Your husband screws up, it 'ruins' your life, and it's MY fault because I'd done you

The BBQ Pit
21

Gah! I put no fewer than 4 disclaimers in my original post here…

“you were completely within your rights”

“No, you didn’t owe her that courtesy”

“I’m in NO WAY saying you should or could be held to the same standards”

“I’m by no means saying you’re obligated”

So please don’t misunderstand – I completely agree that StarvingButStrong isn’t responsible for the lack of communication between those two. I was merely replying to your contention that the problem might’ve been solved had the woman made the entry in her checkbook. I don’t agree that that would have prevented this from happening, as it’s entirely possible that she did exactly that.

She and her husband are asses – him for not taking care of the paperwork promptly, and her for blaming StarvingButStrong when it’s clearly not SBS’s fault.

Had I been in SBS’s shoes I would’ve reminded the woman before depositing the check. It’s only by the grace of whateverentityyouchoosetoacknowledge that it was SBS’s check that cleared first and not the others, leaving SBS holding a bounced check. They’ve worked together for years, this woman felt close enough to ask for a loan and SBS felt close enough to give it, so I’m assuming they’re on speaking terms. So what would it have killed to simply remind the co-worker that he/she was depositing the check? Nothing. And now he/she’s got a hostile work environment to live with. (Again, NOT HIS/HER FAULT, but completely preventable.)

22

Sorry - I saw the disclaimers and they flew right over my head. Can I blame it on the fact that I’ve had a fever of 102 all weekend?

And I’ve gotcha now - it probably would have prevented a lot of grief had SBS just asked the co-worker if it was okay to deposit the check. Then again, I think this whole situation just seems to be a comedy of miscommunication. My guess is that SBS has at least learned a lesson about lending money to people.

Ava

23

SbS, please explain this…How the hell can your co-workers be siding with this woman? Is it that they’ve only heard her side of the story?

24

[hijack] Yikes, avabeth, I’m sorry to hear you’ve been so sick. I sure hope you feel better soon! I was sick week before last with a flu that you don’t even want me to describe, that put my father and a friend in the hospital, so I totally empathize with you there. Take care of yourself! [/hijack]

And yes, I imagine SBS has learned a lesson from all of this. Let’s hope the dissention in the office dies down or his/her work environment could be difficult for a long, long time.

25

Earlier this year, during our summer music festival season, I and 5 mates decided we’d go to see the biggest summer concert each year - The Big Day Out. It was agreed that because I worked in Southport and was very close by to the record shop which sold tickets that I should go and pick up the 6 tickets - at $100 per head. OK, these were guys I’d known for a long time. The concert was still 8 weeks away - no problems.

So I handed over my credit card, and paid $600 for 6 tickets. As the big day arrived I got everyone organised to meet at my place first etc, etc, reminding them about the $100 a head etc.

On the day of the concert, of the 5 guys who came around, only 1 of them had remembered to actually bring any cash to reimburse me for his ticket. That really rubbed me up the wrong way but I didn’t say anything on the day - I figured just let’s enjoy the day and bring the matter up later. I lost them at the front gate as I went to get a drink, and 45,000 people later I never saw them for the rest of the day. So I spent the day on my own with no buddies to talk to. It wasn’t anywhere near the sort of day that I had expected.

The next day, I decided to not say a word and just watch what sort of “true friends” these guys turned out to be. I decided not to contact them or say a word. No phone calls. Nothing.

After a month, one of them sent me an email with a joke photo of Michael Jackson. No hint of paying for the ticket. I sent a reply telling him what I thought. The other 3 guys I never heard from again.

If I ever hear from them again I won’t give a shit.

All I can say is this - it’s just breathtaking how poorly people act in a supposedly civilised society. In short, I will never again do a monetary favour, ever, for anyone ever again.

26

Ah it reminds me of an old adage my dear grandmother said to me. “Never a lender nor borrower you be lest ye cannot live up to your debt or your debtors live up to theirs.”

If someone approached me with this I would tell them to go to the bank and collateralize their CD with a loan. The bank would have loaned the money because they had a collateral assignment on the CD for protection.

On another note. If you can’t scrape together at least 3 months worth of earnings you don’t need to be investing in a CD which ties up your money for 2 years. I advise my clients to keep at least $25,000 liquid at all times. If they have anything else above that then we can talk investing. Otherwise they just need to focus on the basics of keeping an emergency fund available.

