But the point is that it’s not a more favourable position to discharge his debt. He could have sold the ticket for €24 and discharged the debt for €20. Giving her the ticket instead cost him that extra €4.
Were I Jack, I’d have originally offered to SPLIT the cost of the original ticket, so I’d have offered to give Stacy the ticket + $8 in order to settle the $20 debt. That’s how I deal with all “BOGO” deals – each party pays half and we all walk away happy vs. you pay and I reap all the benefits. She helped Jack by taking the ticket off his hands and he helped her by giving her a ticket at a steep discount.
Then I’d offer the extra ticket up for sale and take any proceeds towards the first round of drinks.
At the end of the day, there are friends who will lend you $20 and friends who won’t. Stacy sounds like a good friend, for both offering the $20 in the first place, and then for accepting Jack’s ticket in lieu of cash. So rather than try to look at this as purely a legal transaction, I’d try to make it so that we BOTH made out on the deal.
no, she did him a favour by taking the ticket off his hands. surely his time is worth more than €4?
let me try this stripped down scenario:
i ask a friend out to dinner (dutch). we know how much it would cost so i collected her half of the money first (don’t question the hypothetical!). as it turned out i know the manager and we got our dinner comped. do i return her share of the money? after all she was prepared to pay for the bill beforehand..
Also, another thing to consider… People have mentioned how easy it would be for Jack to sell his extra hard-ticket. From experience, I can tell you that trying to unload a ticket at face value on the day of a show can be really difficult (unless it’s a really hot ticket, but we don’t know if it is or not…show could be sold out or have a ton of tickets available.) What I’m saying is that Jack may have only realistically been able to sell the ticket for $10-15.
The facts of the scenario in question are that this was a gig with heavy demand for tickets and both parties would have reason to believe that the ticket could have easily sold for face value.
Uh, yeah, that’s what I said. “Oh, I didn’t vote because, like Promethea, I feel that Stacy did get what she agreed to but that the whole thing is kind of sleazy on Jack’s part.” [Emphasis added.] There’s no question that Stacy agreed to accept the ticket in lieu of cash. But why I did not vote was because neither of the options reflected my opinion, which is that the “letter of the law” has been followed but that Jack is kind of a jerk.
*The fact that Stacy didn’t already have a ticket to this concert suggests that she did not consider the ticket worth 24 Euros of her money. We don’t know this for sure because the OP doesn’t give us the details about how much Stacy likes the band that’s playing (maybe she just hadn’t bought a ticket herself yet) or if her 20 Euro loan to Jack meant that she didn’t have the cash for her own ticket, but the face value of the ticket is not necessarily the same as the value the ticket has for Stacy. It might represent far less than 20 Euros worth of enjoyment for her. She may have agreed to the arrangement not because she truly considered it a fair deal, but because she suspected she was never going to get her money back from Jack and a concert ticket was better than nothing.
Stacy still agreed so I don’t think she has room to ask Jack for anything else on top of the ticket, but the correct thing for him to have done would have been to pay her the money in cash in the first place and not bring the ticket into it. The only way I’d feel otherwise would be if Jack knew that Stacy really liked this band.
Yeah, this is pretty much how I feel. I might agree to see a band with a friend that I didn’t care that much about if my friend would otherwise have to go to the show alone. I think it’s also underhanded of Jack to invite Stacy to go with him to the concert and then when she agrees say that he already has a ticket for her and ask if that’ll do as payment of his debt. He should have said up-front that he had an extra ticket and asked if she’d accept that as payment for the debt. The way he did it seems like he’s offering her an invitation because he likes her company, but then as soon as she agrees he reveals that he’s trying to find a non-cash way to discharge his debt. It’s sleazy.
Lamia you’re reading a huge amount into this. Here are a few more facts. Jack and Stacy are both big gig-goers. Sometimes they go to gigs together, sometimes alone or with other people. They can’t possibly go to as many as they would like to, so sometimes they give things a miss, not because they don’t think they’re worth going to or because they have no one to go with, but because otherwise they’d be out at gigs every night.
