Friend wants me to pay

[wineosaurusrex]

Friend moved away from our city and left a couple of suitcases of clothes at my house as she had too much to carry on the plane. It was an international move. I agreed to post later.

Now she's settled she wants me to post her the bags. I said okay and got some quotes (using contacts she sent me) to send the bags. I let her know and asked her to send the money over.

She's got extremely angry and upset claiming that I should pay. She offered me less than half of the money as that's all she has available in her bank account of the country where i live, but is not offering to wire any money over.

She's claiming i repeatedly promised i would pay (which i never, ever said - i was mortified when i found out she thought i was paying!). She has said really unkind things like "You're not keeping my stuff!" implying that i'm trying to steal it, and called me disorganized and forgetful for not having posted it (when the real reason is that I just need the money in advance!). She became very angry when i said im sorry for any misunderstanding but i would never offer to pay, and told me i was calling her a liar. I had to temporarily block her as this all happened before 7:00 a.m and I was late for work because she wouldn't stop going on at me! I suffer from anxiety and it was horrendous to wake up and have to deal with this before work. I felt shaky and unwell all morning.

For reference its over £200 to send, she offered me around £60. I am a single mum of two living and working alone abroad whereas she is single, has no kids and lives rent-free in her family home. I am shocked that she not only thought i'd pay but became so aggressive when I said i couldn't afford to!

I have said i'll send it to another friend so they can send it to her but other friend is abroad at the moment and also feels that she should send the money so i'm not sure they will actually accept the bags when they return!

What would you do?

No sorry, I worded this badly.

We were both working abroad (I am still here). I needed my qualification certificates for my work visa a while back, and my dad sent them to me from the UK using the same service that my friend planned to use to send the bags.

Just the papers alone had cost almost £50, so I knew that to send two heavy suitcases would have been very expensive!

Why are you going to send the suitcases to the mutual friend? That is still going to cost bit of money and is just going to dump the problem on the mutual friend who will then have to deal with it and the "friend" whose suitcases they are could still cause you problems.

The only way to deal with it is give "friend" a deadline to transfer the money or arrange for a courier or other friend to collect and if that isn't done by the specified date you dispose of them.

Exactly this. If I was in her shoes I wouldn’t be shouting and raging blaming and accusing a friend who is doing me a favour and storing my stuff. This isn’t a you problem. It’s a her problem. She is behaving like a toddler having a tantrum. She isn’t dealing with you respectfully. You deserve respect. You are worth being spoken to respectfully. You do not have to deal with someone who is attacking you verbally regardless if musunderinf. She doesn’t know how to behave like a reasonable adult. She doesn’t know how to problem solve. Now she won’t get what she demands as yes- she has lost your goodwill. And rightly so. By setting this boundary and standing up for yourself not to be walked over you will hopefully be teaching her a lesson so she starts to realise this behaviour doesn’t get her results and she tries a different approach with the next poor person to fall in her path. You deserve better than this. I hope you will know from now on that you never have to tolerate that from anyone. That’s not friendship and it’s not being an adult.

She's nuts. Why on earth would you pay to send her stuff to her. Packing someone else's stuff up and filling all the customs forms is enough of a hassle.

That's an absolutely preposterous thing to expect a friend to pay for. Tell her to f#ck off and do one. Dump her stuff in the local tip and block her everywhere. Then move on with your life and forget her.

At this point, giving the way she is treating you, i wouldn't even bother with package and posting, just tell her that she has access to Internet and she can arrange for a courier to pick up within max 2 weeks. If no one shows at the door to pick them up in these 2 weeks, they go to charity.

Tell her to jog on. 👍🙄

Haven’t read the full thread but I would drop them off at her parents/family home. I wouldn’t be dumping them on a friend for her to do the same to them.

I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t be sending her anything. I would be questioning what was in those bags, why didn’t she just pay to take them with her. I would be taking them to a police station and raising your concerns -you really don’t want your name attaching to any of this. I suspect this is why she is asking you to pay.

I would say in an email ‘I’m genuinely worried
your account has been hacked and this is some kind of scam, why on earth would I pay for YOUR suitcases to be sent home Janet?’

If you do genuinely want the suitcases shipped to you now, then let me know and send me the money for same. It’s €280

I won’t be staying here much longer myself as I will be be moving on in January so
its best this is dealt with now.
Sorry again for misunderstanding and I hope this email clarifies my position.
Also, if you have been scammed, my AI safe phrase is ‘I am not a mug’.

Kind regards x

i was mortified when i found out she thought i was paying!

She's the one who should be mortified, not you.

How peculiar to think you should pay to send her stuff.

Either you pay by x or I donate the clothes. Simple

Even if it was a misunderstanding, why on earth would she be expecting you to pay anyway?

Only pass on to mutual friend if it doesn't cost you anything. Otherwise she can arrange a courier - it sounds like you worked for the same company so she can arrange collection from there.

This person is no longer your friend.

Of course she should pay! And she's utterly moronic to think otherwise!

"Hi Jane, of course, apologies if there was any misunderstanding, but I was doing you a massive favour, storing your cases of clothes for you. I'm bemused as to why you think it's anything to do with me in regard to paying to ship them to you...?

If you want them, you pay for them, or arrange for someone else to come and pick them up from mine, which I'm happy to be around for if that's what you want to do. Why should I be out of pocket when I've already done you a favour? They're not my clothes, and I couldn't give a rats ass about them.
At this point, I'm getting so annoyed about this, that if you haven't made arrangements for these cases to be gone by the 1st November, I'm going to take the whole lot to a charity shop, as you clearly don't want them that badly.
Regards,
OP."

Tell you will send them when she sends the money. If she refuses, tell her in future you will be charging for storage.

I would say- I never offered to pay, and you know I never offered to pay- if you want the bags send the money .
I would add after 3 months I will donate the stuff, because I am not a free storage facility, end of argument.

Just picking up on later posts.
If you are communicating with the CF, don't apologise or imply YOU misunderstood anything, just stick to the facts.
She can pay for having the stuff sent, or she can make arrangements (that suit you) to have it collected. Otherwise it goes to charity.
Give her a deadline and stick to it.
After that, block her.

She have stored her stuff for free and this is the way she treats you. Tell her she can either come and pick the stuff up or you will dump it. Give her a cut off time as well nasty itch that she is. Lash the friendship as wel as she is no friend!

I must have missed this when you first posted it OP, but now I've read it, I'm itching to know if she ever paid for her stuff to be collected, or whether you ended up dumping it?

We used to have a house in Spain, which we ended up selling due to illness and my no longer being able to travel. As we hadn't planned to sell it during our last visit, there was still some of our stuff there, so I asked a friend who lives out there, if they would mind very much being at the property to give it to the company when they came to collect it. They very kindly agreed, and I organised and paid everything from this end. It all went without a hitch, and the next time we saw our friends, we took them out for a meal as a thank you for helping us out. I honestly cannot believe the cheek of some people.

Cheeky bitch. Tell her to get a flight to pick up the 2 suitcases you have kindly stored for her.

I remember this thread.

I'd love it if @wineosaurusrex came back with a triumphant story in which the "friend" had to atone for her behaviour and beg forgiveness.

We all love a good comeuppance!

Set fire to it in the garden and sit and watch with a bottle of wine.