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How to deal with someone who won't pay you back...

sushi said:
Money lending rules:

1. Never lend money to family or friends.

2. But if you do, never expect to be paid back.

3. Never lend money that you can't afford to do without.

Rules to the wise! :)
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never lend money to family? thats a little harsh dont you think. I mean i am talking about family family, not some in breed third cousin from who knows where. I'm talking about your mom...say she gets jailed..and is asking for bail..you are just going to say no?
 
iOrlando said:
never lend money to family? thats a little harsh dont you think. I mean i am talking about family family, not some in breed third cousin from who knows where. I'm talking about your mom...say she gets jailed..and is asking for bail..you are just going to say no?
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It's ok to GIVE your family money, just not lend it. I've bailed out a couple family members... Because I didn't expect the money to be returned, the relationships were not destroyed. One paid me back and the other didn't. The one that paid me back... Well I considered that a blessing, not the closure of a contract I was heavily anticipating.
 
Not sure where all you people are coming from with the "just let her keep it". If the OP made it clear that they have obligations that need to be fulfilled then this girl is NOT a good friend as she is screwing you royally. I've lent money to friends and lost friends over it, if there is an agreement stick to it, if I can't trust you word I wouldn't want the person as a friend anyway.
 
iOrlando said:
never lend money to family? thats a little harsh dont you think. I mean i am talking about family family, not some in breed third cousin from who knows where. I'm talking about your mom...say she gets jailed..and is asking for bail..you are just going to say no?
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No it is not harsh at all. It's called reality.

If you lend money to a family member with the intent that you'll be paid back, more than likely there will be issues and you will be disappointed. It's best to just give them the money, if you can afford to loose the money. If you can't afford to loose the money, then don't lend it in the first place.

Using this system you will be happy either way, but pleasantly surprised if they pay it back.

scottness said:
It's ok to GIVE your family money, just not lend it. I've bailed out a couple family members... Because I didn't expect the money to be returned, the relationships were not destroyed. One paid me back and the other didn't. The one that paid me back... Well I considered that a blessing, not the closure of a contract I was heavily anticipating.
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Well said.

GIFT --> Okay.

LEND --> Not a good idea.

No1451 said:
Not sure where all you people are coming from with the "just let her keep it". If the OP made it clear that they have obligations that need to be fulfilled then this girl is NOT a good friend as she is screwing you royally. I've lent money to friends and lost friends over it, if there is an agreement stick to it, if I can't trust you word I wouldn't want the person as a friend anyway.
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Good point.

Bottom line, if you really want to lend money to someone, make up a quick contract. It can be real simple. Such as:

------------------------------------------------
Today's Date

Person A agrees to lend $1,000 to person B.

Person B agrees to pay back person A in 11 monthly payments of $100.

Both signature blocks
------------------------------------------------

Print two copies and then you both sign both copies.

Note, the 11th payment is interest on the loan.

Once people put their signature on a document you have a much better chance of them paying it back.
 
sushi said:
Money lending rules:

1. Never lend money to family or friends.

2. But if you do, never expect to be paid back.

3. Never lend money that you can't afford to do without.

Rules to the wise! :)
Click to expand...

learned that the hard way

lent money (in the thousands) to my parents who have never paid me back and that was 8 years ago. Was like all my money too from saving

A couple years ago, my parents again asked me for a large sum and i told them no. Hard position for your parents to put you in...

Just because I live under my means and they live over theirs doesnt mean I want to lend money

Do I want to have alot of nice things? yes. However, I save to save, not to save so I can lend it to people

iOrlando said:
never lend money to family? thats a little harsh dont you think. I mean i am talking about family family, not some in breed third cousin from who knows where. I'm talking about your mom...say she gets jailed..and is asking for bail..you are just going to say no?
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Harsh, no, not if they take advantage of you...

In my case, my dad was in jail and he needed bail money. I refused purely based on the last time they "borrowed" from me and never saw a dime. Nonetheless, I needed it as well


From my experience, family members tend to be more likely to take advantage of you because you are family and they figure since its family, you will be very lax, if at all in demanding payment. Kinda ironic dont you think?
 
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never a lender nor a borrower be ;)

friends and family are usually the worst offenders, good luck getting ya money back, if ya get drastic in ya attempts ya might just lose them,
 
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Bluntly ask her when she is going to pay back the money as YOU made it clear u wanted it back end of the day. if she is holding out on u on false accusations, then i would suggest plainly saying that you need to pay bills and that she has money that u need. that said, don't lend money to this person ever again.

dukebound85 said:
learned that the hard way

lent money (in the thousands) to my parents who have never paid me back and that was 8 years ago.
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that just sucks. and they never paid u back? if it is in the thousands, i don't care who it is. i would want my money paid back. i hope they reciprocate the favor back in the future.
 
Try telling her that you really need it and need to know when you can expect to receive it back. I never lend any amount of money that I can't afford to loose, because there is only a 50/50 chance of ever getting it back...
 
To those that wouldn't let money "ruin" a friendship: do you always let your friends walk all over you?

Seriously, it's not about the money, it's about a friend who is lying to your face.

I don't lend money to friends, but if this happened to me, I'd expect them to be begging for forgiveness and working at night delivering pizzas to pay it back. A friend would feel absolutely terrible about the situation, not making excuses.

Write the person off.
 
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I'm in this situation now. A co-worker asked for a loan. I gave her the money but I required a postdated check for the amount. It was awkward at first to ask for it (she's borrowed before) but it works out.

I guess the only thing that can go wrong there is if she calls the bank and issues a stop payment for the check but I don't expect that. But like other posters said, don't loan amounts out you can't afford to lose.
 
