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

The BBQ Pit
41

Heh. Sauron, I like the way you think. So, yes, why didn’t the gas company call her up when the got her check, and ask if it was all right for them to cash it now?
But…a soft answer turns away wrath and I’ve got to work with all people and all that, plus I had a good night’s sleep to calm down about it. So, this morning I apologized to Linda for not having reminded her before I cashed the check. And she apologized to me for what she said – she’d just be upset, mainly over what it could mean to their buying another house, and now admits that both she and hubby screwed up, too: he didn’t send that form back, she never checked on it.

I can tell she’s still miffed, and there’s lingering awkwardness, but I hope that will fade away in time.

In Linda’s defense, I want to say that I really don’t think there was any intention on her part to stiff me like with Boo Boo Foo’s friends. This financial storm just hit her and she blew up – she’s got a temper and is a drama queen. For example, when she had the car accident she made it sound like she was near suicide: if she couldn’t fix the car, she couldn’t get to work, she’d lose her job, the children would starve, she’d end up on the streets like a bag lady…

Hmmm. Actually, that probably explains why the other’s seemed to be on her side. It’s not that she told a different story of what happened, but her version involved dashed hopes and financial losses and the ruinination of her dreams and what all by my grabbing back the money when I didn’t even NEED it. If you are faced with two people, one of whom is fairly composed and the other is yelling and sometimes breaking into tears – I guess you’d naturally want to support the one in emotional distress.

Damn my phlegmatic nature, anyway.

Ah, well. As Shayna pointed out, I have learned my lesson. I will never loan money to coworkers again, other than maybe the ‘I forgot my wallet can I borrow $5 for lunch’ type doings.

42

God damn. The nerve.

I think you have to be very assertive and confront her. I mean, this could make your entire worklife uncomfortable.

Tell her “I feel terrible that you are now in a difficult position. HOWEVER, I feel that your distress over your overdrafts has made you forget that we set up these terms together. You are now treating me very unfairly. I hope you can try to regain your perspective on this and realize what has really happened here.”

Then pull out the fucking promissory note. and tell her "We had an agreement, and I simply did what you asked me to do. YOU ASKED ME to deposit this check after 9/1. I did. Naturally, as your friend, I feel terrible that you have an overdraft. However, I cannot understand why you are angry with me over something that I had no control over. I cannot be held accountable for your change in plans when you informed about it. I simply did what we agreed, together, I should do.

"Please think about it this way: What if you’d been able to write a post-dated check directly to the garage, instead of to me. Would you blame them for depositing the check now? Of course not.

“Normally, I’d let this end here, but in your emotional distress you drew our co-workers into this and have apparently not told them the whole story. I would like for you to explain the situation to each of them and correct the misconceptions. I am sure you understand how unfair it is for me to be judged by people who do not know the correct story. If you don’t want to tell them, I will, but I believe it should come from you.”

Ouch, I feel so bad for you. There is a cost when you fuck up. In her case, the cost will be an early withdrawal penalty for the CD. It sucks, but that is HER FUCKING PROBLEM.

43

Oops, took too long composing that (and still garbled a sentence)–I see things are better. Thank heavens.

I’d still ask her to explain to your co-workers. It’s terribly unfair to you.

44

What part of that could you possibly construe to indicate that I don’t understand the difference between a debt collector and an individual making a loan? Seriously. Again, I ask that you read my whole post before replying – for comprehension next time.

Sorry if you missed it (twice) and sorry that I was misunderstood (though how I could have been clearer, I fail to see).

45

My understanding of post dated checks:

You accept a check. You’re told it’s no good. You’re told it will be good next month. Next month it bounces.

Tough luck. You knew it was a bad check when you accepted it.

If you had delayed on getting your money, you would have had the hot check. You were lucky. She’s a crook and you didn’t lose much.

46

She is obviously an idiot about money in more ways than one. Bouncing a check to the gas, phone, or electric company won’t affect her credit rating. Only certain types of companies report to the credit agencies at all. The Visa company will report but that payment will have to be more than 30 days late before even it will affect her credit. All she has to do is send them a new check for the minimum payment of $10 or so and she gets another month to pay. Asshat.

