7 years ago, my friend lent someone $2,500. She paid back most of the dough in insultingly small dribs and drabs until now, when she still owes her the final $250, Not a prob, except she hasn’t paid her anything for over 2 years. She has since set herself up on a local business, and has had the money ten times over. My friend sent her a demand letter, giving her 30 days to cough up. No response, so she instigated a small claims complaint. Nothing. The hearing is set and it is my opinion that this person will simply default on everything. She is into drugs and will more than likely try to ignore even a judgement against her.
So, what to do. We fiddled around with he idea of slashing all of the expensive tires on her late-model car, but realistically, she would be the first one they suspect, and she cannot afford to get into trouble.
Does anyone have any suggestions? Is there any revenge we can exact, or do we just have to suck it up, a terrible prospect considering the lack of respect she has shown my pal to date.
Placing a lien against her property is a possibility, but she does not have the money to lawyer up. Any ideas, my people?
IANAL.
Follow through with the small claims action. When the court finds for the plaintiff and issues a judgement, then consider the next possible legal steps. With a judgement it may be possible to place a lien on property, garnish wages, whatever.
The point is, be on the up and up, and be legal. In time the individual will get what they deserve. It’s not worth it to drop down to their level in the gutter.
Moving to IMHO from GQ.
Please refrain from providing advice on how to commit any illegal acts.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Let it go. Think of it as one of life’s little lessons, and a relatively inexpensive one at that.
If she has a drug problem, then your friend could do a lot worse than;
- Set up a rival business
and/or - Forgive her.
Slashing her tires is way over-compensating for such a small amount of cash, when your friend is already in the black for over $2k and if caught would be forever wishing she had just put it down to experience. She needs to consider the potential personal recriminations and criminal record.
I’ve had some experience with this.
Don’t bother slashing tires or anything illegal like that – it just gets you in trouble, and won’t get you money back.
If you win in small claims court, you have a judgement against her, which the local sheriff will enforce if she fails to pay within the required time (30 days, as I recall). After that, you can ask the sheriff’s office to collect it.
But usually the Sheriff’s office has higher priorities than collecting small claims judgements. So they often won’t do much about this, unless you can tell them a specific, efficient way to collect the money. One example is if you can tell them that "the business checking account is #xxx, names ABC Inc., at XYZ Bank. Or if you can convince them to send a Deputy Sheriff to go to their place of business near the end of the workday, with a copy of the judgement, and get that amount of money from their cash register.
Often they will just pay up once the judgement is entered against them, especially if they are in business. That is what happened after I won in small claims court.
Oh-oh – looking at the OP, it looks like this is a personal debt from her, not a debt of the business. That might make it harder to collect – you have to go against her personal assets, not the business (assuming it’s incorporated).
It’s $250. That’s hardly a life-changing amount of money. Not really worth doing something stupid over.
Thank you, my people. I guess wea are going to see what happens in court. I know it is a small amount, but the way the woman handled it is what gets us. She has expensive posters all over town promoting herself so unrealistically, it is like she is slapping her in the face. So rude.