Please help, backstabbing friend owes me lots of money (payments, suing, credit report)
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$7,500 is much better than nothing. Since your signed note is very specific, I don't know why you think you need more information. Apply to one of the tv court shows.
Consider this a very expensive lesson - don't lend money to anyone, ever! Essentially, you made an unsecured loan to someone who reputable lenders would not do business with.
Choose better quality friends to avoid situations like this. Sorry for your loss.
Location: 23.7 million to 162 million miles North of Venus
23,720 posts, read 12,594,423 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by flyonpa
You file and get the judgment on records so if he comes into money you can collect.
You file against his tax refunds , attach his bank account, If he wins a big lottery, come into money.. you can get your judgment.
I agree with this, except for the "filing" against tax refunds comment. Tax refunds would be exempt pretty much until they are deposited into a bank account. You could also garnish his wages in CA if he's working. The garnishment exemptions in that state are for the necessaries of life. Or, you can get the judgment against him and then sell it to a collector, probably for only around 80% of the judgment amount though.
As for the taping, CA has some of the strongest taping laws in the country. You need to make sure that you've followed the law when taping or you can end up being fined by the state, imprisoned and/or the person who you taped can sue you. Look over the info in the following link to make sure your tapes are legal California | Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
And the court probably wouldn't be interested in the 2nd party tapes where your friends were discussing the money issue with this guy. In fact those tapes could probably be considered illegal under the CA Rosenthal Act and a few other CA laws.
You should find a consumer credit lawyer (or a debt collection lawyer) and discuss this with them, many will give a free first consult so ask about that when you're calling around.
Edited to add, you really can't do much until after April 2013, since he has up to that date to pay.
I guess I'm just scared that I'm missing something in my promissory note. A description or key word that might have been missing or just some other detail that I should've included. This is a very large sum of money for me and I just needed to be 100% sure that I covered all bases and fine print.
I agree with the posters who advise going to small claims court. A lawyer will eat up a large portion of any settlement so basically the $4000 above the $7500 limit is going to be chalked up to an expensive lesson.
If you've said he has until April 2013 to pay...don't file a suit until May.
The white elephant in the room is WHY?! WHY would you loan $11K+ to someone?! To get loans like these, most people go to a bank or their parent's...not a friend.
Not a lender nor a borrow shall I be. When I "loan" money, I chalk it up as a gift with no thought of ever being paid back. I've "loaned" money in increments ranging from $20 to many thousands of dollars...never expected to receive any of it back. Sometimes I've gotten paid back, other times I have not. If you have to worry about the amount of money you're loaning out, chances are you should never be loaning money in the first place.
I don't think the issue is you not having enough evidence, I think it is how can you get your money back. I have done small claims and it is a horrible pain in the butt. You have all kinds of paperwork to file and even when you win, it is YOU that has to figure out how to get your money, not the courts. They just give you papers stating you won the judgement for blank amount of money. In my case I didn't know where they worked, so I couldn't go there. A police officer said I could get a policeman to meet me where they live and I could take things worth somethng like their fridge. It isn't like you can go looking through their stuff so that was out. What I ended up doing was getting a lien on their house hoping they would move one day. About a year later they did sell their house and with the lien I was the first person to get the money, so in the end it worked out, but I don't know if I would ever do it again.
Thank you so much for everybody's response. I have read the response from each and every one of you.
I talked to a few lawyers today and they all agree that small claims is the best route to go. One lawyer told me however, that the small claims amount goes up to 10K while the others stated 7,500 so I wasn't sure why there was this discrepancy. Either way, one of the lawyers I talked to stated that it is possible for me to get all 11K back because a good portion of the money owed to me was technically owed to my parents whom I live with. My parents and I pretty much share all of our money so it's of no concern to me if the money goes to myself or my parents. The rental tenant agreement between this guy written under my mother's name even though I informally was supposed to collect the money from him since he is my friend and my parents wanted to let me handle him because of the familiarity and comfort. Basically the lawyer told me that I can chase him for 7500 or 10K while my mother can go after him for the rest on the grounds of rent, food, utilities, gas and everything else he was siphoning from "us" without paying.
Does this sound rational and practical? This is what I was told by a lawyer, but I value your thoughts on it.
This person does have money. He does not have a lot, but he works 40 hours a week and he has enough to go out and party, drink, eat out, etc. He definitely makes enough to be able to give me a little bit of his paycheck every time, he just chose not to and I foolishly believed his stories about how he literally had no money left over in his paychecks. This was a lie though, as he told one of our mutual friends that he was purposely withholding money from me.
The 11k owed is an accumulated cost of many things. It wasn't done in one large sum. It was foolish and I know this now. I tried to help out somebody that I thought was in serious turmoil. I felt bad for this person and I just wanted to help out. It was a huge mistake, I know. I don't really want to think or talk about why I did it since I don't think it will help me out at this point. It's a lesson learned for good and I just want to move on from it by collecting my money.
It sounds like it's going to be a huge hassle to go through all of this as the last post suggests that it is a "pain in the butt". Am I allowed to ask to collect something for all the time and effort spent? I feel like this is going to be a decade process. Can I reasonably ask and be compensated for all of this unnecessary burden?
Thank you so much for everybody's response. I have read the response from each and every one of you.
