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

CrazeeCurlee

Herzlos wrote: »

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.

I don't know where she works, she doesn't have a car, and I've spoken to her family and friends that know us both. Again, I don't understand why it's soooo incredibly unlikely I will get anything back?

DCFC79

CrazeeCurlee wrote: »

I don't know where she works, she doesn't have a car, and I've spoken to her family and friends that know us both. Again, I don't understand why taking her taking her to court isn't an option?

Was there an agreement in place as post number 25 asks ?
I take it all the texts etc mention it isnt a gift for her ?


You need her address first to do anything, I don't know if sending the letter to her mums/nans address would work (you would need to find that bit out.)

CrazeeCurlee

madvicker wrote: »

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.

I have absolutely no idea where you got that everything was verbal as that was not written or implied in my post at all. In fact, everything was in writing as we were too busy to meet much in the weeks surrounding all this. As I mentioned in up thread, there is actually loads in writing but I have elected not to go into too much detail as this is not the point of the thread.

CrazeeCurlee

Paul_DNAP wrote: »

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.

I have more evidence, I'm just choosing not to go into it here. Yes I know it's going to be long and hard, I'm looking for advice on how to navigate all this. If you have any practical advice on how to initiate court proceedings in the circumstances I have described that would be great.

CrazeeCurlee

tacpot12 wrote: »

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.

Thanks for this. Do I need a solicitor or can I do it myself? Or is it just that sending it via solicitor might scare her more? Also, where do I send the letter?

CrazeeCurlee

foxy-stoat wrote: »

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.

OK thanks for at least trying to explain, I know the process is likely to be quite long and hard and there are no guarantees but people must get their money back or they wouldn't bother with the process? The whole point of this post is to see whether or not I should be getting a tracing agent, what the paperwork should look like, how to collect etc. If you have any solid advice on that I'd love to hear it.

CrazeeCurlee

DCFC79 wrote: »

Was there an agreement in place as post number 25 asks ?
I take it all the texts etc mention it isnt a gift for her ?


You need her address first to do anything, I don't know if sending the letter to her mums/nans address would work (you would need to find that bit out.)

YES! The agreement is clearly in writing and nowhere is it even possible it was a gift. I had already responded to post #25 before you even commented with this post. Honestly how many times do I have to go over this, I'm really not interested in hashing out the particulars of this case, I want to know how to go about making a claim. The second part of your post acknowledges that you can't really help me with that.

CrazeeCurlee

Candyapple wrote: »

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.


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/

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

This is exactly what I was looking for :j

CrazeeCurlee

Thanks everyone for responding, I have appreciated the goodwill of most posters even if all the advice wasn't what I was looking for. I now have an answer to the question that I asked, will update this thread with how it goes :-)

DCFC79

CrazeeCurlee wrote: »

YES! The agreement is clearly in writing and nowhere is it even possible it was a gift. I had already responded to post #25 before you even commented with this post. Honestly how many times do I have to go over this, I'm really not interested in hashing out the particulars of this case, I want to know how to go about making a claim. The second part of your post acknowledges that you can't really help me with that.

Apologies I missed your reply.
I don't think anyone is wanting you to go into the particulars, Im certainly not.