How to ask without offending

[bepositive247]

There is a group of friends and one of them is celebrating a special birthday.

The rest of our group have planned to take her to a theatre show in London and for a meal. She doesn’t know about a night out we have planned. We have decided that we will all pay for her, so we are paying for our own tickets and meal and have agreed to split her share of the theatre ticket and meal bill between us. That will be her birthday gift from us.

I have known her the longest and have ended up organising and booking. I was asked to provide my account details for everyone to transfer, but one of the girls hasn’t paid me or even mentioned anything about it and I don’t know how to bring this up.

I don’t want to bring this up with the other girls in the group as I don’t want to her to think I’m talking about her and if it was £50 I would let it go (even though that’s still a lot of money) but it’s over a £100 and I’ve already paid that as part of my share

I was hoping to get some advice on this and how to ask without coming across as rude

Make a watssap group and then a generic reminder to everyone

I'd just ask tbh, but if you're not comfortable doing that you could drop her a line and ask if she's sent it as you can't see it on your account? Or check she saw your bank details.

I’d message her directly and say ‘Sally, in case you’ve lost my bank details here they are again. please transfer what you owe for the trip today. Thanks’

Don’t involve the rest of the group, you’ll end up with upset.

“Morning non-paying friend, hope you’ve had a good week. Can you transfer the £100 for Birthday Girls event? Or let me know if you’re no longer coming? Thanks so much, Owed Friend”

It doesn’t need to be more complicated than this.

I’d start with a generic reminder. Thanks to those that’s already sent the payment over, please could everyone else send today. This is my details as a reminder.

Then after 24 hours message directly. Hi x, please could you send the trip money today.

Definitely wouldn’t give them the option to drop out! You then end up with a spare unpaid for ticket.

Well, they’ve not paid thus far so ‘not allowing them to drop’ might not change that. It could be they’ve just forgotten or …

I would give a good friend the option to drop - circumstances change and people can have unexpected costs and may not want to announce their financial situ to everyone.

But the OP is then out of pocket, she can’t afford to pay for the other persons change of circumstances. Different obviously if she hadn’t booked and paid for the friend, but she has.

Why would she be offended? You all agreed to it presumably so it’s neither rude nor unexpected. Just ask.

“I might have missed it, but I can’t see a payment from you for the ticket. Can you let me know when you sent it?”

Did she definitely agree, or was it other people agreed and she was on the original message but never said she'd come or split the cost? If she'd said she would then any of the previous suggestions are fair enough. I am slightly scatty and can need reminding about things and would never take offence at being reminded!

Just ask the non payer if she's still coming, if she isn't, would the rest of the group agree to the additional cost of her ticket being spread out among them.
Did the non payer give a firm yes to the invitation?
I avoid this sort of expensive group gift giving, there's always a problem.

Thank you all for replying.

yes, she 100% agreed to it. In fact she suggested we go away for the weekend, but I said that might work out too expensive and I wasn’t sure if the birthday girl would be able to do a full weekend so suggested a night out in London. I have booked a meal with a set menu so the cost wouldn’t get out of hand. Everyone has paid apart from her, so I don’t want to send out a general reminder to everyone as that might irritate the ones who have paid.

I hate conversations about money as I know everyone’s circumstances are different, but this was something I organised after it was suggested to me by the group and now I’m having to chase for payment

You just have to bite the bullet and ask. Tell her you haven’t received payment yet, can she please let you know when she’s sending it - it’s the last one owing now. So almost all set.

@bepositive247 as others have said you just need to message her directly. I know it can be awkward but it’s the only way you know where you stand. Lots of good suggested on what to put in the message. As long as you’re polite there’s no reason for her to be offended - if anything she should be apologetic because you’ve been out of pocket. I’m sure she will have just forgotten or missed the message if she was as keen as you says she was to go.

Put your big girl pants on, Do it right now and save yourself the anxiety for the rest of the weekend

let us know how it goes x

If you owed money would you be offended by a reminder to pay? Most people wouldn’t.

Why are you assuming this friend would be offended?

I’m genuinely baffled as to why you would think reminding her is offensive.

I agree with this. I have a friend who’s crap at remembering things quite frankly, and I always start with “in case you’ve lost my bank details” knowing perfectly well she hasn’t. It’s polite enough but reminds her, yes, she does need to pay.

Offensive??? You should only take these jobs on if you’re willing to remind non payers. She’s being offensive by not paying on time and should apologise to you - look at it that way.
Just text saying could you have the money by Monday please.

Why would you be offending her? She owes you money and you need to just ask her for it 🤷🏻‍♀️

@WasherWoman25 I guess that’s my point, in my group of friends we would give the jon-payer the ‘get out clause’ of no longer being able to attend and suck up the additional cost between us to protect their feelings / embarrassment if they could no longer afford it.

I'd also just ask as well. She owes you money. If it was me I'd give her a few weeks, maybe time the message at the end of the month before pay day and just say "Hi, just wondering when you are able to transfer me the £100 for the ticket?"

If you've given her plenty of time to pay back it's fair enough to ask and at least have her tell you when she can pay.

I run a sports team and have to send occasional reminders to members about weekly subs. I just do a friendly WhatsApp message asking them to check if they've paid as it's not showing on my account. Has done the trick so far!

Don't over think, just a quick message to her saying Looking for tonthe night out, I can't see a payment from you, here's my bank details again. Let me know if there's a problem, many thanks.

Hit send before you start over thinking it. Likely she'll do it and this will all be sorted by lunchtime!

Mate! You need to message her directly and remind her to transfer to you, giving your bank details. Why do you think this would be rude? It isn’t remotely rude.