what to do when your friend owes you and decides not to pay

Sad situations occur when people we deem to trust turnback to hurt the trust and friendship built over years by not paying loans or goodwill done by others which are supposed to be paid back.

Many have however who would have genuinely been in need of such help will end up in limbo not receiving the kind of help needed. Most of the times such bits of help comes in monetary support.

We will love to show you how to work around such people to retrieve what they owe you without breaking your friendship.

1. Do a willing follow up about what is owed you, assuming good intentions.

Friends can owe you for more than the time they have promised to pay back, and you could actually get to know their true colours. It may be that they genuinely may have forgotten they owe you. So give them the benefit of the doubt and approach them with an open, neutral tone. If the socially acceptable padding of a few days has gone by when you make this ask, giving them a firm deadline a few days out is a nice thing to do. Just place a call to the person and say, “Hey, I’m not certain if you knew I will be travelling and will need some extra cash so if you wouldn’t mind fulfilling your obligations?”

2. Should you’ve already asked several times and they’ve unquestionably not ignored about it, you don’t need to take them at their word when they swear that they’ll pay you back tomorrow. It’s totally fair to ask them what their deal is by calling out the fact that it’s becoming A Thing.

What to say:

“I hate to continue pestering you on this, although I really need to be given back. I’m not sure what’s going on?” (A good option if the conversation is happening in person.)

Or:

“Hey, when we talked the other day, you said you’d pay me back on Friday. We’ve been going back and forth about this for weeks now… what’s going on?”

Ideally, the person will be straight with you concerning what is going on — maybe they got hit with some unexpected expenses or certain money or replacement for your item he/she is waiting for didn’t arrive — and you can figure out a plan for payback.

3. If things go badly, use the experience as a lesson for the next time.

Never saying anything is surely what brews resentments, Having meaningful friendships and living in a society means infrequently shifting over your sentiments about things like, Ugh, I don’t WANNA, and doing things that really hurts at the moment.

If they react badly or you discover you’re on wildly different pages when it comes to money stuff, that’s still very good information to have! It’s good to recognize that this friend who you adore in a lot of ways is not a person who you want to move with or lend your clothes to ever again.