Have you ever lent someone money and never got it back?

[marooncat7]

In my early 20s I had a friend, well actually he was a bit more than a friend. He lived abroad and we had met a few times and had a bit of a holiday romance. We spoke online all the time and it was, I believed, a friendship.

But he then lost his job, and was going through financial issues (or so he said). He said he was sleeping in his car and asked me for money to buy food via Western Union. I suggested he ask his family for help, but he came up with lots of excuses. He promised he would pay me back and stupidly I believed him. So I sent him £100 (which goes quite far in his country). He wanted more than that. But I said that's all I could give, as I was a student myself with a small income.

Well, surprise surprise, I never got the money back. I know I was stupid to ever think I would, or to give it in the first place. I am not usually someone who is so easily fooled.

However, he did put pictures on social media within a week of him and his new girlfriend, who he had started to live with. Obviously he wasn't living in his car anymore

I have no idea why he did such a thing to me, and I suppose I never will know. But watching things like The Tinder Swindler brings it all back, even though £100 is a small sum compared to what those women lost.

It taught me to trust no one and that many people out there have no conscience.

No but then I never lend money.

I will gift it (and have done to friends who need it) but I don't want or expect payment back.

I took a new job and inherited a recruitment process which was down to the last 4 candidates. I picked the 2 who were recruited, my first ever appointments. One didn't turn up on the first day and made it in to work I think two days of the first fortnight. He has several excuses but one was that he couldn't afford the travel. I lent him £250 for a train ticket, I think he turned up the following day but then didn't bother. He might have given me a token tenner or something but I had to sack him in the end and oddly enough he didn't pay me anything more after that.

I'm susceptible to scammers and sob stories, like a pp i was well trained by my dad but am also very like him so a bit chaotic with money myself.

All those who say "only lend what you can afford to lose" - it's hardly the point is it? I think a lot of people who have been badly let down by those who are supposed to love and care for them are entitled to be upset their loved ones had such little regard for them as to treat them this way.

Never more than a few pounds, which I could easily afford and didn't mind.

If asked for the loan of a significant sum by someone who was in a bad way, a few times I have given them the money. I wouldn't lend that amount - too much risk of hard feelings.

But that's exactly the point, surely @lawandgin ... you learn from the point of being let down by the ones you love. So that you move forward and stop being let down by the ones you love.

Yes but never huge amounts like 20 quid etc

@ButtockUp maybe. I'm probably a bit over sensitive about it tbh. It's all still very raw for me as we're still in the thick of the issues that necessitated the loan.

Three times...more fool me!
£1000 to my sister, nothing ever repaid...too long a story to go into.

£1000 to my ex Sil, about £100 paid back. She denied it was ever a loan, turns out if that's what it cost to get her, my ex and their rotten family out my life then it was worth it.

£100 to an ex work colleague, paid back about £40, I left the job never saw them again. Put that down to bad judgement of character!

I only lend when if I don’t get it back, I don’t care. Most recently I lent a colleague £500 and got it back within a couple of months, so all was good.

Previously I lent a friend £400 and he committed suicide before repaying me.

It’s totally up to an individual if they choose to lend money, but always be prepared to never see it again!!

As Flo Capp points out, "Giving money. Lending money. Costs about the same..."

Yes I loaned a uni friend about 700 about 4-5 years ago. Left uni she made a couple of payments. Then boom blocked. I'm still angry about. We were both on a nursing course, she's now a clinical lead. Trustworthy that's a joke.

Yes, 3 times when I was much younger. 2 were friends, 1 my brother. He was paying me back by standing order but I forgot to check it and after a while the payments just fizzled out. I've learnt my lesson though and I'll never lend money to anyone apart from my kids

Yes, to the tune of hundreds of pounds a good two decades ago. He did a literal midnight flit leaving chaos behind him ( I was not the worst debt he left), and he now runs one of the breakaway churches as their ‘Archbishop’. It’s nauseating really.