I’m thinking about filing in small claims court, but if I don’t have a case I’m not going to bother. I’m not going to sue someone without the real possibility of collecting the money. I really would like my money back though.
I was going to see a musical showing at the opera house with a coworker. She told me to buy the tickets and she would pay me back. Long story short she was no call no show, just decided to do something else(which would have been just fine) and didn’t cancel(which is not fine). Total for the tickets is $300.
I ask her a week later about the money and told her I thought she owed for my ticket also. She “totally understands” and told me she would pay me payday a few days later. Nothing. I ask her what happened and she said she didn’t have enough so she would pay me next payday. Nothing. This happens a few times, then she gets a new job, changes her number and skips town.
Is it a legitimate small claims case to try and recover my money for the price of her ticket? More info: We never agreed on a specific amount of money beforehand. We did agree that I would buy “the good tickets.” She said “just tell me how much and I will pay you.”
Is it legitimate for me to try and recover the price for my ticket? If she would have just canceled, even at the last minute, I would have just gone in myself. But since I thought she was stuck in traffic of in wreck or something, I waited outside for over an hour. It just never occurred to me that someone would do that.
So am I wasting my time, or is this a legitimate small claims case, at least based on the limited amount of info here?
Edit: oh, and everything is in writing, text, email, or MS communicator.
It’s quite possible that the threat will be enough - assuming that you have her address. Remember that you can add any costs to your claim, so that would be an added incentive for her to settle.
Try writing a formal letter (snailmail) warning her that you will take her to court unless she pays up within (say) 28 days.
Second this. We once had an insurance agent who was trying to get out of reimbursing us for a totaled car that was rear-ended at a light on a state highway, by claiming that it was my husband’s fault (to my recollection, his client did not have her lights on when it was clearly late enough in the evening to have them on, but in any event, how can you rear-end someone at a light, and claim it was his fault?)
At first, he didn’t want to pay anything, and tried to get us to settle no-fault-- that is, we’d each make a claim with our own insurance companies. Then he said he’d split the settlement with us. He wouldn’t budge from that position, until I said that my husband wanted to call a lawyer (totally a lie, we’d never discussed it), and that personally, I thought that was extreme, but he was pretty set on the idea. It really rattled the agent, and he asked us what it would take to make us go away. I said, “The blue book value of our car, plus $300, the value of the stuff in our trunk that was destroyed, the money the tow truck guy wants, and the cost of our rental car.” He said to bring an itemized list the next day, and a photocopy of the blue book page for our car, plus receipts, and he’d cut us a check, as long as we’d sign something stating that we were satisfied, and would not sue or pursue the matter further.
We had a check less than 24 hours later.
I would send the letter certified. It shows that you are serious, and it makes sure that she gets it, because someone will have to sign for it. If she tries to claim she didn’t get the letter, you will have the receipt.
Something else to consider is what will be the working conditions with a coworker that you take to court. They should of course just pay you but a lot of people are jerks.
If you do have some sort of documentation per your notes that shows she was onboard with the purchase and wanted to pay you back you might have a good chance to win. Yes, it would be a good small claims case if the evidence is admissible.
I got a little bit of that vibe too but he (?) says he has texts of her saying she agrees to reimburse him. Speaking just for myself if I were diving into 150 a pop tickets I would make sure the appointment/date/whatever was nailed down tight. Leaving someone hanging on a 150 ticket is a bit weird, also maybe I’m not in tune with big city prices but paying $ 150 a pop for just a causal co-worker musical outing to the grand opera is a bit unusual. If you’re both art lovers and you’re just seeing if she’s interested that’s what bistro coffee and free museums are for.
If it was a “date” (even a “go dutch” date) I personally would chalk it up to experience and leave it alone. If it was a co-worker outing I would want to the other person to live up to what they told me. But honestly… chasing $ 150. from a deadbeat ex friend? Not really, I have better things to do.
Whether it was a date or not, it seems like there was a pretty firm understanding that she would pay for her ticket. I wonder if she had no idea how much “the good seats” would cost, and that’s why she’s ducking him now.
Well, I’m not a lawyer, but my understanding of how small claims court works is that if you win, they say “Yup, this person owes you the money.” But they don’t actually give you the money, you still have to collect it. Which more or less leaves you in the same position you’re in now – both parties agree that you’re owed the money but you still don’t have it.
Now if you win the claim, you could conceivably garnish their wages , but that’s a lot of work for $300.00.
So it really comes down to how much you value your time and what you think you can win. My guess is that there’s no way you’re going to get awarded the cost of your ticket, because there’s no reason you couldn’t have gone by yourself. So for $150.00, I’d put it down to a hard lesson learned and move on.
Speaking as someone who did go to small claims and actually win and then actually collected some money…
Go with the “scary lawyer letter” first if you decide to pursue this course. It’s cheaper, less time and aggravation, and might actually work. There are three possible outcomes:
she pays the money
she pays part of the money, but not all of it
she doesn’t pay anything
#1 is golden. It will probably cost you $50 minimum to get that letter written and to her, but if she pays up well, you’ve got your money back minus the lawyer’s fee for writing the letter.
#2 - it’s up to you to decide whether or not the sum rendered is sufficient for you to write off the rest, or to pursue further.
#3 - Well, you gonna sue her or not?
If you do elect to go forward keep in mind that there are typically filing costs. For my case it was $91. Is pursuing a claim for $150 or 300 that will cost you $91 worth it to you in the end? (Oh, wait - if you did the letter first that will be at least $140… if you were only pursuing $150 you’re already darn close to spending more on recovery than the amount of the debt, if you aren’t already over). Granted if you win she’ll have to pay the court costs (if you can get her to pay) but you’ll have to pay the fees upfront and you might not win.
