Leant a friend money-can I take them to court?

[Fredastaireschair]

I feel so stupid!
It's only £300. I won't starve.
I am more so annoyed with friend who I've known some 20 plus years.
I leant in bits and bats (£10,£20, £30 here and there) and friend would pay back borrow more pay back but always paid back.

Then they asked for a larger amount when already owed about £50, and then said their partner was getting a bonus on X date, could I lend a further amount and then they'd be back on their feet, would pay it all back and would never need to borrow again.

I trusted them and did it. Since then I've had 'bonus is on (a later) date now', then being blanked, then they gave me a different date-then I sent a message saying I was actually getting rather pissed off now, and I needed it back even if they had to beg/borrow-and they apologised profusely and said it would definitely definitely be paid back 'Saturday' (yesterday).

Should I send a more terse message? Try for small claims? Block them on everything (although this almost guarantees I'll never be paid back and probably gives them a reason not to)?

I don't know what is going on for friend. I know something occurred at work and they lost their (decent) job a year or so ago and now work in a minimum wage one, I get that times are hard.

It is more the false promises and lies! We've lived together (were at university together) have been there for one another multiple times, I really cannot believe they've done this at all.

I’ve been in your situation.

if the friend is out of work the best way to get your money back is to try to set up a payment plan with them, £10, £20, £50 a week/month whatever they can confidently say they can pay every month.
Get them to agree to the terms £X for X weeks.

In my case it was a close friend who basically lived on the large maintenance from her wealthy ex as well as benefits (that I never understood why she claimed)

she told me she had not received her maintenance and was panicking, she literally rang me in tears because she didn’t know what to do as she couldn’t pay her bills.
I offered to lend her £500 to tide her over until she received the maintenance (a fifth of the monthly maintenance) but stressed it was coming out of savings to pay for a specific diy project, so I needed it back in three weeks. She said that wouldn’t be a problem.

Three weeks later I told her I needed the money back and she claimed to have sent me a bank transfer, sent me cropped screenshots of her online banking with a transfer with no dates or amount.
Claimed it must be a mistake with her bank.
I chased her every few days for months but got nothing but lies and excuses.

four months later I found out her ex had paid the maintenance the day after, and had explained to her beforehand it would be a day later.
I lost it and told her I didn’t want to her anymore lies or excuses, if she couldn’t give me the money back in a lump sum she only had to say that, I would have been fine with payments, she agreed to give me £20 a week, but I had to ‘remind’ her every bloody week.

I eventually got it all back, more than a year after lending it.

Taking her to court would have been pointless because the maintenance is not classified as income, so as far as the court would be concerned she would be a single mum on benefits… it turned out she was well versed in that situation as she had a lot of debt I had no idea about that she was paying very minimal monthly payments for.

We are no longer friends.

Why not take a different tack? Is there any work she could do for you. If it’s unlikely you’ll get the money then could she do some tasks?

@Watchingyou2sleezes

You really are not....

I don't understand this response