I think I deserve a few slaps (or lut-tee hits) on the wrist, first for not writing any posts and secondly for leaving it for too long. I'm hearing through the grapevines, people like my 'alternative, up-front' viewpoints. Someone even said, I could be classed as 'The Times' amongst the Brit-Nepali blogging community (as opposed to the Daily Mail usual trash). Maybe a long way to go until I get the 'The Times' knocking at my door, but each to their own, here goes another gentle blog.
The other day, I checked my bank account and I noticed I have £5.23 to survive for the rest of the month. Peanuts you might say, but in fact I feel OK. That's right, I feel content with £5.23 right now. I know I've covered my spending for this month and I don't intend on going on any spending binge in the next 7 days. There is always the evil credit card if something comes up, but lets 'try' not to go down that road - I will just survive until the next pay packet appears.
Unfortunately however, for some, having that amount just doesn't seem to see the light of day. Seeing £5.23 in their account signifies something entirely different altogether - a call to participate in some nefarious clandestine money making activity.* Sure I would like to have more money, but there just never seems to be enough of it - funny that. "But hey, not to worry, I'm going to sneakingly get it out of YOU instead!" I have no desire to dip into my minuscule savings nor have I the desire to ask my family, friends, sell my daily possessions, borrow, cheat or manipulate people to get additional funds. At the end of the day, it's my fault I have £5.23 in my account, what I spent my money on yesterday and what I will spend on today, tomorrow or in one years time, is down to me; not my family, friends or what 'society' has told me to spend my money on. If I can't afford something that I should have bought when I was able to, then that's my fault too. Just tough - smash the piggy bank open when it gets full.
So what's my point? Well, it seems lately, I say lately, I mean in the last 5 years, since I've been working full-time, I've been taken for a mug for other people's mis-management of finances and their general lack of appreciation for the value of money. Yes sad face :-(. I've been duped into the game of lending people money for situations they've got themselves involved in, buying into their sob story and given promise of having the favor returned. It's easy to say when hearing about such a situation that I shouldn't buy into it, but when you're approached for money it's very easy to get sucked in; in that if you didn't help you would be left with a guilty conscience. This becomes worse when relatives get involved, it can become damaging and get awkward if not dealt with in the right way.
I know I'm not the only one experiencing this, I seem to hear countless stories like this all the time and I always think how dumb are these people to let these things happen to them. And there's me falling for the same tricks in these stories I hear. We'll always hear stuff like this as long there is another person willing to hand over his or her hard earned cash over. However, thankfully (which I say in the nicest weird possible way) I have been a victim of two such encounters, where in hindsight I should have just said no or offered an alternative solution. Fortunately I've only seen the smoke and not been burnt enough to see the fire (if that makes sense), but I've heard far far worse, so I count myself lucky.
Today I'm going to share my extortion experiences to:
a) just get it off my chest
b) understand to readers what it's like from the person that lends the money.
c) understand to the cheating borrowers that don't keep to their word you have no respect and cannot be trusted when you cross paths with your lender.
A caveat is my experiences are with people who are not exactly poor, they have access to money if they asked for it or took an alternative path, but instead they choose to knock on people's door to start the exploitation process and have no intention of paying me back. Another thing is, what has this got to do with Nepal, Brit/Nepal, Brits? Not a lot really, this happens in every society, but Nepal being a poor nation with mostly poor citizens, it's inevitable some poor people will try their tricks, but it's not just the poor, it's ordinary and wealthy citizens who are at it too, maybe more than we want and care to admit and it's these folks I want to target.
My first experience as gullible lender was with someone who racked up a massive phone bill, I mean massive - started out as a few hundred pounds (which is already too much) later turned into a four-figure sum. They knew they were passed their contract allowance, but the person thought they would get away with it if they ignored paying the bill. Soon did they realised this wasn't the case, and they had the mobile operator ringing up on a daily basis asking to pay up. But the person kept on fobbing them off and routinely ignored their calls. It came to the point the mobile operator was going to bring in the bailiffs if it wasn't paid. I gave into this, and helped them out. I wasn't exactly loaded at the time, in fact everything I earned over the summer was wiped out, which I was hoping to pay off an overdraft which I had planned on paying off after my summer job.
