Oldest friend took £1400, moved house, changed contact details without paying me back, what do I do?

bertiewhite

I'm with Poppasmurf - she'll slip up at some time - some people can't help themselves, especially on social media.

So get yourself back on it - you don't have to post everything about yourself, just watch & wait.

Are her Mum & Nan near to you? I bet she'll visit at sometime and one day you'll just happen to be driving past

gycraig_2

Do you know where she works ?

Boohoo

CrazeeCurlee wrote: »

EDIT: Thank you to everyone who has responded, I really appreciate all your time in reading and posting. However... I have got the message that it is unlikely I will get the money back! I still want to take it to court, so I would be grateful for responses on how much the process is likely to cost, where I can send court documents to and if I can't send them to her mum or her nan, how much it would cost to trace her. Thans.

THE STORY: Sadly I've seen a few similar cases on here... she agreed to hold onto some money for me (so I wouldn't spend it on stupid stuff) and transfer it on a certain date. She never did, there were always excuses as to why she couldn't, until she sent a dodgy screenshot which she claimed showed the money coming out of her account, changed her contact details and then never responded to anything I sent. The week before she went AWOL she moved into a new address, but did not give me it. I never received the money, and have all the proof of this. Additionally, her screenshot only showed £900 so even by her own evidence £500 is missing.

I'm wondering what I can do now? My understanding is I need to send a letter before action (I have a good template for this) and offer mediation (I have found a good place) but since I don't know her address, or who exactly it is she works for, is it enough to send a letter before action via email, or to her Mum's or Nan's or previous living address? If not, I've seen Monkey Finder recommended on here, any idea how much they would cost? How about the whole process - realistically, how much am I going to have to spend?

If you do take your "friend" to court and let's say you win and you get the money how will that effect your bankruptcy?
If you win will you have to give all the money to OR?
If the loan to your friend was before you went bankrupt would that of been included with it and then the OR should chase your friend for the outstanding balance i think.
If your "friend" had your money just before you went bankrupt or very soon after then if you take your "friend" to court and OR finds out about the £1400 not having been declared to the OR before you went bust i dont think they will be very impressed do you?
Also maybe your "friend" knows this about your money and is hoping you don't want to chase it incase it comes out in court and looks bad for you.
I hope it all works out in the end for you.

madvicker

The main reason you are unlikely to win this in the small claims court is there doesn't appear to be any written agreement or contract between you and your friend. At least, not that I can tell in what you've written. The courts will want to see evidence that you can prove the money was yours, lent to your friend, to be returned on a specified date. Unfortunately it appears all those agreements were verbal, which you cannot prove unless she herself tells a judge that you gave her the money with the intent to pay it back. All she has to do in court is deny that fact - there is nothing in writing to prove otherwise.

Get yourself some evidence in writing - otherwise you are relying on your friend's admittance in court. Without evidence you are just going to be throwing money away into a black hole.

tacpot12

Given you have some evidence that your friend accepts that she owes you some money (£900 if not £1400) in the form of screenshots, you should be able to take her to the small claims court. Your best course of action is to ask a solicitor to send a letter before action and hope that the prospect off being taken to court will cause her to start paying you back. Your letter might offer payment terms e.g. £100 per month to help her return the money.

Many sure you have all the evidence assembled in one place; texts, emails, screenshots etc. all need to be ready to court. The solicitor should only charge a small amount to write a letter, if you make it clear that you will not need them in court.

Paul_DNAP

CrazeeCurlee wrote: »

@Paul, In my initial post I said she had sent a screenshot of her bank account which she argued showed the money had left her account and been sent to me (it didn't show that at all and I didn't receive any money) which is evidence of her acknowledging that she needed to give me back money. In addition to this I have reams of emails and FB conversations, texts, evidence of the transfer initially going into her bank etc. etc. It's clearly very straightforward (which is why I'm so shocked she'd do this)... However I'd prefer not to go into details of the case as I'm more interested in answers to the questions previously posted.

That might be enough to get Judge Rinder declaring in your favour, but even then he could come out with not having a clear contract in place. I think a real court may want to see more, but it could be worth a try, you may get some of your money back.
But it's going to be a long, arduous and stressful task, first of all there's a question of if you can find her, and then if she shows up to court, and then if you win you will have to wait to see if she pays up the judgement, if not you'll have to escalate it through several steps all the way up to high court enforcement, and even then it will depends if the bailiffs can find her, and then if she has anything worth taking when they do.

foxy-stoat

CrazeeCurlee wrote: »

Everyone is saying it's gone, you won't get it back, don't even bother: there must be a reason small claims courts exist? Could I not get an attachment of earnings? Why is the chances of getting the money back so small that I shouldn't even attempt it?