I talked to a few lawyers today and they all agree that small claims is the best route to go. One lawyer told me however, that the small claims amount goes up to 10K while the others stated 7,500 so I wasn't sure why there was this discrepancy. Either way, one of the lawyers I talked to stated that it is possible for me to get all 11K back because a good portion of the money owed to me was technically owed to my parents whom I live with. My parents and I pretty much share all of our money so it's of no concern to me if the money goes to myself or my parents. The rental tenant agreement between this guy written under my mother's name even though I informally was supposed to collect the money from him since he is my friend and my parents wanted to let me handle him because of the familiarity and comfort. Basically the lawyer told me that I can chase him for 7500 or 10K while my mother can go after him for the rest on the grounds of rent, food, utilities, gas and everything else he was siphoning from "us" without paying.
Does this sound rational and practical? This is what I was told by a lawyer, but I value your thoughts on it.
This person does have money. He does not have a lot, but he works 40 hours a week and he has enough to go out and party, drink, eat out, etc. He definitely makes enough to be able to give me a little bit of his paycheck every time, he just chose not to and I foolishly believed his stories about how he literally had no money left over in his paychecks. This was a lie though, as he told one of our mutual friends that he was purposely withholding money from me.
The 11k owed is an accumulated cost of many things. It wasn't done in one large sum. It was foolish and I know this now. I tried to help out somebody that I thought was in serious turmoil. I felt bad for this person and I just wanted to help out. It was a huge mistake, I know. I don't really want to think or talk about why I did it since I don't think it will help me out at this point. It's a lesson learned for good and I just want to move on from it by collecting my money.
It sounds like it's going to be a huge hassle to go through all of this as the last post suggests that it is a "pain in the butt". Am I allowed to ask to collect something for all the time and effort spent? I feel like this is going to be a decade process. Can I reasonably ask and be compensated for all of this unnecessary burden?
Don't confuse the issue by getting petty.
You'll be lucky to get what is owed....consider the PITA stuff as tuition in the School of Hard Knocks.
Location: 23.7 million to 162 million miles North of Venus
23,720 posts, read 12,594,423 times
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The one lawyer was right about the $10k limit. As of 1/1/12 CA raised the small claims limit to $10k.
If your mother was receiving the money for the rent and the utilities, etc., then she probably has no claim to file on those issues. Even if the money he was using to pay with had actually been coming from another source (you) she was still receiving the payments.
As for the "collecting something for the time and effort spent", doing so would probably not only kick your claim into a higher court then small claims (because the dollar amount would be higher than $10k) but you'd also have to have proof that you suffered damages because of his failure to pay you back.
If you're successful with the small claims $10k award and if the court allows you to collect interest on the judgment then, because of the interest, eventually you may see the full $11k. And if you're successful you should file to garnish his pay.
It appears that small claims court cases are handled fairly rapidly. You could probably have the court hearing in less than 3 months after filing.
You cannot use a lawyer in small claims but you can use one as an adviser, that is if you want to pay a lawyer to advise you.
You should Google California small claims rules of civil procedure (and/or code of civil procedure). Then read and follow the laws that are set down in them so that your case isn't kicked out because you had failed to follow the proper laws.
Here is a couple of links that you may find helpful, keep in note that the second one is a little older since it still reflects the lower small claims dollar amount. Also keep in mind that even though they are from the CA gov., they are only guides in how to handle small claims suits and the info in them does not overrule the CA rules/code of civil procedure.
It's not April 2013 yet. Your contract does not say he can't pay it all at the very end. You can get ready to file and threaten him with it, but you cannot take action until the end of April because there is no breach yet.
I would keep up the contact/pressure and see if he buckles. Tell him to borrow from someone else and your credit line to him is closing. If he doesn't, sue him in small claims.
Lol, this guy has no means to pay you back. Go to small claims for $7,500.00 and get a judgment, but it is most likely unenforceable....
He sounds un-sueable. As in no assets to attach to.
Take it as an expensive lesson to not loan money to individuals.
You could write it off as a gift on your taxes as long as you have everything documented.
I would still recommend you go to small claims court. However, my guess is this guy won't even show up. You will win your court case but as Suncc mentioned, this guy is most likely "unenforceable" and has no assets.
Judging by your description this guy he sounds like a real loser. I'm not sure what the wage garnishment laws are like in your State but they don't typically make it too easy.
I had a situation like this before when I was in college. I had my own place and the phone bill was in my name. My roommate charged us this huge bill of something like $2,000 in phone calls over the course of two phone bills. It was an open and shut case where he had full liability.
I sued him in small claims court. He never even showed up. I won by default but this guy had no assets. Only debts. He had a really low paying job and it wasn't enough to garnish wages. He changed the title of his car over to his mom's name. He had nothing in his bank account. Total loser type like your "friend". I remember I even paid the Sheriff's office to go to his house. I can't remember what it was called but they just said he had no assets.
Definitely sue him in small claims court as it's not expensive but my bet is he doesn't show up. To this day I never saw a penny of it. And the worst thing is I had to pay the bill because they told me it would go over to a collection agency if I didn't and go against my credit report.
I'd say hope for the best and expect the worst. If he is as big of a loser as it sounds like he is...you probably won't see all of this again.
If you can, see if you can somehow work with a collection agency (they will ask for a cut of the money) to see if you can report this on his credit report. FICO is so very important these days and having a judgement and collections is negative and will stay on his report for years so maybe that will pressure him to pay.
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