reserved person, and I don’t usually like to argue.

The previous paragraph sounds like a nightmare, and although it’s completely true, it’s not all hell. My parents are fair people, but they do have their moments. But my brother, on the other hand, is going to make me go insane.

I’ll get to the point, he’s 2 years older than me (I’m 20, he’s 22), hes supposed to be my closest person, all throughout my child hood, I was told to keep him like he was my other half, but I used to get bullied really bad as a child from him, every insecurity I have to this day has started from him. It did get better though, he matured and he stopped putting me through hell, he even started doing things for me that I probably wouldn’t do, he would take me with him on holidays when I had no money, he would always buy me food and never ask for the money back ( I’m more of a stingy person but I don’t ask for money back lolol ), at first I really thought he had changed.

then I quickly realised he just wanted me there with him for leisure. Whenever I had an idea of doing something, my opinion was never taken to account, I thought maybe it’s because he’s the one with the money, but this carries on now even when I’m paying for myself, or sometimes him too.

In the past year it’s gotten real bad tho. We both finished school (he finished uni and I’m on a gap year) and spending more time with him has made me despise him. We have conversations, he say his part, I say my part, and he just talks over me, I’ll then respond, and he will just be on his phone and sending a voice note to someone. We both have our priorities, I’m studying for entrance exams for uni, he’s attending meetings for some jobs and courses he does. Now an altercation occured beteeen him and my father, and it ended with MY laptop being smashed, the laptop that had everything on it. I was able to recover some stuff but not all, my dad didn’t take responsibility and nor did my brother. My brother said we can split the money on a new laptop but I rejected, because knowing him, I’ll just be paying for half of his laptop, not a joint one. So I bought an iPad, strategically because you can’t really share it. His meetings started going online now, and he doesn’t have a proper device so I would let him use mine (not really like I had a choice tbf) but then I would have some of my own lessons and meetings, and the timings would clash, but whenever they would clash, he would just not give a damn about me, he would just keep telling me he needs it, interrupting me and none stop nagging, I just gave in. And gave it away.

He said my lessons and meetings are not that serious I can do it on my phone, but what he didn’t consider was that I had to type, he didn’t. But that didn’t matter. I decided that later that day I would not go out for food with him and some friends because I just wasn’t in the mood, and he called me childish. I realised, when someone doesn’t care about your priorities, they probably don’t care about you either. When I asked him why it’s so imperative that he must use my iPad for these meetings he says he likes it better than a phone because the iPad has a stand…

He now uses my sisters laptop because I’ve started to go to a local coffee shop to conduct all my business, so I’m pretty much there during all my time not at work. At first he didn’t like it because the laptop wasn’t good quality but he had to concede.

I would buy myself expensive perfumes, and they kept going missing, I then find out he would take them with him to work and uni, using them as his every day spray, but his own ones he would not use. I felt like an idiot because I would always ask if I could ever use his ones, but he didn’t give a damn about asking me.

I ended up having an argument with my mum, because I didn’t like the way my brother would speak to me on the phone, especially when I’m around others. He would call and be like “where the F r u, come home now”, and there would be no rush at all, he just wants to assert the ‘older brother’ dominance. I hate it and I would always tell him to stop, but he probably never heard my complaints. One time I was at my girlfriends house, and he does it, although it wasn’t on speaker, her whole family heard it, so I told him to fix up on call to save face, he didn’t say anything and hung up. My mother was defending him, and then started to go on about how I no longer spend time with my siblings and I don’t really care about what goes on in their lives (not true I’m just busy with my own stuff), it went out of hand and my mum got really offended because she thought I insinuated that she’s not smart because he doesn’t understand my POV.

Recently we had an argument on our dad’s birthday. He was “fixing” a draw in the kitchen, and he wanted to push the fridge for extra room, but my hands were dirty preparing food, I told him to wait a sec whilst I wash my hands, and he rudely told me to “hurry the F up”, so I tell him to watch his tone and I’ve had it with his tone, he then starts insulting me, saying I’m not a man, and I need to man up, and I’m a female, blah blah, I didn’t hurl insults at him, I just tried to point out to him that he’s being very inconsiderate, and then he pointed out that I’m a very inconsiderate person. To which my parents surprisingly took my side (the only time I remember them actually doing this), i brought up the situation at my girlfriends house, then he said im like this because if my gf, and that they don’t know how brothers are supposed to behave… I was so angry, I didn’t speak to him for days. But he just kept acting like nothing happened. So things are back to normal now ig, if I was to ask for some sort of apology my family would act like being petty.

