Today, I want to share a story about a loan. It wasn't me taking a loan but rather loaning money to somebody else. Just to give some background, I'm fortunate enough where I never had to take a loan in my life but that doesn't mean I'm rich or anything. I would say my parents are well off but I never asked for money from them nor did they give me money besides maybe Chinese New Year. On a side note, I have borrowed money from friends before before but it's such a miniscule amount that there's no juicy story about those. Adding on, I don't plan on taking any loans in the future either because I would prefer to pay it off in one go than to pay interest if possible.
The story goes to one of my jobs at a business networking club which is an NGO that focuses on members having fellowship and then getting together to discuss about any possible collaborations in their businesses. Since I'm like an admin in this job, I know every member in the club. There was a person and for this blog I will just name the A because I don't want to expose them or anything.
A was a friendly and nice person. I would consider them as an extrovert. A was really good at speaking publicly. Anyways A would chat with me now and then and it seemed that they did had a stroke of bad luck. A lost their job and then they mentioned that they had car issues. Then there was one day that A texted me. It was one of those texts that were like out of the blue and you just had the feeling based on the chat that they were going to ask for a favor. My gut feeling came out to be correct and A asked me if I could lend them RM200 which is around 42 USD. A wanted the money to cover some urgent payments on their car or something, I forgot what exactly. Due to the previous chats, I guess I did pity A so I lent them the money.
I have mentioned in one my previous blogs about how I moved out and struggled. There were people that helped me in that journey like the couple I was paying rent to and after that someone that let me stay with them for almost free basically. These past experiences also helped me decide to lend them the money because I also want to help others. A seemed like they were in a bad spot. After sending A the money, A promised to pay me back after a month or two.
About two months passed and I never heard from A. Then randomly one day after the two months, I remembered that A owed me money so I texted A. A told me that they will pay me soon. Then after that A has ghosted me.
Honestly, it's kind of sad because I thought I had a good read on A's personality. I guess they weren't as responsible as I thought and they also lacked a conscience because if they did have one, they would've paid me back. Personally, if I ever borrowed any money from anybody, I would pay them back as soon as I was able to. I would keep thinking about it in my head that "oh I owe X money". After that experience, I find it hard to lend money anymore. I probably wouldn't at the current stage of my life but if I ended up really wealthy, maybe I wouldn't mind.
What do you think of my story? Did something like this ever happen to you?