If you do decide to sue, you’ll need all your ducks in a row. You don’t want an I said/she said situation. Do you have any form of documentation as to how much the tickets costs, anything in writing indicating an agreement to pay (yay for e-mails and text messages, if you have them and saved them)? Small claims you can proceed without a lawyer, but if you do, be sure you have read all applicable court rules and regulations (the county I sued in actually has a manual for non-lawyer small claims folks). You need to be sure you filed all the required forms and fees. This will take up a bit of your time, how much is your time worth to you?
Or you can consult a lawyer - but they cost money, too, and $300 is too low for a contingency fee arrangement unless maybe the lawyer is a relative willing to help you for next to nothing.
OK, lets say you went to court and you won - goody. Now you have to collect. How do you intend to do that?
I’ll tell you the short version of my story: the [expletive deleted] owed me several thousand dollars. The scary lawyer letter got me $500, $50 of which went to the lawyer (net, $450, yay). She still owed me several thousand dollars AND filed incorrect paperwork with the IRS that would have left me on the hook for trouble with them. The lawyer and I worked out a contingency agreement where he’d get 1/3 of whatever was collected (watch the wording on those agreements!). We sued. We won, plus court costs and damages (if you write a rubber check in my state you’re on the hook for three times the value of the check… in retrospect, I’m kind of happy she did that, because not only did it make her look like more of a tool, I got a bigger award in the end) AND she had to file corrected and amended paperwork to the IRS. The lawyer then pursued the collections, which is a good thing, because he knows a crapload more about that than I do. He wound up negotiating a monthly payment plan through the courts, so if she failed to pay a warrant could be issued. It’s not that the cops would go arrest her immediately, but if she was ever stopped for any reason (speeding violation, for example) she’d be cuffed and thrown in jail. Once this was made clear to her - she faced arrest if she didn’t pay - she started paying. Six months after she was supposed to start.
She skipped town last month, with two more years left on the payment plan. Realistically, I will not see the rest of what the court says she owed me because now the Feds are after her and they’ll strip what’s left of her finances first, there will be nothing left for the rest of us (I’m not the only one to sue her and won).
On the upside, I did get all of what she originally owed me and then a bit more, even after deducting all the costs of this escapade. It was a lot of stress and aggravation, though. Personally, I wouldn’t go through all that again for a mere $300. Three thousand? Yes, but not three hundred.
I think it’s reasonable to sue for the cost of her ticket. I don’t think it’s reasonable for you to sue her for the cost of your ticket. You had every right and opportunity to leave her ticket at Will Call and gone in by yourself once it got within 10 minutes of show time. Even is she was stuck in traffic, there was no sense in both of you missing the first half.
Yeah , this would really help , the so called friend could say that the ticket was a gift for her and that she own nothing. I think this will a hard case to win if they no poof she offered to reimburse the money.
When I was 15 I planned to go to a concert with several of my friends. I had been working all summer and had the cash to buy all the tickets up front with the agreement that they would reimburse me. After spending hundreds of dollars on ten tickets (or so) they all became very noncommittal and made excuses. I ended up giving the tickets away to anyone who wanted one and didn’t collect a penny. It was tuition to the school of hard knocks and I don’t do favors like that anymore.
(The concert was very good though, I just massively overpaid.)
Co-worker… what was the time frame in between the original discussion and the show ? Long story short ? the heck ? Was there anything significant in the long story ?
Just imagine her defense
Sexual harrassment in the work place - I just said I’d go on a date with him to be polite while my job situation was in question…
I was applying for a promotion / pay rise and didn’t want him to say bad things about me… so I just said something vaguely yes at the time…I just wanted to get away from the conversation.
I gave notice and told everyone why, I thought he’d give up on the date since I was leaving town.
He didn’t tell me about the tickets until after the show- I didnt even know the time or date of the tickets he bought… it was like he had gone cold on me, I thought he was embarrassed to tell me he had changed his mind or couldn’t get tickets or something.
I thought he had gone cold on me, because we went out to dinner one night, and I had to walk out before ordering dinner… I stood him up, I thought he got the message.
He came to my area the next day, and said suggestive things to my colleagues that were sexual harassment, he was suggesting that I said or did things I would be embarrassing to me, for my colleagues to here/know… It was like a threat, a repercussion of refusing to date him.
When he came to my office, I got my manager to tell him to go away and never come to the office, just phone through to my manager. My manager had told him I didn’t want to talk to him ever again.
He had my mobile number, he could have just called me on the day of the show, at any time up to the start of the show…I didn’t even remember
I asked him the day before if he had bought the tickets, he said no and walked away. This was cold and upsetting… I would have said “good, cause I can’t go” but he walked away, as if he didn’t want to talk to me. He would have known I had given notice. It was clear he hadn’t bought tickets because he knew I was leaving town.
You might have a case to recover the $150 spent on her ticket. But I see no possibility of recovering the $150 you spent on your ticket. You had the chance to use that ticket; you chose not to. She did nothing to prevent you from using your own ticket.
But there is something else to think about: court filing fees. In my jurisdiction, any small claim below $7000 incurs a filing fee of $100. (Claims over $7000 incur higher filing fees.) Then there are service costs–she left town, sure; but it is possible for a good skip tracer to find her and serve the paperwork. But it costs. I don’t know about filing fees and skip tracer costs in your jurisdiction, but in mine, it wouldn’t be worth it to chase down $150. You’d spend more than that just to get the claim going.
Let it be. Call it a life lesson that you learned from, and put it behind you.