Asking Stacy if she was interested in going to this one allowed Jack to ascertain that she did consider it something worth spending at least €20 on. Had he not done that, and just asked her if she would take the ticket in lieu of the €20, he might have been seen as trying to pressure her to accept a substitute of questionable value to her. Also, if she knew he had a ticket to sell, she might have felt obliged as a friend to agree on that basis alone and not because she really wanted to see the gig. This way he knew that she really did want to go, so he wouldn’t be ripping her off by giving her the ticket instead of the cash.
You can argue that he still should have chosen the other option, but your assumption of mala fides on his part is unwarranted.
So what was the resolution, ruadh? Were they able to sell the third ticket, or was it too late?
The letter of the law, so to speak, is that Stacy made her bargain. Socially, though, Jack’s being a bit cheap by insisting that a ticket that turned out to be worthless to her should count as repayment. Stacy, on the other hand, is being a bit cheap if she makes a big deal out of it.
Extra ticket wasn’t sold. Because of the set-up of the venue and where the guest list was held, they weren’t able to go back outside to sell the ticket. Shame, because after reading this thread I think the optimum situation would have been if they could have sold that ticket and split the proceeds.
The lack of detail in your OP forces us to read a lot into it if we are to make any kind of answer to the question. If you’d given more detail in the first place then you could have avoided other people speculating about what might have happened.
*Well, I think it looks like he was doing that because he didn’t tell her about the extra ticket up-front. Maybe there’s no way Jack could have offered her the ticket in lieu of cash without seeming like he was trying to pressure Stacy into accepting something of questionable value to her. That would be why he would have done better to just pay her back the money he owed her rather than offering her the ticket.
*Look, you asked for our feedback here. Don’t get mad at me for offering an opinion you find unpleasant after you introduced the subject for public discussion in a forum devoted to people expressing their personal opinions. I do not think Jack behaved well. I don’t know this person, I’m not even certain whether he’s you or not, and I don’t have any reason to trust that he’s a noble and upstanding guy. All I know is that rather than giving Stacy the money he owed her, he put her in a situation where she as a friend would have felt awkward about refusing the ticket and insisting on the cash. Since Stacy did agree to this arrangement she doesn’t have much room to complain about it now, but Jack still sounds cheap and sleazy to me. If he’s not actually a cheap and sleazy person then he sure did a good job of acting like one in this situation. My advice to Stacy would be to never lend him money again.
Well yeah, but after you hand the money back, she should say “Thanks, I owe you one,” because in the end, you took her to dinner and she didn’t have to pay, regardless of how intentional that was.
I’m not mad, I just don’t understand the rush to assume that Jack acted in bad faith. I didn’t go into all this detail in the OP because I honestly didn’t expect people to make that assumption and I thought if the bare facts alone weren’t enough for people to decide whether the debt had been paid, they would ask for any clarification they needed (as some people have, in fairness).
For the record, another fact is that there had been a couple occasions in the weeks leading up to this when Jack and Stacy had talked about meeting up and Jack had made clear on those occasions that he would give her the €20 when they met. The only reason Stacy didn’t get her €20 in cash was that she had to pull out of those meetings.
So now I hope I have clarified that there was no scheming or attempt to avoid obligation on Jack’s part, so can people try not to answer the question with that suspicion in mind?
If she wanted to go that much, why did she not already have a ticket when Jack asked her? Had they just gone on sale? Did she not know about it? Is there yet more information that you will reveal upon new posts that disapprove of Jack’s behavior?
I don’t think the assumption of bad faith on his part is necessarily unwarranted. It depends on the nature of Jack and Stacy’s relationship and how they are with money.
That being said, I still agree that the debt was discharged. I just think Jack may have unnecessarily used up some of Stacy’s good will to do so. Personally, I prefer to settle my debts unambiguously to prevent imposing on the goodwill of friends who would lend me money.
