Friend asking to borrow few k for her friend?!!!

[JenniferAnistonnumber1fan]

get a call from a friend who is 70. (who btw I’m not close friends with me, we talk on phone every few months or meet up for coffee a few times a year, she’s more my mums friend) asking if she can borrow a few thousand for her “good” friends?

says they are in a very bad financial situation and she really wants to help them? She gave them her money but just needs a few more thousand.

kind of shocked, i tell her I can’t. I mean…I don’t know these people?

she goes well I do! They are my GOOD FRIENDS, They are such nice people you have to help them!!! You trust me don’t you?

she then says you still have that inheritance don’t you?? Your sister in law said you haven’t spent it yet.

I reply…yes but thats locked away in high interest savings accounts for years…( shocked she knows about inheritance)!

she does like a sad face then says oh right I forgot! My Lithuanian pension is supposed to be coming in a few weeks, I’ll use that! Phew. Problem solved!!! Ok never mind.

but after she hasn’t talked to me in a while.

am I right to find this very all very bizarre?

1. this friend brags how great her pension is, how well off she is, how she financially supports all her family, her grand sons ex/baby mama, paying for her beauty treatments, days out and holidays and grandkids and that she has 30k in savings from house sale
2. We are not close friends
3. she brags that she has soooo many friends and how popular she is. She has friends much closer than me. She has relatives. Why not ask them??
4. I don’t even know these people

she knew about the inheritance, (got 25k)

because my sister blabbed to her I got inheritance years ago. She also recently asked “so has she spent all of it”? To which she replied no

She or her friend is being scammed.

She will be going through the list of friends to see who is dumb enough to give her the money.

The scams take many different forms but target the elderly in particular and not using a computer doesn’t help them.

One reason why she’s not asking people closer to her is that she doesn’t want to have to explain what’s been happening, particularly if they’ve warned her in the past.

Ask her why she can’t lend her own money.

Outrageous but I agree with others that she's probably being scammed

You said your friend called you on the phone then said she changed her facial expression and smiled and did a smiley face? How do you know that if you were on the phone??

It was a video call.

No thats not what you said you said your friend rings you on the phone every few months

WhatsApp video call

My god.

we talk on phone, sometimes we talk on WhatsApp video call/facetime, sometimes we meet up

this time she called me on WhatsApp video

why do you want this to be made up?

Right?….and??

she usually calls on phone every few months

this time she called on WhatsApp video call

im not getting the confusion?

You really need to accept that your friend could well be being scammed. It could be romance, feeling of being a special friend to someone who just happens to have fallen on hard times, investment scam, pyramid scheme etc. In any case do not give her any money.

Is she a bit of a fantastist, prone to exaggeration? YANBU and i would just move on and give her a wide berth. Not your circus not your monkeys.

If this happened a few months ago, why bring it up to us now?

I also think it's out of order your sister / sister in law has discussed you having received an inheritance and that you haven't spent any of it yet.
That's personal & private information that shouldn't have been passed on at all. 😞

Say you lied to your sister and have spent every penny….. in fact could she lend you a few thousand to tide you over?

Why are you so overly invested in something that happened months ago? As well as all the ins and outs of your friend's financial affairs?
And can we stop using this stupid term "baby mother"? Grandson's ex is plenty.

Hard no.

i dont get the AIBU - just say no, the end.

She's not a friend to ask you this.. and you'd never get it back.

You don’t think/wonder about weird events that happened to in the past? Or in this case just a few months ago

and Because it was very odd and this is someone I/my mumknew 20 years and she is no longer speaking to my mum

also the ins and out of friends financial affairs because this is relevant, she literally asked me for money and to make point she wasn’t struggling It makes nonsense asking for money when you are well off

also you can be ex without being a mother, used sons ex once in another thread and people were asking why such a relationship with an ex. I had to explain she is also is the mother.

WhatsApp IS social media - if she's using that, thats a route in for scammers, they whack in random numbers from lists they've bought or stolen, they chat to folk and see who they can con.

If she's a person who is normally wealthy and delights in splashing the cash and she's now asking to borrow from not particularly close friends in order to send money to other 'very good friends' then something is very much amiss here.

I'd be asking who these friends are, where she met them, what they need the money for.

She obviously doesn't have that much money if she needs to wait for her pension. Sounds like she burned through her own cash, has probably exhausted her other friends and family, so she moved onto you.

Having a facade of having money is not the same as actually having it. It can often be the opposite. Particularly if her money, or at least a chunk of it, was as the result of an inheritance (so a one off payment), rather than high earnings over a long period.

She may have given away so much to keep up the illusion of being generous and wealthy that she doesn't have much more left. Given you don't feel like you are particularly close, you are also not necessarily the first person she asked. You could be the 10th, or 20th. Some could very well have already given her some that she has gifted away.

She could be scammed too, some go door to door. Home phone calls. She could have met someone that rinses her for what they can, meals out, presents etc.

The entitlement is mad, but serious underlying reasons could have led to it, so I'd try and have a conversation with a closer friend or family member so they are aware and if it becomes a pattern of behaviour try and help if they can.

It 100% sounds like she's being scammed, and has run out of money of her own to pay the scammers and is now seeing where else she can get it.

She also sounds like the definition of 'a fool and his/her money is easily parted' if she's been giving her son's ex money for plastic surgery. Scammers would spot someone like her a mile off.