So I’m in a weird spot with another parent and I need to know if I’m actually the jerk here.
Last Saturday my son had a friend over. They were playing outside and the kid basically left his phone in the ground. When they came in he put the phone—which was gross—right on my couch pillow. I was already walking around cleaning doorknobs and stuff with a Clorox wipe. I had wrung the wipe out so it was basically dry, and I'd already used it on like 5 other surfaces including my phone so it barely had any moisture left.
I asked the kid if I could wipe the dirt off his case and he said yeah go ahead. I gave the case a quick 2 second wipe and that was it.
The kid used the phone the rest of the day, was on Snapchat that night, and used it all Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. Then on Wednesday, the screen goes black.
Now his mom is expecting me to buy a new phone. She's claiming "water damage" from the wipe. The thing is, this phone is an iPhone 13 (so like 5 years old), the screen was ALREADY cracked, and the mom literally told me it was "very messed up and on its last leg" before this even happened.
I offered to take it to a repair shop to see if a wipe could even cause that, but she REFUSES to let me see the phone or have it checked. She also banned her son from my house but told him not to tell me (he told my son anyway and said keep it a secret).
I was gonna just pay for a new one to keep the peace, but after finding out she’s banning the kids and being sneaky about it, I don't feel like rewarding her for a phone that was already dying. My son is embarrassed but I feel like I'm being shaken down.
AITA if I stand my ground??