The paragraph in my post which you edited out in your reply may have the answer to that question. I don’t know the specific reason, but there are several possibilities other than the one you’re assuming (i.e. that she didn’t really want to go).
If the new posts wrongly accuse Jack of something else I will. I can hardly anticipate every false accusation that might be thrown.
What’s “rushing” about it? I read the thread the same as everyone else. You presented a scenario and asked our opinions, you didn’t say we were supposed to withhold judgment until you saw fit to post further information. And even in your rather sparse OP Jack doesn’t sound like such an upstanding guy. He borrowed money from his friend, then before paying her back buys a concert ticket costing more than the amount he owed her. When he finds out he has a spare ticket he isn’t upfront about the situation. He instead acts at first like he’s inviting Stacy to go to the concert with him just because he enjoys her company, and only after she agrees does he reveal that he has an extra ticket and wants to give it to her instead of cash.
If you are “Jack”, you should really just say so. Because if you aren’t, this does nothing to convince me that Jack wasn’t looking for a way to get out of his debt to Stacy without actually giving her any money. I don’t know that this is what he was doing, but I also can’t know that it isn’t. Neither can you, unless you’re him. He may have been willing to pay Stacy back in cash if he had to and yet still jumped at the opportunity to avoid doing so.
Even if Jack wasn’t looking for an easy way out of his debt, the correct thing to do would have been to give Stacy the money he owed her without bringing the ticket into it. Or if he really believed she’d enjoy the concert he could have said upfront that he had an extra ticket, and that she could have it in lieu of cash for the debt OR he could pay her back in cash right away (selling the ticket if necessary). As things were, I believe Stacy would have felt awkward saying she’d rather have the cash even if this was in fact what she would have preferred. She’d already said she was interested in the concert, and insisting on cash at that point would have been turning down an invitation as well as making things more difficult for Jack financially. This wasn’t a very nice situation for Jack to put his friend in, especially since she’d done him a favor by lending him money in the first place.
Lamia all I can say at this point is that your continued insistence on thinking there was some skullduggery going on means that you’re misinterpreting the situation badly. That may be a fair way for a disinterested observer to interpret it or it may not be, but it’s still a misinterpretation. I will note your answer to the poll question and agree to disagree on the rest.
Yeah trying to escape the burden of his 20 euro debt, that’s rich. :rolleyes:
He jumped at the opportunity to save his friend 4 euros, what an asshole.
Do you have lousy friends who are always trying to rip you off or browbeat you into doing things you don’t want to do or something?
It seems to me that Stacy has been offered something valued at or about twenty Euros. If she accepts it, then her debt is paid. Whether the ticket actually cost Jack twenty Euros is immaterial. The point isn’t to impoverish Jack, but to enrich Stacy.
I never insisted that Jack was up to no good. I have only presented it as a possible explanation of his behavior, and said that the whole thing seems sleazy to me. If I’ve misinterpreted this situation then I can only attribute that to the manner in which you’ve chosen to describe it.
*It doesn’t really matter whether you agree with me or not, the important thing here is what Stacy thinks. Maybe you are Stacy, but if not then it’s possible that Stacy sees things in just the way I described. Regardless of what Jack actually intended or which way the poll goes (and it doesn’t look like there’s going to be a clear winner), it is largely Stacy’s opinion that is going to determine what happens. If she thinks Jack is a great guy and that he owes her nothing further then there’s no problem between then. But if she feels he put her in an awkward situation or believes she’s still entitled to some money from him then he’s going to have to find some way to work that out with her or accept the damage to their friendship.
No. The people I am friends with are not in the habit of borrowing money, and on the few occasions where this has come up then they repaid me in cash like decent people. This is why I am suspicious of those who behave otherwise. If whenever I loaned someone money they pulled some “Hey, do you like my scarf? Yes? Well, I’ll give it to you rather than paying you back the money I owe you!” kind of thing on me then I guess I’d consider that normal. But I don’t, and if anyone I knew tried this on me then I might agree to the deal but I would never lend them money again.