I don’t know what to do, I was going to move out for uni ( even tho it’s the same city ) but my sfe won’t even cover half. I don’t want to live in this house. Thank god I spend only the weekends at home because I would have went insane already. Am I blowing it all up ? Is this normal ? What should I do??

(Sorry for the long post)

I booked a practical test on a confirmed scam website (pass drive school), and they have all my details, such as my name, DoB, license number and theory test number. Realistically how screwed am I? I’m confident I will get my money back, but that’s only half the problem, I’m afraid they can use my details for far worse.

I’m desperate for a test this summer, I jumped onto a website and after going on call I booked through. It cost me about £895 for 20 hours of lesson and a driving test. I considered the price to be fairly cheap. They had a test in late July, but I also think they had some earlier ones too. But since booking I’ve become slightly wary and I think I may have been scammed. They told me it will take up to 21 days for the dvsa to send me a confirmation email about my test date, but they assured me that everything is set in stone. I don’t really care about the quality of lessons anymore, I just want the test date. Does anyone have any experience with them ? They seem like a new business.

This is going to be a long one.

Essentially, I’ve (20y/o male) made a complete fool of myself. I booked my practical test for June 6th all the way back in January the day I passed my theory test. I waited until march to start lessons because I wasn’t making enough money as I’m a student and ish isn’t cheap :’).

I start lessons at my local driving school, and my teacher is a young guy who’s nice but I can tell he’s dragging on the lessons. I noticed he would always arrive a little late, pick me up, drive me to a random road and park in front of a house, to start the lesson wasting a further 5 or so mins. He would then ask me personal questions completely unrelated, to try to “get to know me”, but in hindsight it was to waste more time. 10 or so mins after the time booked for the test to start I would finally get in the drivers seat and get going, but for 10 hours straight, I would drive only in my local roads, not even going to the main roads. (Apart from once where he directed me to a nearby petrol station because he needed more fuel).

I obviously I got the hint I was being scammed but I didn’t want to confront him or ask for the money back, because potentially this might all be normal and I’m just overthinking it. At the very beginning I made it very clear that I’m new to driving and I didn’t know much about how these lessons will work, so maybe he saw it as an opportunity to money farm. He would be on ph0ne calls about other business or be on call to family (less often), I used to find this very distracting and I would make mistakes during this time. I also caught him scrolling too a couple times.

After the 10 hours were up, I decided I needed the best, so I went to the school and hand picked the teacher with the most passed on their Instagram at my test centre. First lesson happens, and he essentially makes it very clear to me that I’ve been scammed and that he’s ever heard of the instructor that taught me, he ends up saying that he thinks he knows that happened but he said I shouldn’t worry about it so he didn’t say. During this lesson, I noticed a couple things but I looked past it because he’s supposed to the the best, he would speak condescending to me (sarcasm and blatant rudeness) and he would ask very weird personal questions and giving me unsolicited advice (about my girlfriend not being of the same religion as me), I’m fairness, he actually taught me a fair bit for the two hours, I leave happy.

The next lesson rolls by, and this is where the problems begin, he takes me to learn uphill starting, and I’m still making mistakes from basic things drilled into me because my old instructor never corrected me, he makes a comment saying I won’t pass even if it’s September (it’s mid April), by the end of the lesson I grew fed up of his sarcasm and jokes surrounding my personal life. But again, I tried to look past it because he seemed quite good at actually teaching me. At the end of the lesson I went on a 30min run of flawless driving where he was reluctant to give me some sort of affirmation, and went on to say June might be 50/50 whether I pass, and he can try to swap a test with me for July or August. I end up booking two lessons more lessons. The next lesson he tells me he has found something for September but I was reluctant because it’s too far and I was pretty confident I would learn by June anyways, he says whatever I want we will do (this is the turning point in my opinion), he then takes me through big roundabouts, country roads and, dual carriageways. Throughout all this I’m making mistakes, as obviously I’m a new driver, but everytime I make a mistake he acts as if I’m a complete idiot, he’s so demeaning, he would congratulate me on my mistakes and misjudgements. Again I try to look past it.

Before my next lesson happens I thought I may aswell warm up with my father the day before, I ask him on text if there is anything I’m not quite so good at that I could try and practice with my father, he says “your not good at driving, you should practice that”, this gets to me, I become so unconfident, which makes me very bad. I get in with my dad and I’m a complete mess, and my dad has to kick me out the drivers seat, which in fairness, I was absolutely shocking and I nearly crashed. This is all because I have a pit in my stomach, planted by my teacher, he’s made me hate driving, I notice that I dread every lesson leading up to his lesson.