Don't loan money period. I loaned a good friend $3,000 because he was late on his mortgage. He said he would pay me back in a week when he got paid. He never did, that was over 2 years ago. We are no longer friends.
 
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Another +1 for not lending money to friends.

I "sold" my car to a friend before moving across the country. He gave me half of what I asked for and promised me the other half when payday rolled around. Because he was my friend, I let him take the car. His cell phone suddenly quit working and he quit showing up to the places I would usually see him. He even started avoiding mutual friends because I was relaying messages that way. His wife and my girlfriend at the time were very close friends and they lost contact as well. :rolleyes:
 
Never been in this situation. In my group of friends if someone doesn't have the money to pay for something i.e. (movie ticket, fast food, etc.) usually someone else in the group will offer to pay for the person without it being borrowed, purely just buying it for the other person. Then when you don't have enough someone else covers you, and so on. We don't abuse this privilege and I guess i'm lucky that it's always worked with my groups of friends, i've noticed other groups try this and fail.
 
99MustangGTman said:
Never been in this situation. In my group of friends if someone doesn't have the money to pay for something i.e. (movie ticket, fast food, etc.) usually someone else in the group will offer to pay for the person without it being borrowed, purely just buying it for the other person. Then when you don't have enough someone else covers you, and so on. We don't abuse this privilege and I guess i'm lucky that it's always worked with my groups of friends, i've noticed other groups try this and fail.
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This is exactly what we do as well. Works wonderfully.
 
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99MustangGTman said:
Never been in this situation. In my group of friends if someone doesn't have the money to pay for something i.e. (movie ticket, fast food, etc.) usually someone else in the group will offer to pay for the person without it being borrowed, purely just buying it for the other person. Then when you don't have enough someone else covers you, and so on. We don't abuse this privilege and I guess i'm lucky that it's always worked with my groups of friends, i've noticed other groups try this and fail.
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And this only works because there are no loans made and none of them are too frequent moochers, right? Your friends can be my friends.
 
Just to update:

I did receive my money in full this past Tuesday. I didn't bother to ask what the excuse was even though she did apologize profusely for giving me the runaround. I'm just happy that I have it all back. As far as our friendship, I think we're in a good place. I just now know ahead of time that she's a bit irresponsible and spacey with people's things so that's going to be an automatic "NO".

And, I will never lend money out again. From this point on, I'm just telling anyone who asks for a loan that I am broke LOL.
 
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timerollson said:
Just to update:

I did receive my money in full this past Tuesday. I didn't bother to ask what the excuse was even though she did apologize profusely for giving me the runaround. I'm just happy that I have it all back. As far as our friendship, I think we're in a good place. I just now know ahead of time that she's a bit irresponsible and spacey with people's things so that's going to be an automatic "NO".

And, I will never lend money out again. From this point on, I'm just telling anyone who asks for a loan that I am broke LOL.
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Glad it worked out in the end.

Lots of good advice in this thread. I guess for me it would not be the money so much as trust. If a friend needed a loan, I would want to trust that he or she really needed the money or else they wouldn't have asked, and then I would trust that they would pay it back when they say they would, and do their darndest to make sure that happens. I would also trust that if I had to ask, "Hey, what gives?" that I would get an honest answer, and not a run-around, and if there was truly a problem, then I could forgive the debt or work out a payment plan.

I would expect all of that because that's what (I hope*) I would do if I needed to borrow money from someone.

Finding out that the trust is being abused would hurt me a lot more than the lack of a few dollars. Money you can always make more of. Yes, it could hurt me to be missing the money but if it truly was for a good reason then I would be willing to make sacrifices for a friend.

That said, there are relatively few people I know that I could trust to that level. If you're in that category, I'll move mountains for you. If you're not... well, then you're probably out of luck.


* When I was a kid in high school I was a total jerk. A friend was always willing to loan me a few dollars here and there for stupid things like a bag of chips at the convenience store. He kept a running tab and I hardly ever paid him back in cash. Instead he would offer to clear the debts by getting me to do dumb things, e.g. "if you'll eat this, I'll take $10 off the tab". He was a good sport about it, much more than I deserved. "R.G.", if you're out there somewhere, I'm really sorry I took advantage of the situation.
 
timerollson said:
And, I will never lend money out again. From this point on, I'm just telling anyone who asks for a loan that I am broke LOL.
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That's probably the best approach. I think you could impact friendships if you state as rule you don't lend money (anymore). Stating you don't have it to give, nips all of that in the bud
 
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99MustangGTman said:
Never been in this situation. In my group of friends if someone doesn't have the money to pay for something i.e. (movie ticket, fast food, etc.) usually someone else in the group will offer to pay for the person without it being borrowed, purely just buying it for the other person. Then when you don't have enough someone else covers you, and so on. We don't abuse this privilege and I guess i'm lucky that it's always worked with my groups of friends, i've noticed other groups try this and fail.
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That's not loaning money, that's just being nice. :D

In my culture (the Vietnamese half anyways) people are separated by either being money "generous" or money "stingy." Generous people operate as you describe. When everyone goes out to lunch, one person picks up the tab. The person who pays informally rotates because everyone contributes. Stingy people count down to the nickel who pays what. Guess which group I'd rather be a part of.
 
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Most likely, if you just calm down, and stop harassing her about it, you'll get your money next time she gets paid. Most people only ask friends for a loan when they're far into the hole. She probably thought she only needed that money for one day, and then everything else she owed came to the surface.

Or you'll never see it again. You know, one or the other.

Edit: Oh, I guess you did get it back.
 
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