When you work hard to save some money for college, you want to make sure the money is safe and growing at a good rate.

What would you do if your brother took money from a family friend to manage so they could go to college, and then he lost it gambling.

That is the situation the woman in this story finds herself in, and she told the family friend even though her brother asked her not to.

Now everyone is upset.

Check it out.

I (30M) found out my younger brother, “Tom” (28M), stole $5,000 from my little sister’s (18F) best friend, “Emma” (18F).

Tom and Emma’s families have always been close, and Emma practically grew up with us.

My mom asked Tom to help Emma manage her money for college because she trusted him with it (he works in finance).

He has a serious gambling problem.

Tom recently confessed to me that he “borrowed” $5,000 from Emma’s college fund and blew it on gambling.

He said he planned to replace it before anyone noticed, but he lost everything.

He begged me not to tell anyone, saying he’s going through a rough patch and just needs time to make it right.

Emma’s family doesn’t have a lot of money, and she worked super hard to save for school.

He put her in a terrible situation.

Knowing this, I felt sick.

I didn’t want to betray my brother, but Emma’s future is on the line.

So, I told Emma the truth.

She was devastated and confronted Tom, who denied everything at first, but eventually broke down and admitted it.

Tom ruined his own life.

Now, my family’s furious with me for “ruining” Tom’s life and says I should have given him a chance to fix it.

Tom won’t speak to me.

AITA?

She did the right thing, Tom needs to get help and hopefully this will be the first step towards that end.

Let’s see what other people in the comments think.

This comment says he didn’t borrow, he stole.

She absolutely did the right thing.

Tom has a serious problem.

I was wondering this too.

This person says that the parents should be more concerned about the brother.

Her brother has a major gambling problem.

It’s not going to get better if people keep bailing him out.

If you liked that story, read this one about grandparents who set up a college fund for their grandkid because his parents won’t, but then his parents want to use the money to cover sibling’s medical expenses.