Loaning money to your "friends"
 

I used to always loan money to my friends whenever they needed it. Some would pay me back right away, others would take a little longer. Anyway, one day someone who I thought was my friend needed to borrow some money to help him move. I thought I could help him out. He showed me how he was going to pay me using his bank to put the money into my account. So I loaned him a large sum ($1000). Haven't heard from him again. Been 8 months.
I learned my lesson to never loan money again. Anyone else have a similar story?
I was wondering, does anyone write up paperwork when they loan friends money? Would anything like this hold up in court and are there any sample paperwork out there?

I have the guys name, social, place of birth, date of birth. Anything I can do with this to avenge myself? :devious:

I never loan money to friends. I give them money if they need it with no expectation of that money being returned.
No, let it go.

I have given away thousands of dollars over the years.

Friends is friends, business is business. I don't mix up the two.

reminds me of this clip...

I did recently make a note to loan a business a sum of money. I'm still waiting for that business to make good on the note. I'm ready to place a lien against the business for the monies owed in case the company folds.

Do you have emails or your cancelled check to him to show that you loaned him the exact amount and that you never received payment? Those alone would hold up in court, though signed documents would be better. Even an "IOU $1000" with both signatures holds up in court. Small claims court, anyway.

I only loan Ch'i money because I know he'll pay it back.

My policy is to never loan money I can't afford to lose. It can actually be a great way to get a handle on the character of some people, and since I know I don't really need it anyway I don't have to stress if it never finds it's way back to me.

So I guess that's a bit like Cynthetiq, but not.

Agreed. good clip too lol.

The only time I ever loaned money to a friend it turned out to be a disaster. I think it was something like $1500-2500 and it took him YEARS to pay it back, usually $100 every few months. Fortunately he did end up paying it all back, but what a stress on our relationship. He was supposed to pay it back within 3 months.

Shitty that your friend did that to you. Better to learn at 1k than at 5k or higher. Now you know for future deals. Is there anyway can you recoup that money? Do you know where he works? If the friendship is shot and no way to repair I would seek any means to get the cash back if i really needed it.

if not chalk it up to lesson learned.

For me i never lend only give because i fucking hate asking for something you owe me. a true friend would never put me in that position. reminds me of roommates i had who would never pay and make it seemed like i was asking to borrow money or putting them out when it came time to pay the bills they owed. never again.

Mamma never raised no fool btw, i rented the apartment and all the bills in my roommates names and none of it was on my dime. So before i moved i just let all the bills go into default....oops. suckers.

Same thought here, especially when it comes to friends. If something else got in the way of repayment and ended a friendship it would be rather sad. If you can't give it up, just don't do it.

My thoughts on lending money to friends:

No no no no no no no no no. No no no no no no no no no no no.

The extent of my loaning money comes from paying the full cost of a pizza when my buddy Todd says he'll pay for drinks that night. He opens up a tab on his credit card, so its all good.

Yup. This is the rule I use. However, if they do want to pay me back, that's fine, too.

There was no receipt or anything. I just gave him cash. We are both in the Army. He is in Germany now. But I am working on finding out his unit, then I will contact his boss. I am sure he won't care or do anything about it so not going to stress over it. Maybe I will see him again one day...
Ever lend someone money or buy them lunch and they deny it the next day? That shit sucks.

I lent a friend of 20 years $800 and had her sign a note outlining how she would pay it back. She didn't. I threatened to sue-she sent one check for $250. I sued. She sent a second check for $150. That was two years ago. I'd lent her the money in 2000. Now whenever I drive past her house, I yell "$400, Bitch!". That's about the whole of it.
Never again.

Yeah, whenever I give friends money, it's not a loan. I don't expect it back at all. Also because I know they will do the same for me.

So it's best to just not mix things. No point in falling out with a friend because they don't pay you back - best avoided entirely. I'm with Cyn.

Never had a bad word to say about lending money to friends until now.
Today in fact, had a huge blow up with a friend due to their lack of motivation and ultimately lack of finances.

They already owe me a sum of money and had the nerve to ask me for more today.
It did not end well.

Which reminds me Cynthetiq why you been ducking me, have not seen you all weekend ever since I bought the tickets for the movie.