Due to money you have to spend, additional stress and it will impact on your life negatively and you may not get a result at the end of it.

By all means pay for a tracing agent, get her address and start a small claim and see where you get with it. If your paperwork is not 100% then the courts may just rule there is no debt and than will be that. If they side with you they get a CCJ - then you have to collect or enforce it. Blood from a stone or you may get £5 a week - good luck.

Candyapple

CrazeeCurlee wrote: »

EDIT: Thank you to everyone who has responded, I really appreciate all your time in reading and posting. However... I have got the message that it is unlikely I will get the money back! I still want to take it to court, so I would be grateful for responses on how much the process is likely to cost, where I can send court documents to and if I can't send them to her mum or her nan, how much it would cost to trace her. Thans.

It will cost you £70 online to start a claim.

It doesn't matter if she claims not to have received it, as long as you send it to her last known address then the claim has been served on her. Up to you whether you want to send it to her actual last address (she may have a mail forwarding in place) or her mum's address. You could also use her work address, the court allows it:
https://www.moneyclaimsuk.co.uk/creditor-and-claimant-questions-and-answers/can-I-make-a-claim-using-the-debtors-work-address.aspx

Once you have done this, if she does not respond in time then you can claim judgement in default. In other words, you win automatically. At this point the other side may well apply to have the judgement set aside and be relisted, claiming that they never received the claim form. All this means is that they can no longer just bury their head in the sand and have got to deal with the issue. However, a lot of people don't do this - largely as they are unaware that they can - and just pay up at this stage.

One thing to be aware of with county court claims, if the debtor doesn't pay off their own back then it's up to you to actually get your money.

Order to obtain information from a debtor:
• To issue an application for an order for a debtor or other person to attend court to provide information – fees order 8.3
£55

• To request Bailiff service of an order for a debtor to attend court for
questioning – fees order 8A.1
£110

Attachment of earnings – fees order 8.7
• Application for an attachment of earnings order (a fee is payable
for each defendant against whom the order is requested). £110

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/722533/EX50-eng-0718.pdf

Regarding tracing her, Google is your friend. I have no idea whether these companies are legit or not, but here is one I found from Google:
http://www.mcatracing.co.uk/tracing-agents.htm

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/small-claims-court/

Herzlos

gycraig wrote: »

Do you know where she works ?

That's what I was thinking; whilst it's reasonable to change address (rental ending or whatever), it's unlikely she's changed job as well. If she's got a car and you know where she works it should be easy enough to establish if she's still there even if it's just to serve papers.


But realistically, the money is gone. Unless you can embarrass/shame her into giving it up then you're going to get nothing but expenses and stress.


Talking to parents / mutual friends is worth the shot, but remember she's likely told them some completely different story about why they shouldn't listen to you.

CrazeeCurlee

Boohoo wrote: »

If you do take your "friend" to court and let's say you win and you get the money how will that effect your bankruptcy?
If you win will you have to give all the money to OR?
If the loan to your friend was before you went bankrupt would that of been included with it and then the OR should chase your friend for the outstanding balance i think.
If your "friend" had your money just before you went bankrupt or very soon after then if you take your "friend" to court and OR finds out about the £1400 not having been declared to the OR before you went bust i dont think they will be very impressed do you?
Also maybe your "friend" knows this about your money and is hoping you don't want to chase it incase it comes out in court and looks bad for you.
I hope it all works out in the end for you.

It wasn't a loan. This money was declared on the bankruptcy form under 'who owes you money' or something similar, so the OR already knows about it. We spoke about it during the interview too, both the amount, the circumstances and the fact I would like to take her to court but don't know her address. I had heard that the OR sometimes chases money owed but in this case they elected not to (not sure if it's because I don't know her address or what). When I explained what I had planned to spend the money on, the OR said that if I got the money back she would try to arrange for at least some of it to come back to me. I reckon you're probably right that ex-friend thinks that it might look bad if I go to court and thinks that I won't want to, but I'm not concerned about that for the reasons above. Thanks for your concern though.