The debt was discharged when Stacy agreed to take the ticket in lieu of cash. That she later discovered she didn’t need it is irrelevant. Suppose there was no +1 for a moment. If, after Stacy agreed to take the ticket, Jack had instead sold it to Bob, leaving Stacy without a ticket, we’d all agree he was a jerk, because it was Stacy’s ticket at that point.
The scenario doesn’t talk about the final disposition of the ticket though. Jack needs to give it to Stacy so that she can do whatever she wishes with it.
And taking a 4 euro hit in the process. He gave a discount to his friend, who otherwise would have had to pay 24 for the concert. Plus, she agreed so clearly she wanted to go to the concert.
I can’t believe you guys are looking a gift horse in the mouth like this. I’d LOVE to have a friend that offers me tickets at a discount to face value and asks me to concerts with them.
If Stacy doesn’t want to be his friend, I will.
Only if she declares that she wants to sell it. Otherwise, it doesn’t actually matter where the paper thing exists in real space. If Jack hands her the actual ticket to sell, that’s fine. But then Stacy can’t turn around and ask to be Jack’s +1. That’s shady. And if Jack does indeed give her both the ticket and the guest slot, then he does so out of kindness. He pays his debt and then takes her to the concert on top of that without her paying a dime.
If there was no loan in the first place, would Jack have taken Stacy as his +1?
Sounds like Stacy ended up paying 20 euros (not directly, but through loaning it to Jack in the first place) to see a band that she might have been able to see for free anyway as Jack’s guest, right?
I agree; Jack has no obligation to give Stacy the +1. There are two separate transactions here: the exchange of the ticket for the debt, followed by Jack’s offer of the unexpected third ticket to Stacy, leaving her with an unused ticket.
Jack’s debt to Stacy was discharged when she agreed to accept the ticket in lieu of the €20 that he owed her. Anything that happened after is non-consequential to the debt being discharged.
I don’t see how that’s relevant. Let’s assume Jack and Stacy have a relationship where Jack would take Stacy to a concert for free. Let’s assume there never was a ticket, just Jack+1 and they both know that ahead of time. If Jack is supposed to take Stacy for free, then why should Stacy expect debt to be paid back?
Stacy can’t say “here’s $20 and I want it back” but then say “you should give me a $20 concert slot for free just cause we’re friends”.
I just don’t get how Stacy can go “You should have taken me to the concert for free” and then say “You still owe me $20”, and you think JACK is the dickhead. A-fuckin-mazing.
Good thing Jack’s friend in the band didn’t go “bring 10 of your friends for free” or Stacy’d be uber-pissed! Could you imagine if Jack had the audacity to get 100 friends in for free?! She’d stab him right there on the spot and let him bleed out!
there should be no dilemma. if you invite a friend someplace where it turned out that it didn’t cost you anything to take them, you don’t charge them a fee as if they’re a walk-in customer or something. being so calculative over 20 euro is petty. i also agree that the entire setup by Jack is also shady.
Just to further flesh out the reasoning of the “still owes” people-
Presume that when you say “I’m on the guest list” that the bouncer doesn’t just check you off and open the velvet rope. Instead, you have to walk up to the will-call box and say “I’m Jack, I’m on the guest list” and they slide you two free tickets under the window. Then Jack turns to Stacy with those two free tickets plus the one in his pocket, for a total of three tickets. He fans them out and tells Stacy to take “her” ticket.
Are you saying there’s a 2/3 chance that Jack still owes the debt, since Stacy will only draw the original ticket 1/3 of the time?
It’s irrelevant whether Stacy wanted to go or not. She agreed to take the ticket in lieu of payment. It doesn’t matter if she only wanted to go out of politeness. She had the opportunity to say no to the ticket. She didn’t.
I also don’t see how what Jack did was sleazy. According to the hypothetical, Stacy was planning to pay for the ticket anyways. She got a deal getting it €4 cheaper.