My second and last experience was with a person, who I should have been more assertive with. We were both on holiday to a certain destination to see relatives, we had planned to stay a certain length of time, and that was always the intention. However it turned out this person wanted to stay longer (for selfish reasons). I was reluctant at first because we had planned (and budgeted) to spend more time at this person's home city and we would need to fly back. After a while I said to this person, I would call the flight operator to see how much it would cost to change the ticket times, and then we would make a decision then - in case it was too expensive. After talking to the flight operator, the operator said it would cost $100 each to change the flight times to a later date. The person got all emotional about wanting to stay and they promised they would pay me back, so being the gullible lender, I gladly obliged to extend the stay.
To this day, 5 years after both incidents I haven't been paid back a penny nor have I had neither person attempt to get in touch with me about paying back. Even it was £1 a week, it's a start. I don't get bitter about it because if I couldn't afford it, I would have never offered to pay for their cause in the first place. Like I said earlier, what I spend my money on, even if that's lending to someone else, that's still my fault.
Other weird experiences I've had, but stood my ground, is one guy rang my family for £2000 for no real reason - "I just need it". The phone was passed to me to deal with, and I had to politely say that no one here has that sort of money (which is the truth) and they disappeared for a while - I later found out he managed to get the money from someone I knew, and took them about 3 years to pay it all back. But you never really get the full truth with these things. Just Unbelievable.
Only last week, someone else wanted money for their visa fee. Again, remember, people that I've had to deal with are generally with people with access to money and just trying to be clever. This guy I know works, and gets a nice lump sent to him from mother and father every month. What's funny is, I'm told he's been asking a lot of people, and they have basically said, "No", and he's trying to get through to me, but it seems the word has got round that I'm not an easy fish to deal with, and he tends to convince other people that know me to ask me on his behalf. I'm a genius!
So the moral of the story, most times, lending money is just asking for trouble. So be careful. Really understand what the reason is, and the likely-hood of being paid back. I've learnt most times, money is not the problem.
And to you folks who have borrowed money and have never paid it back, if you have any remorse, think about your lenders. They had the heart to take what they earned and save your day. To your lender it's not always the money, it's the principle.
Ever get shafted? Or are you shafting someone right now? Feel free to share your story. You can comment anonymously too.
Peace.**
* I wrote everything before the asterisk about 7 days before the end of May 2012. Now it's June 2012 and I have more than £5.23 in my account, and yes I'll be typically British and not tell you how much I earn...it's ruuuude! :-)
**Sorry, bit serious and somber this post, I'm keeping in mood in line with England's 2012 performance expectations this summer.
Macha Pani Ma Update: The fish are on holiday except one - I need to give him or her a name.
The other day, I checked my bank account and I noticed I have £5.23 to survive for the rest of the month. Peanuts you might say, but in fact I feel OK. That's right, I feel content with £5.23 right now. I know I've covered my spending for this month and I don't intend on going on any spending binge in the next 7 days. There is always the evil credit card if something comes up, but lets 'try' not to go down that road - I will just survive until the next pay packet appears.
 |
| Working for peanuts to feed the monkeys. |
Unfortunately however, for some, having that amount just doesn't seem to see the light of day. Seeing £5.23 in their account signifies something entirely different altogether - a call to participate in some nefarious clandestine money making activity.* Sure I would like to have more money, but there just never seems to be enough of it - funny that. "But hey, not to worry, I'm going to sneakingly get it out of YOU instead!" I have no desire to dip into my minuscule savings nor have I the desire to ask my family, friends, sell my daily possessions, borrow, cheat or manipulate people to get additional funds. At the end of the day, it's my fault I have £5.23 in my account, what I spent my money on yesterday and what I will spend on today, tomorrow or in one years time, is down to me; not my family, friends or what 'society' has told me to spend my money on. If I can't afford something that I should have bought when I was able to, then that's my fault too. Just tough - smash the piggy bank open when it gets full.
 |
| Save or the pig gets it! |
So what's my point? Well, it seems lately, I say lately, I mean in the last 5 years, since I've been working full-time, I've been taken for a mug for other people's mis-management of finances and their general lack of appreciation for the value of money. Yes sad face :-(. I've been duped into the game of lending people money for situations they've got themselves involved in, buying into their sob story and given promise of having the favor returned. It's easy to say when hearing about such a situation that I shouldn't buy into it, but when you're approached for money it's very easy to get sucked in; in that if you didn't help you would be left with a guilty conscience. This becomes worse when relatives get involved, it can become damaging and get awkward if not dealt with in the right way.
I know I'm not the only one experiencing this, I seem to hear countless stories like this all the time and I always think how dumb are these people to let these things happen to them. And there's me falling for the same tricks in these stories I hear. We'll always hear stuff like this as long there is another person willing to hand over his or her hard earned cash over. However, thankfully (which I say in the nicest weird possible way) I have been a victim of two such encounters, where in hindsight I should have just said no or offered an alternative solution. Fortunately I've only seen the smoke and not been burnt enough to see the fire (if that makes sense), but I've heard far far worse, so I count myself lucky.