This morning I wake up with this pit in my stomach but I push through, I get in the car with him and I start driving, I stupidly told him about the mess than happened with my father, which he would then go onto mock me about a couple times during the lesson. To my surprise I’m not actually driving all that bad, not perfectly, probably not good enough to pass, but not bad enough for it to be a worry. He doesn’t say anything good, he nitpicks, but I tell myself maybe he just wants to make me a better driver. Then I tell him that I studied YouTube vids about

manoeuvres we haven’t done yet, where he responds in a sarcastic voice, saying he’s excited to see that. We go onto learn parallel parking, where he shows me one time, he assists me the next, then I try myself after. When it comes time for me to do it myself, I leave quite a big gap from the curb, and then he says “are you ready to move on” I look at him confused because if I didn’t get it right why would I be ready, he follows up with “because it’s your test not mine so if you fail, I won’t lose anything, you will, isn’t it?” At this point I’m completely fuming. I tell him “you are my teacher, if you think I will fail this manoeuvre, then we should go over it again until I get good at it”, he says “if your ready to go we can go, not a problem to me” I don’t respond I just give him a look to say that we should try again.

Understandably I’m pretty pissed, and as a person I tend to keep my cool, but I don’t respond well to people speaking rudely, but again I don’t usually make a scene it just really ticks me off (tough love isn’t my thing). So I try again but I lose coordination, and I don’t do very well although by the end I did get it parked. He tells me “you didn’t do the blind spot check and you have zero understanding about the spatial awareness of the car” I try again, this time I make sure to do my checks, whilst I’m going it, I reverse abit too far back, he says “I think the old instructor got fed up of you and decided he didn’t care if you learned anymore or not” now I’m completely pissed off, but I maintain myself, I start over, he says “again you didn’t do the blind spot check” I tell him “I did you just didn’t notice” he went on his ph0ne for a brief moment (I noticed this whilst doing the check btw), he says “no don’t worry I don’t care, you can lie to me but not ur examiner”, I ignore it and I complete the manoeuvre perfectly he then says that I won’t pass my test even if it was June next year. I tell him I’m ready and we move on. This whole time I’m completely silent to him, even if he speaks to me. I make a few mistakes but if I’m being honest, I was so close to walking out right there, that I stopped caring. He stopped by a mosque so he could use the toilet, he told me to watch a YouTube video about self commentary. I don’t do this, I just try to gather myself, I can feel tears coming out from pure rage, not even like I was crying, just rage. He comes back, and we drive, I’m not driving well at all and he doesn’t stop, but then he tells me that he always moves on when the student feels ready so it’s not just me. We practice stopping on the right, I ask him a question about how to know how long a three car distance is, and he looks at me like I’m a complete clown. And he lectured me about my spatial awareness.

We drive home and the whole time I’m just trying to make it to the end of the lesson. When we stop by the house, I’m ready to stop, he then says actually keep going we will try the right stop again, and when I drive, I pass the turn because I’ll be completely honest, I didn’t understand what he said, and I was completely turned off. He asked why did I make the mistake, I told him that I didn’t really understand what he said, he goes onto say again that I don’t understand anything and that’s my issue. Anyways I’m happy I made it to the end of the lesson, he tells me to have a good day, I just say bye, I walk in my house and I started to burst into tears of rage. I regrettably cancelled my test and went straight to my girlfriend’s house. I tell him that I cancelled my test and that I want a refund for the remaining hours, he tells me he will only give me the refund because he likes me as a student (yh im so sure of that lol).

A couple hours later I start to hate myself for cancelling the lesson. So I’m scrounging the internet for another test. I stumble onto a website called Pass Drive School, I did minor research (trust pilot reviews) and o paid for 20 hours of lessons and a test that comes included. The thing is, that test date sounds too good to be true. I paid £900 altogether. I get a email confirming my payment and that I should expect an instructor to email me. But what I don’t get is a dvsa confirmation for a driving test. I call them about this, they say it could take up to 3 weeks for the test to process but I shouldn’t worry as it’s all set in stone, but then I do some digging, I notice that this website have no sort of social media, they’re not even a company on the gov.uk website, their address doesn’t match anything, all their reviews are from 2026, the reviewers don’t have many other reviews (some do but they are for similar websites), and I see a good few reviews are AI generated. I check their terms and conditions, they have a 21 day refund policy which sounds awfully convenient, since it also takes up to 21 days to get a dvsa confirmation. I saw someone on Reddit say that they had an instructor get in touch but their first lessons could only be booked after 21 days of the purchase. I’ve become very alarmed. £900 is a lot for me. This is all happening before my a level exams I’m sitting this summer too, I tend to always do things the hard way, this is definitely no exception. I don’t know what to do, is the company a scam, am I even good enough to pass… I’m just worried.