If this is a real situation, then that is the point of contention. There are places where the social convention would be to believe that the person asking her would pay for her. But, even then, she agreed to take the ticket in lieu of payment, so, again, it’s all irrelevant.
I have to agree with Chessic. The only way I can make sense out of people choosing the other option is if they aren’t understanding the OP. Seeing as almost everyone who has actually taken the time to explain agrees with us, I suspect that many of the people voting against us did not take the time to read the thread.
If 20 eruo is petty, why does Stacy demand repayment? Why should Jack say “Bah, it’s only a concert ticket worth 24 euro. That’s nothing between friends!” but Stacy gets to say “Hey buster, pay me 20 euro already!”
Pick a scenario:
1
Stacy gives Jack $20 without demanding repayment
Jack gives Stacy a ticket without demanding payment
2
Stacy gives Jack $20 to be repaid
Jack gives Stacy a ticket and wants $20 for it.
Those are the only two choices. Otherwise, there’s an uneven friendship going on here. Apparently, Stacy just takes whatever she wants but wants paid back for anything she gives. Yet you think Jack is the shady one here?!?!
Sorry, your quote didn’t carry down to everything I was saying. Only the top paragraphs were responding to you directly. The rest of it was at everyone in general.
Amen! That’s what’s pissing me off so much. You and I are going to lose this thread because people aren’t reading it. And it’s obvious that Jack is the OP, so he’s going to walk away from this feeling like he did something wrong.
I think they misunderstand the “guest list” part. They think that the ticket gets two people in, and Stacy used her “free” person on Jack, whereas Jack could have just kept the ticket, called the deal off, and taken Stacy for free. But that’s obviously not how it happened at all. They don’t get that if Jack doesn’t show up, only one person gets in, not 3. That’s the only explanation I can come up with.
If Jack never got the +1, would you guys still be angry at him? Would he still be a shady jerk? If they went to the concert and both got in on one ticket, would Jack still owe the $20, despite their agreement?
It’s like everything’s fine and dandy until the bouncer says “Hey buddy, you can bring someone in for free” and WHOA! all of a sudden, Jack’s an asshole. Apparently, Stacy thinks she can claim Jack’s free slot, despite already having a ticket in her hand. Bizzare.
The real question is whether Jack wants to get into Stacy’s pants.
But seriously, this is one of those situations where a bit of good fortune has an unintended negative consequence, and I think part of being a good friend is trying to mitigate the loss for all involved.
Chessic, to me, a cash debt is different than giving something away that you got for free (i.e. Jack giving the +1) when it is between friends. Technically, the debt is paid. But it was unintentionally paid with something that will either be useless or a burden (to try and sell before the show) to Stacy. Stacy showed kindness to Jack by giving him the loan in the first place, and if I were Jack I wouldn’t want to my debt paid off in a way that leaves Stacy in a lurch despite it being unintentional.
The way to proceed depends on the relationship between Jack and Stacy. If Jack would have offered Stacy the +1 regardless of any debt, then if I were Jack I’d ask Stacy for the paid ticket back and to re-instate the debt. Then I’d try and sell the ticket and use the money to repay Stacy. Hopefully I can sell the ticket, we go to the show, and it would be nice for Stacy to buy me a drink or two as way of thanking me for the show.
If the ticket doesn’t sell, then I think I would just man up and take the loss. At any point, I would be appreciative and accept if Stacy offered to absolve part or all of the debt, but I wouldn’t expect it.
If I wasn’t that close of friends with Stacy, well then I don’t think I’d be trying to pawn off my concert ticket on her for the debt anyway. Or if I did it wouldn’t be a case where we’d be going together, so she’d never know the difference, and the +1 would go unused.
Assuming Jack can sell his paper ticket for face value, then the debt, the extra paper ticket, and the confusion about +1 or not are all irrelevant. The question is really “If Jack takes Stacy to the show as his free +1, should Stacy pay Jack?” And IMHO, this really depends on Jack and Stacy’s relationship and social group.