Today I'm going to share my extortion experiences to:
a) just get it off my chest
b) understand to readers what it's like from the person that lends the money.
c) understand to the cheating borrowers that don't keep to their word you have no respect and cannot be trusted when you cross paths with your lender.
A caveat is my experiences are with people who are not exactly poor, they have access to money if they asked for it or took an alternative path, but instead they choose to knock on people's door to start the exploitation process and have no intention of paying me back. Another thing is, what has this got to do with Nepal, Brit/Nepal, Brits? Not a lot really, this happens in every society, but Nepal being a poor nation with mostly poor citizens, it's inevitable some poor people will try their tricks, but it's not just the poor, it's ordinary and wealthy citizens who are at it too, maybe more than we want and care to admit and it's these folks I want to target.
My first experience as gullible lender was with someone who racked up a massive phone bill, I mean massive - started out as a few hundred pounds (which is already too much) later turned into a four-figure sum. They knew they were passed their contract allowance, but the person thought they would get away with it if they ignored paying the bill. Soon did they realised this wasn't the case, and they had the mobile operator ringing up on a daily basis asking to pay up. But the person kept on fobbing them off and routinely ignored their calls. It came to the point the mobile operator was going to bring in the bailiffs if it wasn't paid. I gave into this, and helped them out. I wasn't exactly loaded at the time, in fact everything I earned over the summer was wiped out, which I was hoping to pay off an overdraft which I had planned on paying off after my summer job.
 |
| Hello? Is this the billing department? Yeah? Well. Bleep! Bleep! |
My second and last experience was with a person, who I should have been more assertive with. We were both on holiday to a certain destination to see relatives, we had planned to stay a certain length of time, and that was always the intention. However it turned out this person wanted to stay longer (for selfish reasons). I was reluctant at first because we had planned (and budgeted) to spend more time at this person's home city and we would need to fly back. After a while I said to this person, I would call the flight operator to see how much it would cost to change the ticket times, and then we would make a decision then - in case it was too expensive. After talking to the flight operator, the operator said it would cost $100 each to change the flight times to a later date. The person got all emotional about wanting to stay and they promised they would pay me back, so being the gullible lender, I gladly obliged to extend the stay.
 |
| Borrowers - feel the pain. |
To this day, 5 years after both incidents I haven't been paid back a penny nor have I had neither person attempt to get in touch with me about paying back. Even it was £1 a week, it's a start. I don't get bitter about it because if I couldn't afford it, I would have never offered to pay for their cause in the first place. Like I said earlier, what I spend my money on, even if that's lending to someone else, that's still my fault.
Other weird experiences I've had, but stood my ground, is one guy rang my family for £2000 for no real reason - "I just need it". The phone was passed to me to deal with, and I had to politely say that no one here has that sort of money (which is the truth) and they disappeared for a while - I later found out he managed to get the money from someone I knew, and took them about 3 years to pay it all back. But you never really get the full truth with these things. Just Unbelievable.
Only last week, someone else wanted money for their visa fee. Again, remember, people that I've had to deal with are generally with people with access to money and just trying to be clever. This guy I know works, and gets a nice lump sent to him from mother and father every month. What's funny is, I'm told he's been asking a lot of people, and they have basically said, "No", and he's trying to get through to me, but it seems the word has got round that I'm not an easy fish to deal with, and he tends to convince other people that know me to ask me on his behalf. I'm a genius!
So the moral of the story, most times, lending money is just asking for trouble. So be careful. Really understand what the reason is, and the likely-hood of being paid back. I've learnt most times, money is not the problem.
And to you folks who have borrowed money and have never paid it back, if you have any remorse, think about your lenders. They had the heart to take what they earned and save your day. To your lender it's not always the money, it's the principle.
Ever get shafted? Or are you shafting someone right now? Feel free to share your story. You can comment anonymously too.
Peace.**
* I wrote everything before the asterisk about 7 days before the end of May 2012. Now it's June 2012 and I have more than £5.23 in my account, and yes I'll be typically British and not tell you how much I earn...it's ruuuude! :-)
**Sorry, bit serious and somber this post, I'm keeping in mood in line with England's 2012 performance expectations this summer.
Macha Pani Ma Update: The fish are on holiday except one - I need to give him or her a name.
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