DEALING WITH BAD CREDIT FRIENDS

The other day, I received a phone call from a friend whom I hadn’t spoken to in a while. With this being an era of social media, she and I mostly only chat on media platforms. So assuming she was calling to say hey and keep in touch, I quickly answered the call, with the certainty that it was going to be brief call. In retrospect, I would have left it unanswered and waited till I was in a more comfortable place to talk at length before returning the call. 

Well they say hind sight is 20/20 don’t they?  Turned out to be a very lengthy call as my friend was calling to complain about another mutual friend with whom she had had a business dealing with. Being her trusting self, she had handed over a sum of money to this friend to help pay for certain items she wanted for her shop but couldn’t spare the time to go herself. This friend was only supposed to pick up this cash from her house and pass it on to a vendor whom he had introduced her to and who lived close to him. 

According to her, he had offered to help since it wasn’t going to of any inconvenience to him. However, after 3 months he still hadn’t given the money to the person it was meant for and every day she calls, he came up with one excuse or the other. The vendor wasn’t around; he’s been sick and out of the country for treatment; he lost a family relation and went to his village; his money is tied up somewhere… on and on this went on until he stopped taking her calls.

She reached out to some of his friends to talk to him on her behalf. But when they reported back to her, he claimed not to have ever taken her money nor been involved in any business dealing with her. This left her hurt. Not only because of the huge dent the loss of that money created in her finances, but also because she been grossly mistaking in trusting someone whom she considered a friend. 

Her story isn’t unique to her alone; many of us have been swindled by people. And I wished I had all the time to truly share with her my honest opinion, but because I was in a public place I could only give advice that was socially appropriate. Many of us have been swindled before. But I believe that the disappointments that hurt the most are from the ones we thought to be our friends. Worst still is when these people who seem so genuine come to you asking for loans to help at a particularly tight period. One thing I picked up a long time ago is never to hand out any amount of money that you cannot forfeit to that person. But we are human, and so when people ask for assistance, we cannot but help out even if it isn’t financially smart for us to do so. 

People involved in business I believe suffer most with such bad credit friends. You feel safer selling on credit to friends because you have some degree of trust for them, so when they turn around and owe you for months un-end, I can only Imagine the anger and hurt. 

I came up with some ways to spot bad credit friends that I hope will help someone out there as it has helped me.

First, they always make promises. Be wary of people who are always eager to run their mouths off. They will use the life of their mother to swear to you when they come to borrow and buy stuff on credit, promising to pay up next week or the very next day. 

Second, be suspicious of friends whose source of income you do not know for sure. It is easy to judge people by the way they appear, but just because they look good, doesn’t always mean they earn that well. For all you know, they are swagging off monies they borrowed off other people.  

Third, accept with a pint of salt people who always act as though the money they are asking from you is nothing at all compared to what they have. It is always easy to borrow 50k to someone who brags about going to the US for vacation every 4 months or someone who always carries a designer purse. But if that person was as loaded and connected as they claim to be, why do they need to borrow from someone else? So be suspicious!

Fourthly, this is perhaps the trickiest. People who have borrowed from you before and always paid back. It is so much easier to lend money to people like this because they have been tried in the past and they fulfilled their promise. People like this know just as you do, that it will be easier for you to trust them because they had never failed in the past, so they will play on your intelligence. If the first time they borrowed 20k and paid back within a week, the second time they borrow 40k and pay within one month, the third time they come, they will ask for 50k promising to pay in 2 weeks. Since you know they had always paid back, you will gladly be willing to help. But that’s where they get you. 6 months later they still haven’t paid. 

They see you every day, laugh and pretend like nothing’s up. And you are too modest to ask them, because you believe they are bigger than the amount they borrowed from you so maybe things are a bit too tight. But whenever you see them they always have something new, they eat at the choicest restaurants and buy drinks at the club, yet they still owe.

One thing I have learnt is that not everybody is as kind and trusting as you are. In fact, people are banking on this kindness of yours to cheat you. They are also banking on the friendship you two share because they are certain that for the sake of friendship you will not call the police on their ass. Let me reiterate one life fact to you, if you cannot forfeit a certain amount of money to someone, do not borrow such an amount of money to anyone who isn’t family or whom you do not have a sure way of getting your money back from. A word, they say is enough for the wise.

I will love if you can share how you manage bad debtors…

And if you're a serial debtor reading this, change my brother my sister, biko!