...M'kay.
Posted on 07/29/2012 5:51:06 PM PDT by Lazamataz
DO NOT EVER DO THIS.
I met a fellow about 7 years ago in the rooms of Narcotics Anonymous. He was getting cleaned up; so was I. We became fast friends. Soon, I was helping him out, and he was helping me.
Sometimes I loaned him money -- a lot -- and sometimes he loaned it to me. Once, I loaned him my car for some jobn interviews. Everything went well.
He contacted me recently and asked if I could rent him a car. "Why can't you rent it?" I asked. Well, he had a valid license but not a physical copy of it. Sure, I replied. I can do it.
I rented the car for him from Enterprise. He paid for the whole deal, including the extended insurance (which I demanded he do). Four days pass, the car needs to be returned or re-rented. No problem, he comes with more money and we re-rent it. Four more days pass, and I contact him. No answers. I call him all day. No answers. Now I am getting worried.
I go to where his last address was, and his girlfriend answers (also in the program of recovery) and she says he moved out some time back. She hints he's returned to using. Now I am getting REALLY worried.
I call and call and call. The next day, I go to Enterprise, and they inform me that because he is an unauthorised driver, no coverage will be afforded me under the insurance. I may be 100% civilly liable. They instruct me to report the car stolen. I call Chamblee police, and an officer comes. Police are always suspicious, and this one is too, telling me "my story does not add up" (but it did! It is what happened!) and informing me that I could and would be charged with a FELONY (Theft by Conversion) if the car is not returned by nightfall.
The guy is still not answering. I might be in SERIOUS trouble for being an idiot -- not for truly being a criminal.
The next day he answers, finally. Tells me not to panic, that the car is fine. I tell him HE and I will BOTH be charged with a felony and that we may be already. He shrugs it off ... "No big deal. I've had felonies before."
Yeah, a comment like that, he's definitely using again.
He promises to get the car to me. I wait at home, calling every fifteen minutes. Excuse after excuse on why he's not there yet. Finally, he stops answering again. Oh crap.
A day passes, I'm reaching out to my 12 step friends to locate him. One person saw him in an apartment complex. I stake it out for a while. No luck.
Another day passes. Enterprise calls me, they tell me they haven't issued a warrant yet, but this will be the final day.
So I start thinking like an addict. I was one, I know how they think. The only interest they (used to be me, too) have is their next hit. BINGO. I text him that I will offer him 100's in cash to bring the car back.
Suddenly he calls. He's willing. I tell him to meet me at my place of employment, where there are armed security guards. He pulls in, he's got 2 friends with him. Hmmm. I lure him out of the car by putting the cash on the ground. He gets out, I get in and order the friends out. The dude says, "Aren't you at least going to drive us somewhere?" Hell no. I'm in sight of armed guards right now, this is where they get out. I let them know they need to leave. I wave to the security guards, they wave back. They had no idea what was going on, but the wave convinced the hoodlums to leave.
This was the most terrifying week I have had in a long time. I was certain I was going to be jailed, with little prospect of an immediate bond, and a loss of job, and a felony accusation that my attorney told me was likely to stick.
All because I was too nice, too naive, and just plain stupid.
Don't let anything like this happen to you. I aged about 5 years.
I encourage people to define the roles they play and expect others to play in life, and that each person have only one role.
Sometimes this is obvious: a man’s daughter, for instance, should not also be his lover; the trash man should not be consulted for legal advice; a doctor should not loan money to his patient. In each such case, there are obviously better options to fill those roles.
Trouble enters especially in some of life’s more poorly defined roles. Our anything-goes society these days has deemed it uptight to define roles clearly, but with great damage to many people. The role of “friend,” and roles within a family, have become so murky as to lose all meaning. People get upset when a “friend” - a role well defined by Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics, IMO - will not also act as a chauffeur, or a banker, or a liquor store for them. Grown offspring believe they are entitled to have their parents act as free, on-demand babysitters, benefactors, landlords, friends, bail bondsmen, etc, etc, etc.
Show me someone with poorly defined relationship roles, and I’ll show you a great deal of unnecessary unhappiness.
It’s like lending money my dad told me. don’t expect to get it back. Only a member of my family has returned a small portion of what they owe. The rest suddenly got lost.
The last few years have made me way more skeptable and ‘sucks to be you.’ And for no particular reason. Maybe just getting old and cranky.
A harrowing experience and good advice.
Damn, what a harrowing experience. I’m glad you realized that you had to think like a junkie to con the guy into returning the car, and that you were successful in doing so.
When I left ‘the life’ (a long, long time ago), I got myself far outside my former circle of fellow screw ups. I was very young, but I knew that if I had any contact with them, that I’d wind up reverting, or coming to grief in some way.
Over the years, I eventually befriended people who were battling substance addiction and other self-destructive habits, but I never trusted them as far as I could throw them. I never loaned them money, cars, house keys, or anything like that. I never let them maneuver me into any position where they could take advantage of me, because I know what rules them.
It’s a policy that I keep to this very day.
You were very smart to lure him with the cash. Read many thrillers? You think like a thriller writer. And for whatever other reasons there may be . . . you have been rescued! So glad.
You were clever and courageous in remedying your mistake — and in sharing the experience.
If you loan someone $20 and never see them again, it was probably worth it. That’s an old saying I saw somewhere.
Got burned by a co-worker for $100. He had just done me a favor, so I loaned him the money. Made excuses for the next two months till he was fired for attendance.
I never in a million years, would have guessed she’d sell out our friendship over a hundred bucks, but she did.
A hundred dollars buys something like three or four sacks of groceries today, so a little perspective might be a good thing here.
You might be amazed at how liberating it is to simply shift your consideration of that loan in your own mind, and decide that it was a gift to a friend in dire need. Just turn it around completely and let the ill will go.
You might also get a friend back if you communicate that to her. Who knows...one day, she may be the one person who moves heaven and earth to help you.
I can definitely understand that.
My kids are bashful about asking to borrow my car. An old junkie acquaintance..? Uh.. no. Not in a million years.
Just my girlfriend. hehehe
I sensed that. Either that, or my money, car, and probably my cell phone would be gone.
That's what stunned me too.
Wow, Laz.
Glad everything turned out ok for you.
Actually, it was the cop who informed me of my legal jeopardy. I retained my attorney, and he agreed I was in serious jeopardy. Check out the statute, it specifically mentions rental property: GA 16-8-4
...M'kay.
It was NOT the money, nor does it matter how much or little 100 dollars will buy.
The fact that she snubbed me, refuse to return my calls and simply did not say to me “I am sorry, I can’t pay you back.”
That I would understand.
Treating me like dirt, I cannot.
I let it go long ago.
It was simply brought up as a lesson in money lending.
Like you, I never made any effort to recover the money, but I was stunned that apparently that meant more to my so called friends than my friendship.
Vee’s too soon olde, und too late schmart!
;0)
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