Tell Mumsnet Flendr about the outrageous experiences you’ve had when people have been brass-necked with money – £300 Love2Shop voucher to be won! NOW CLOSED

[EmmaMumsnet]

Collecting money for shared presents, holidays, dinners etc. can be a pretty stressful experience and take a lot of organising. It can also be a massive hit to the bank account when someone doesn’t pay on time. On top of this, it can lead to strained relations between friends and family – people say they’ve paid when they haven’t, they forget to pay or they think they are no longer liable when they pull out of that concert last minute because they had something better to do.

Have you ever found yourself in a difficult situation when chasing people to pay you back for something? Did it lead to awkwardness or an argument? Did people make up ridiculous excuses to get out of paying their share? Whatever the story, Mumsnet Flendr would like to hear it!

Here’s what Mumsnet Flendr says: “We are excited to introduce Mumsnet Flendr, our official online platform for organising cash collections and fundraising activities. If you find yourself paying on behalf of others – whether it is a night out, tickets to a concert, hen party or collective birthday gift - use our platform and make your life that little bit easier.”

Please share your story with Mumsnet Flendr below and you will be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £300 Love2Shop voucher.

If you would like to sign up to trial Mumsnet Flendr, please click here

Thanks & good luck!

MNHQ

Standard T&Cs apply

http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/2587206-wwyd-money-loaned-to-a-friend-i-know

Here's my story.
To update I've had £110 back so far

I chaired an interview panel, appointed a talented young man, first real job post university, a good feeling all round. First day arrives, no sign, he rings in sick. Well I'd have to be in intensive care not to turn up on the first day of a job, but not much to be done. He appears on the second day, sick again third and fourth. I'm not his direct manager but due to spread out sites am often the only manager around. I ring him and he says he is too poor to get to work. I explain that he has to sort this out. He deigns to appear late another day. Feeling responsible because I helped appoint him, I lend him the money for a month's season ticket. Naturally he only gets to work once the following week. He is sacked. Guess how much money I got back.

Not sure how Flendr would have helped but I am still angry at myself for being such a numpty. Anything that puts money collection out in the open is fine by me.

I had a flatmate who used to eat my food and borrow money all the time but never paid me back. His grandfather died while we were living in the flat, so he said he would give me £300 out of his bequest. Obviously it never materialised. I had to move home before the lease was up, so I switched the tv license and phone line (which were in my name) to my new place. I got an arsey text from him asking why I'd done it, because he'd paid for half the tv license. I replied saying "ok, knock it off the amount you owe me". I never heard from him again.

When I'd buy cleaning products for the flat and loo roll, etc and we'd agree to 'take turns' but really, as I was that one that cleaned, I was the one that was paying for the materials. Even when we agreed to get a cleaner and split the cost of a two hour clean fortnightly, people always seemed to forget to chip in for the cost of the products, and I'd feel petty chasing them up for f 5 pounds here and there.

My lovely manager was retiring and as his direct employee and as I liked the bloke, I organised his collection. The email got forwarded eleventy billion times and I had people who had moved to different departments/UK sites asking to chuck in £5's for them. I happily did it and gave them my PayPal details for ease. By the time the collection was totalled and id purchased the gifts, I'd ended up contributing £20 more than planned. I chased once but then didn't again. Oh well it's a good job I like him.

On a slightly different grabby one. I'd just set up as having a go at being an Avon rep many years ago. On the first order I placed I was limited to £120 (or whatever). You need to spend £70 to get any commission. My first campaign went well and I got orders for £170. My recruiting manager ordered the extra stuff for me. Then popped round and asked for £50, I said I'm sure it was minus commission, she said no you need to spend £70 yo get the commission, but she'd put it in with her big hundreds of pounds order. So she got all my commission. Still annoys me even today.

I organise a short break for a group of friends every year and someone always ends up refusing to put their fair share in the pot - not necessarily the same people each time, too. I think if it were all a bit more transparent using something like Mumsnet Flendr then friends might be a bit more keen to chip in the full value instead of me chasing them for the odd £20 until I give up on them for another year.

We organised a bouncy castle for all the children during a big family gathering once. Lots of children , it was a huge success. Kept the kids entertained for hours, in particular two families with 5/6 kids each (in comparison to the rest of us who had one each).

When it came to paying something silly like £10 each, the parents of the two large families refused saying they were not involved in the decision to get the bouncy castle !!!!!!

The rest of us mugs ended up paying for it between us.

When Dh and I were getting married, we met up with our friends at a last minute gathering where everyone was paying for themselves at an inexpensive eat all you want Chinese buffet. A relative of Dh's was there and he ordered himself a bottle of wine (noone else was drinking as it was a lot more than we could afford) while the rest of us had Pepsi. At the end of the meal the bill came and Dh's relative put the cost of only his food on the table and then went upstairs outside out of reach and ear shot! leaving the rest of us very short on the cost of the wine. Everyone was chipping in a bit extra to cover the significantly excess costs...except for one tight git, who took some money OUT saying "I'll have my 50p change!" The rest of us were lost for words and noone dared ask my hubby's relative for what he owed us when we got outside as we were all students and he was way older and was just acting like he'd done nothing wrong!

Long before the days of smartphones I had a "friend" who was both skint and whose upbringing had left him lacking basic life skills. I moved flats for him twice, including 80 miles to a big city. I taught him to cook and budget. I taught him to clean a kitchen. And I bought him food, baccy, drinks...

He took me out for a meal to say thanks. Guess who paid?

We used to collect money for colleagues birthdays, everyone would give £3-5 each time. Everyone paid bar our manager (who earns double our wage), who said they didn't have any change and when reminded still didn't have any change. This happened on two occasions.