If, say, Jack is some kind of low-paid artist who got the comps as partial renumeration for his professional work, and Stacy is a not-very close aquaintance who makes big bucks as a corporate lawyer, and there were closer friends of Jack who might have wanted to see the show, then sure it’s reasonable for Stacy to pay Jack.
If, on the other hand, the comped tickets were more a lottery win than earned, Jack and Stacy are share-and-share-alike best amigos, and just last week Stacy split with Jack some free stuff she got, then clearly Jack shouldn’t make Stacy pay.
[ol]
[li] you have a free ticket that is worthless to you unless you can sell it.[/li][li] you then source for a friend to accompany you to the place. [/li][li] THEN you spring the fact that you have an extra ticket that you had planned to sell to your [del]customer[/del] friend all along. luckily, she agrees anyway. [/li][li] you discover a small “windfall” that would mean neither of you would need a ticket in the first place. a windfall that you wouldn’t be able to convert to cash anyway. [/li][li] so you decide that the debt is paid (ding!) by not sharing that windfall and insisting that your mark uphold her part of the contract while your +1 goes to nobody. [/li][li] audition for the part of Alan in 2 and a half men. [/li][/ol]
did i misinterpret anything?
imo, if you borrow (not ask) money from a friend you must repay it. a barter item that would otherwise be of no value to you unless you put in the manpower to convert it, is not quite the same.
Stacy is simply expecting money lent to be repaid, even excepting the questionable deal in the OP. Jack, on the other hand, is looking to cash something of no immediate monetary value to him, and intends to hoard the windfall entirely to himself, even though that windfall was also of no monetary value to him.
This is why I think the whole thing is shady. The +1 is completely irrelevant in my opinion. Jack, upon being put on the guest list, has a ticket that’s worth nothing to him unless he can sell it, so he offers it to Stacy to discharge his debt. Once she accepts it, the debt is discharged, but it seems unfortunate of Jack to put Stacy on the spot like that.
The ticket is REALLY only worth face value to Stacy if she was planning to go to the concert before Jack asked her to go.
No, not “before jack asked her to go” but “before Jack offered the ticket.” Remember, Stacy said she would go before she even knew Jack had a ticket. She was expecting to pay $24 (yeah, I know it’s actually euro, but I like the symbol) but instead Jack helped her out by getting her in the door for only $20. Why should he share his windfall? Stacy wants to go and Jack saved her $4. That’s a cool thing to do.
Yet Stacy is demanding a $24 ticket for $0. Some friend indeed.
I really don’t see where people are thinking there was something shady going on here. Stacy hadn’t planned to go to the gig previously but that doesn’t mean she didn’t really want to go at all. Once it was suggested to her, she considered it worth spending €24 on it and intended to spend €24 on it. Instead she got it at the price of a €20 debt. Jack, meanwhile, could have easily sold his spare ticket at face value, paid Stacy €20 from it and pocketed the €4, but instead he offered to satisfy the debt with something he (correctly) believed she would consider an adequate substitute. Seems to me at this point Stacy has the better end of the deal, since she’s coming out €4 ahead and he’s €4 down.
It does get fuzzier at the point that they discover Jack has a +1. I agree with those who have said it seems unfair to take payment from someone for something that, it turns out, they would have ended up getting for free. On the other hand, if the debt is considered paid then Jack and Stacy are both in the position they expected to be at the time that the deal was made. If the debt is unconsidered unpaid, Stacy is in a better position and Jack is in a worse position, and that doesn’t seem fair either.
My problem with it is that people often do things they don’t really want to do because they want to spend time with their friends. If Stacy wouldn’t have gone on her own but only went because Jack asked her, Jack is using his position as her friend to get into a more favorable position to discharge his debt, which is, at best, tacky. At worst, it’s a pretty manipulative way to treat a friend who lends you money.