"Friend" owes me over £700

eho81

Hi guys,

I'm just after a bit of advice on what to do about someone who owes me money. I do matched betting on the side as well as working full time but I have a friend who doesn't work and was telling me how he was about to lose his flat as his benefits were being stopped. I told him about matched betting and lent him £200 to get him started. Over the course of nearly 2 months he ended up with £722 of my money in a couple of his bookies as he was using my exchange to lay off the bets and a lot of the bets were winning. I asked if he could send some of it back over as that was quite a lot of my money to be just sitting in his accounts. I said not to worry, the money was safe. I haven't heard from him since.

This was nearly 3 months ago. I have tried calling, texting and knocking on his door but he's purposely avoiding me. I have known him for 20 years, I'm pretty sure he's spent the money already. Since he has no job I know the chances of me getting the money back off him are slim but I do know he was thousands of pounds worth of music equipment in his flat. I have been looking into taking him to a small claims court but i've also seen other options like statutory demands.

Is it worth me taking action to try and at least get some of his gear repossessed so he can pay me back? I have all the conversations on whatsapp as evidence if that helps. I really don't want to let him get away with this as I helped him out when he said he was desperate, even his own family had turned their backs on him but now I see why.

Thanks in advance.

elsien

If you only lent him £200, why does he now owe you £720?

DCFC79

elsien wrote: »

If you only lent him £200, why does he now owe you £720?

Maybe he lent him more money and it grew and grew.

Eho does he still live at the flat ?

eho81

With matched betting, if your bet wins then money comes out of your exchange and into the bookies. If your bet loses, the money comes out of the bookies and into the exchange. By chance nearly all of the bets he put on won so the money came out of my exchange.

DCFC79

Small claims court might be an option, if he has no keans to repay you then it will be like getting blood from a stone.

stevenhp1987

eho81 wrote: »

With matched betting, if your bet wins then money comes out of your exchange and into the bookies. If your bet loses, the money comes out of the bookies and into the exchange. By chance nearly all of the bets he put on won so the money came out of my exchange.

If you lent him money, why should he pay you winnings?

If you lent someone money to gamble (matched betting or not) then that is a disaster ready to unfold and this thread smells of troll...

Arleen

DCFC79 wrote: »

Small claims court might be an option, if he has no keans to repay you then it will be like getting blood from a stone.

Even If he does have money, I struggle how OP plans to prove anything else than the 200. And even the 200 is dubious, a friend in needs comes to you, you offer him 200 quid and don't mention it for 2 months or so. Even if he admits the 200, good luck proving that it wasn't just a gift to a fried.

Most likely the money is gone. If you want to screw your "friends" life a bit, go for the CCJ, but don't expect to see any money, rather see more flow away to pay for the CCJ.

Chapuys

This looks like your upset that he won bets and want the winnings refunded?

His winnings are his winnings. He only owes you £200 unless you did lend him extra money. It kind of looks like you were hoping from the start that he would lose the £200 when he started betting with your exchange. You should ask for just the £200 now, and if that doesn't work, write it off as a loss to keep the friendship or spend almost the same amount of money applying for a CCJ to have the chance be told you have no proof of the debt.

dollydoodah

If you don't understand matched betting, you probably aren't getting what the OP is saying.

- You place a bet with a bookmaker (eg Coral, William Hill etc) and also the opposing bet with an exchange.
- If the bet wins, all the money transfers to your bookmaker account, if it loses it goes to the exchange account.

So what looks to have happened is that the friend has ended up with no money in his exchange and therefore can't carry on placing bets. OP has allowed friend to use the money in his exchange account but unfortunately for him the bet has won, money has gone into friend's bookies account and the cycle continues.

It was perfectly possible for the friend to withdraw his winnings from the bookies but has not done so.

PeacefulWaters

I don't think many posters here understand how matched betting works.

Pretty foolish thing to do using two people for matched betting. You leave yourself wide open to loss of friend and loss of cash.

Lesson learned. Loss sustained.

redpete

Sounds like you have him access to you exchange account. Not sure any court would be able to treat this as lending him money; matched betting probably wouldn't come into it for a court, you allowed him to bet using your account and those bets lost.