It’s been my experience that only 4% of the people I speak with are able to do this because they spend every bleeding penny they make no matter how much they make. Fiscal management should be taught in high school or a mandatory core course in at least college so people will have at least a rudimentary knowledge of saving and spending and proper money management.

27

Wow – lots of replies to my rant!

To clarify, yes, the main complaint of coworker was that I hadn’t reminded her that I was going to deposit the check. The reason I didn’t simply didn’t occur to me to do so. :frowning: It had only been two months, and when we set things up we’d gone over when the CD was due, added some grace time in case the bank was slow in crediting it to her account, and then settled on Sept 1. (The CD and her checking account are at the same bank, btw, so the transfer shouldn’t have had any delay at all.) The timing was so definite in my mind it didn’t occur to me that it wouldn’t be in hers.

When she first brought up I should have told her I was about to deposit the check, I pointed out that she’d said she had no idea the CD hadn’t been cashed until the first bounce notice arrived and she contacted the bank. To me, that means even if I’d called her she would have said ‘fine,’ not having any reason to say otherwise.

She countered by saying she would have double checked…who knows, maybe she would have. <sigh>

As for why she’s blaming me: personally, I think it’s because she doesn’t want to blame her husband. She’s a very ‘my husband can do no wrong’ type of person, okay, let’s be fair, normally I’d call it ‘very loyal.’

As for why they’re living so close to the edge, I really have no idea. She works full time and gets a respectable salary. Her husband is employed as some sort of electronics engineer, so I’d assume he gets paid well. They’re talking about buying another house, so you’d think they needed to have a great deal of liquidity? But maybe they’re planning to buy a similar or even a smaller house, and expect the proceeds from the current house to cover it all. Which, given the current softening of the housing market here abouts might be too optimistic.

As to whether she’d recorded the check, or told her husband about the check when she wrote it, or if she explained to him why the CD had to be cashed at least partially – I don’t know. And I don’t think it would do any good to delve into it with her. From my POV, how the blame for the screwup should be apportioned between the two of them doesn’t matter.

As for why the coworkers are taking her side…well, that’s mainly a combination of “of course you should have told her first, I would have” comments, plus two of them saying that since I was able to do without the money for two months I should lend it back to them again to help them in their current difficulty.

Since I am feeling more than a little burned by this whole thing – despite the hassles now, I helped her out when she was crying about being in a major jam up, and the memory of that should have kept her from attacking me that way – there is no way I’m lending her any more money, now or ever.

If our coworkers feel she needs a loan so badly, let them loan her the money this time.

28

I can’t believe anybody would seriously think you should lend it back to her, after you get this kind of shit from her from doing absolutely nothing wrong. Your co-workers seem to be kinda stupid. And as for you not missing the money for two months, that is one hundred percent, completely beside the point.

29

SBS- Your Cow-orker is an asshole to have mentioned ANY of this shit to your other co-workers. Fuck her. On another note and in-line with my next comment which is in response to Shayna’s response…

You had a CONTRACT. The contract acts as formal communication between the two of you. You’re not a “debt collector”, you have a contract in place for repayment. There is no need for you to contact the other person and ask for permission to deposit the check. If she somehow “forgot” that she owed a grand to someone she works with then that’s her damned fault.

I wouldn’t be so bent about this if she had been at least a bit more professional about how she handled it, but by telling other people about it and getting angry with you and asking for something as ludicrous as for you to pay the bounce fees is nuts.

God people piss me off.

Sam

30

I guess you managed to miss the disclaimers I posted (4 of them!!) – repeated twice, no less, in two separate replies, too, huh?

Please scroll up and read before “responding to [my] response,” as your response doesn’t even remotely reflect my response.

Gah, again!

And SBS, I applaud you for standing your ground and not being bullied into offering this twit any more help. She was irresponsible with it the first time and based on her current behaviour, she won’t appreciate it or abide by the terms of it a second time. Glad to see you did learn a lesson afterall. Kudos!

31

Isn’t it against the law to post date checks anyway? That would leave her with even less room to complain.