I have loaned large sums of money to friends, 5k+ before, but not just anyone has to be someone of trust, and done under only special circumstances. But mixing money with friendship is always a very dangerous thing.

When I was taking music seriously, I lent a band member $600. We took on a new drummer after our old one had a change of plans. The new drummer was the guy's best friend and we didn't get along, so they decided to kick me out. I never got the $600 back. I called him and emailed him many times, but was completely ignored. I figured I wasn't going to get a dime of my money back. He actually had the nerves to ask me to return a $100 effects pedal I had borrowed from him though. I told him, not until you paid me back. That was the last I heard from him. I learned my lesson.

Hey could somebody loan me a couple bucks?

Never loan out money, music, or tools.

I'm with Cynthetiq on the subject.

I don't usually expect the money back. I do have limits on how much they can ask for, but most of the time its just under 20 bucks.

Hell, I'm not into loaning anyone money really. I've only really loaned one person a larger sum of money, and I got it back eventually. We had a payment plan but after the first one he kinda flaked out on it. He finally received a chunk of cash that he was waiting on, and thus I got paid back, but the whole deal just turned me off on loaning him anything in the future. It was more the whole blowing it off until he got his chunk of money and not keeping to the original plan against anyone else. There's only one other person that I've even offered to loan any large sum of money to recently, and its what I can afford to not have paid back. Would it suck? Yes. But it's for something that would be worth it in the long run so I wouldn't worry about it a bit if it wasn't.

I've personally never lent any significant amount of money to friends. Even after reading the responses in this thread, if it was a close friend and he/she desperately needed it, I'd still probably try to help out. Of course, I'd be pretty clear in what the loan payback terms were up front, and I'd probably try to make everything airtight in some sort of legal contract. Maybe I'd try to find some sort of collateral, too.

Don't call them loans, they're really gifts that might be reciprocated back to you if you're fortunate.

I used to loan my friend cash fairly often. Sometimes he'd pay me back quickly. Sometimes it took a while. It was never a stress on the relationship.

I looked at it as if I was GIVING the guy money, so I never worried about getting it back.

My friends are few, but they are GOOD friends. I would do just about anything to help them out, and they'd do the same for me.

I'm trying to remember what movie they got that from. Was it lethal weapon or something?

I'm not in the habit of loaning money to friends. If I were to ever seriously consider it, I would write up a contract for them to sign their name to, stating how much is owed and the method of paying it back. Prior to the writing of the contract, I would need to believe them more than able to make the payments and possessing sufficient reason to do so beyond the contractual obligation (ie: strong/stable friendship, mutual contacts, trustworthiness).

The loan will only be made if it does not alter my financial circumstances and affect my current quality of living.

None of my friends have ever asked me for a loan.
If one of them asked, I'm pretty sure that I'd stop being their friend.

Giving friends money when I see they need it is an entirely different matter.

So many expats live down here on near nothing I'm always being hit up. These are people I've known less then a year. I don't loan I just give if I'm so inclined. But we're talking 100's not 1000's of dollars. I've had some come back and insist on repaying me and I've had other return for more cash. I separate myself from those who can't seem to get their finances in order.

I have had good friendships go to shit over coin. The funny thing is that in every case that comes to mind right now (read: this is completely anecdotal) the money was never even loaned, a former friends finances had gone to shit through their own piddling and now they think I owe them.

In case you missed the cleverly not so disguised point, it wasn't about the money, the relationship was already lost.

Funny thing is, had any of these people come to me looking for money, I would have given them the shirt off my back. Notice the word "give", Cynthetiq was dead on in that respect.

The fact that in retrospect this happened with my last 2 "best friends" scares the living daylights out of me. I had never considered it.

I only did it twice and never again. The 1st time, the bitch left the fucking town and moved across the country. It took me a very long time to see that money again. I don't speak to her at all.

The 2nd time, I was helping a friend not lose his job and I made him sign the ATM receipt that it was an IOU within 6months. And within that time, I had my money. He was the only person I would lend money to again. Everyone else can borrow from someone else. I'm not a fucking bank.

The way I see it now is: If you don't have savings, then how can you ever pay me back? you're always gonna need money this way.