Absolutely hate awkward money situations! The hardest ones for me were organising hen dos with some saying they wanted to do this but but not that bit etc. So hard to pitch it right to keep everyone happy. Also hard chasing for money when the time comes to pay. Found it easier to build in a kitty for food and drink etc. from the outset so no one had to worry about paying for any extras over the weekend!

Was once asked by SIL to contribute a third of the cost of a garden playhouse for GDs, I used my credit card to order it, other GPs gave him cash, which hasn't reached me yet (GDs are far too tall and cool for the playhouse now!)

group meals - it always seems it's the person who is loaded, orders more expensive food and drinks and has several children who loudly decides we'll just split the bill evenly with total disregard for the fact there are people at the table with very limited funds who have deliberately ordered very little and had one or zero children eating.

We were invited for a meal with my stepson's girlfriend and her family. Before going, we checked with SS what her family normally do for bill splitting, just to avoid any awkward moments. He tells us they normally split it by what they've had. Fair enough.
On the night, we ordered and paid for most of our drinks at the bar rather than put them on the bill and just had a cheap main and a beer each at the table. Everyone else is putting loads of drinks on the bill, having starters, £25 steak, sides, desserts etc. So you can guess what happened when the bill came. Yes, some bright spark (one of the steak eaters of course) announced we'd split the bill between the adults. So not only do we end up paying for a kid of food we never had, we also end up footing the bill for other people's kids. I was livid.

Kid of food?! Load of food of course.

Not sure where to start but loads....

Being out for a meal with a group of people I'd only just met and being expected to split the bill equally despite having a light lunch to save money (and they tucked in to expensive meals!).

Being expected to pay equally for extras when one person in the group gets free travel so weekend away already considerably cheaper than for everyone else!

People who always say 'I'll pay you back' as they conveniently never have any money/debit cards on them when out. Only, despite being intelligent and organised in all other areas of their lives, they seem to forget to pay back monies owed (and yet are very tight if the situation is reversed!).

Sure there's a major one that currently escapes me...

Actually this thread is making me see !

Lent someone money. They said that had given it to someone to give to me, they didn't.
Too much hassle for a fiver.

We had a friend once who asked not to pay for a day trip out (in France) because she hadn't enjoyed herself at all. It was too hot and there were a lot of flies and so could she have her money back as she'd left early. She had only left 15 mins earlier than the rest of us.
I haven't spoken to her in 4 years, a right pain in the arse. After persuading one of my friends to let her come to France, she didn't pay until 3 months after we came back.

I used to run a pre-school playgroup and had terrible trouble in retrieving the 50p weekly snack money from the parents. It isn't alot of money and being a charity every penny helped. Thank goodness I don't have all that these days.

I hate collecting sponsors for my childrens' annual school sponsored walk.
Family and friends put their name down, I get embarrassed about pestering them for money, and nearly every year I give up asking and end up paying most of it myself.

A group of 8 of us, all couples, two including us with toddlers, had booked a cottage to go away for 2 nights. However, one of the parties could only make the first night so decided that they would only pay half of their share despite this being booked several months earlier. This meant that the rest of us had to make up the shortfall. He communicated this to one of the couples on the last day before leaving, which meant they had to collect the shortfall from the rest of us. To add insult to injury the man kept talking about how he had £10,000 saved in the bank and wasn't sure what to spend it on, and was fully aware that some of us had new families and were under some financial strain.

Why does everyone who doesn't want bill spilt between number of people not get in their first with splitting according to what we had.

I found it very annoying when organising DS birthday party when parents would respond saying they were coming but did not bother showing up. It is not that I was expecting the parents to pay but when had to pay £15 per head and four children did not turn up then it left me out of pocket.

Oh a chance at last to offload the angst I've been carrying around for years. In the late 1980's when my parents were approaching their silver wedding anniversary, I was approached by my aunt and asked what we were all doing to celebrate it? I am the eldest of 4, so called a meeting of my siblings to discuss. A big surprise party in a nice hotel was what they all wanted along with an overnight stay there for our parents. I was a stay at home Mum with two small children and an unemployed husband, my brother and one sister (both working) were saving to get married and my youngest sister was still at school with no income other than her pocket money. All eyes looked to me to solve this dilemma.

I am a people pleaser due to various childhood issues which I won't go into now or you'll be reading forever so felt extreme pressure to find a solution. The only thing I could come up with was to cash in my husbands life insurance (and take out a new one) and use the proceeds of the cashed in policy to fund the party.

When I offered this solution to my siblings, it was agreed that my youngest sister would buy flowers for the hotel room and other small purchases, which she did uncomplainingly even though it meant she had no pocket money for a fair while, and the main bill would be split between myself, my brother and other sister, who would repay their share after they had paid for their weddings.

Only they didn't. So I had to ask them for it, and both of them insisted that I had said I didn't want the money back (I NEVER said this, I was quite plain about needing them to pay their share and thought I was very caring and patient in being prepared to wait until after they had both married before being repaid). At the time my husband was still looking for work and we desperately needed a car. After asking them both several times, my brother threw the money at me (literally,) angry because he and his wife were about to go on holiday to Spain and "couldn't afford" it. My bitch of a sister moaned and cried and called me all names under the sun because she and her husband had just been given a council house and needed the cash to buy things for it. Me, my husband and our children obviously had no needs at all then on which to spend OUR money.

This same sister has gone out of her way over the years to punish me for it too. She has lied and schemed to make my life hard and painful over the years, including ruining my surprise 50th Birthday party (after trying to dictate where it happened and when - entitled cow), eventually deciding a year ago that she never wanted to speak to me again because "she always felt bad about herself when she was near me"

If you're reading JOANNE, life is great without you