I am also horrified that she has brought this personal matter into the workplace. That is extremely unprofessional and if she needs to keep her job, she and her buds had better cool it before word spreads to a supervisor.

There was a bestseller back in the 1960’s that was called Games that People Play. One of them was called “See What You Made Me Do.” That’s the game she is playing whether she knows it or not.

If she hassles you again about not reminding her, ask her why she didn’t remind you to remind her to take care of her own business.

32

That was my understanding, but it seems we could be mistaken.

But by all rights a check should be considered good when presented. The reciever can be asked not to depost it, but that would be a courtesy. Certainly not required.

BTW, I’m sure the co-workers side with the borrower because they heard a far different story than the OP told us. I’m sure that when the borrower told the tale, the OP came off like Simon Le Gree.

33

I don’t think that it’s illegal so much as it isn’t legally enforcable. There’s no law against writing next Monday’s date on the check, but there’s no law against cashing it before next Monday, either.

34

But if the teller notices the post-date, the teller won’t cash it. At least, the tellers wouldn’t at my bank. We used to get paid on fridays and the checks would arrive by FedX, sometimes on thursdays. They would give us the checks when they came in and we took them to the bank around the corner from the shop. If the teller actually noticed the date, they would make us wait till the next day.

35

This is a useful precautionary tale.

Allow me to add my experiences:

  1. (good) One old friend, who I trusted, had a promised work promotion suddenly withdrawn.
    He asked if he could borrow money from me and happily agreed to sign a note confirming the loan. He paid me back on the dot, and we are still good mates.

  2. (narrow escape) A relative-in-law asked if he could borrow some money. I reluctantly agreed (he seemed a financial novice), until he point-blank refused to sign a repayment note, saying it showed I ‘didn’t trust him’.
    So a cousin lent him the money. Then he asked for more … and more… and now he owes her £50,000!
    Since he has gone bankrupt (divorcing out of my family in the process), there’s no chance of repayment.

Oh, and here’s some suitable advice for StarvingButStrong’s co-workers.

  1. Ask to borrow money from them.
  2. Leave the job, with no forwarding address.

Of course this is not ethical, so don’t do it. But thinking about it may comfort you…

36

A good friend borrowed my brother’s life savings “for two days”, blew it on something or other, then bounced the repayment check. For the next six months, I was looking after my brother’s financial interests using my student loan (we ate nothing but frozen reject pizzas from a local factory for months), while this guy found enough cash to take his girlfriend out for posh meals and drinks. He eventually repaid the money, in small installments, after more than 6 months (during which time my bro was meant to be using the money to travel, but had to cancel his plans).

Where it comes to loaning between friends, the onus is on the debtor, not the lender, to sort their shit out.

IMO, you didn’t have any obligation whatsoever to remind your coworker you’d be depositing the check. She’s the one who postdated the check, so she should have made a note in her damn diary. And told you that her hubby had rolled the CD.

If the story is exactly as you’ve told it, then she’s a buttmunch and a bitch. Maybe when she calms down she might see the error of her anger.

Having said that, I wonder what she’s been telling your colleagues, to make them side with her?

37

I didn’t know that you knew my mother, peri. :wink:

38

No Shayna, I didn’t. My post had nothing to do with obligation. I was just making sure you understood the difference between a debt collector and 2 individuals with a contract.

Sorry if you did and sorry that I was misunderstood.

Sam

39

From a distance, this is amusing. SbS, I suggest you tell the co-worker that it’s not YOUR fault all those checks bounced; after all, there was money in the account when you cashed your check. It’s all those other people and businesses who cashed checks that bounced who are causing her a problem. She should go complain to them. They’re the ones messing her over, not you. :wink:

I’m reminded of a story about (I think) Rockefeller, when he was asked about lending money to acquaintances. He told a friend that he never reminded a gentleman about a debt.

The friend said, “But what if the gentleman never repays you?”

Rockefeller said, “After a certain length of time passes, I come to the conclusion that the man is not a gentleman, and then I remind him.”

40

There are exactly three people on this earth I would lend money to or borrow money from; my parents and my best friend. And with my best friend I wouldn’t go over a few hundred bucks. And only if we’re both still employed.

Never lend or borrow money from anyone but a bank. Never never never. The OP is obviously in the right and is getting jobbed, but still, the lesson must be learned.