I have a friend who has an Esty shop. Let’s call her A. There is another friend of mine who is her partner, let’s call her B. The Esty shop was A’s idea and it was created under A’s account and is connected to A’s bank account. As far as I know, the shop sells colorful holiday-themed stickers and what I can only describe as on-demand birthday videos. Apparently B is in charge of the stickers and A is in charge of the videos. B designed all the stickers herself. I heard from B that A makes videos alongside her mom.

I have been in contact with B extensively and I have always felt odd about their money matter. B told me that A’s videos were doing well, but she didn’t share a single penny with her. At first both of us thought A wanted each of them to get our own money from the things they were in charge with, which was weird to me but could be reasonable if done right. B is a minor and has told me multiple times that she couldn’t open her own shop because she doesn’t have a bank account, so I could be fine with the idea that A was lending her the shop and she could manage her things as if this was her own shop.

But just some time ago I received a message from B. She said that the money for the stickers were in and A wanted to split it in half. This went against our earlier hypothesis and B was confused and distressed. I asked B to ask A if the money for the videos should be split too. B did just that, and it was revealed to her that the videos were designed by A’s aunt and uploaded by her mom, so the only money that A could share with B was the money from the stickers.

I was truly infuriated to hear that. If A wasn’t allowed to share the money, then why didn’t she tell anyone earlier? After all B is A’s partner, so she is allowed to know every detail about the business and the money. I have been suspecting this before, and now I’m convinced that B has been taken advantage of the whole time. A wants all the glory for herself and this is just a lame excuse not to pay her partner fairly.

What do you think about this?