47

FWIW…this REALLY sucks and I feel bad for SBS for the shit you have to put up with especially at work. I really hope that this thread somehow gets to the cow-orkers computers…

As for the post dated checks, if SBS were a collection agency, SBS would have to adhere to these standards set forth by the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act

So, according to this, it’s ok to postdate a check…if the timespan from receiving the postdated check to the time it’s supposed to be cashed is longer than 5 days, the collector has to notify the debtor that they will be cashing the check. SBS is in no way a collection agency so this law does not apply to him/her.
1)They owe SBS money and a promise was made to pay them. Their checkbook should have had this recorded.
2)If their intention was to cash out their CD, they should have had this in their mind. I’m assuming (based on extrapolating some of the info) that they probably were going to use the money from their CD to buy the house. The CD isn’t cashed out and they’ll be penalized for cashing it out now but if they still want to buy the house they’d be doing that anyway…
3)How fucking frustrating.
4)One would think that if they run that close that they’d have overdraft protection on their account.
5)What kind of cow-orker evil bitch would tell other people in your office of their financial woes and then belittle the person that helped?

:mad:

I hope this all blows over soon.

48

  1. Most banks have a 5-7 day grace period on CD rollovers. Didn’t mean to let it rollover? Want a different term? Want to withdraw part of it? Call within the grace period and there’s no penalty. Does the borrower know this?

  2. Even if they’re past the grace period by a week or so, the penalty, what with rates being so low and the renewal being so fresh, will be really low. (Penalty is usually based on a portion of the interest earned to date–which will not be much.) When I broke a large CD early for my home purchase downpayment, the penalty was only about $30.

49

CrankyAsAnOldMan has the right general idea; SBS needs to be assertive and confront the co-worker promptly.

What the co-worker needs to be confronted ABOUT has changed. SBS noted that the issue about the money has been resolved. Now the co-worker needs to resolve the bad mood in the office that she caused by telling everybody.

Now that I reread Cranky…'s post, I see e did cover this in the last paragraph of eir suggested speech. There’s no need for SBS to pull out the fucking agreement or otherwise refer to the loan – just point out that the co-worker, for EIR OWN sake, needs to restore a good working environment. (I emphasize whose sake needs to be presented, as we’ve already seen that the co-worker was not overly concerned with the OP’s position.)

IANAL, but does a temper tantrum count as causing a “hostile working environment” as per anti-harrassment law?

50

“A friend in need is a pain in the Ass”

Of course you could always smack her in the throat with a cricket bat and poke her husband in the eyes, Three Stooges style.

Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk!

How is Rap like Porn? Both are better with the sound turned off.

51

SbS, I would have told the co-workers that it was none of their damn business. This was a financial arrangement between you and CD Lady.

I see that’s it’s all over now, but in my mind, you did nothing wrong. It was up to her to follow through and make sure the money was in the account, not you.

Don’t help her again.

52

SBS, I’m sorry it happened to you. I’m glad that you know that you did nothing wrong. If you had reminded her, and she saw she was short, she might have stopped your check with one call to her bank. And then you’d be waiting on Hell Hosting NHL Playoffs before you got another dime.

On the bright side, you got all your money back…and you know that the Drama Queen is a terror to do business with. I’d advise you to do 2 things:

  1. Make sure you don’t give her cent one back, as you’ll never ever see it. (If you want a list of charities to donate to, ask HR)

  2. Make sure the Queen knows that “Bank o’ SBS” is CLOSED. If she gets huffy, suggest “Bank o’ Mom” or “Bank o’ Dad”.

53

Any US bank I know of will write a loan against a CD they have on deposit, as collateral. Your “friend” might have considered that approach.

“Neither a borrower nor a lender beeee…
Do not forget
Stay out of debt.”
The Skipper singing to Gilligan in the musical “Hamlet”