Hello. I am not sure if this is the correct place to ask, but I hope someone can help.
I have been a total idiot. A friend of 5 years really helped me out once, and now he's in a bad situation with his business (he got divorced, lost everything, the usual) and I've been trying to help him. I run a small business over here in the UK, and I put up the money to buy him some stock over in the US, contacted customers and made the sales for him - all he had to do was ship the items out. I gave him 50% of the profit, and kept 50% to reinvest back into more stock so this would grow for him and become a stream of income. He was literally struggling to pay rent and put gas in his tank, and I wanted to help get him out of that hole permanently... teach a man to fish, and all that.
I was also helping him sell some of his own stock. He doesn't have a PayPal account, so his online sales were going to me and then I gave him my card info so he could use some of his money to pay his rent and essentials, and we'd just deduct that out of what I owed him from his sales.
This was all going fine for a few months - he was in credit (I had in my bank account more of his own money than he was taking back), until it came time to buy in more stock. It's very difficult for me to access money over in the US, living here in London (I can do domestic US to US transfers fine with online banking, but I can't, for example, send off an international wire to buy more stock with the money we'd raised from sales), so I transferred it to him to do the wire. Of course, he didn't ever send the wire. And suddenly more and more things started getting debited out of my account - things I'd given no permission for.
Now I don't know what to do. About $3500 of unauthorized debits have come out of my account (he can't take any more - I'm cleared out now), but I gave him my card information, so what can I do about it? The companies who have run my card should have done a check. They'd have seen his address did not match the card registered address. I always do this check in my business and would never process a payment where the given address did not match the card. In that respect, they're at fault. However, I feel I can't call up my bank and try and get chargebacks against these companies because I freely and willingly handed this man my card info. He didn't steal my card. These are businesses trying to make a living - why should they pay for my stupidity? I don't see how they'll ever get the money back off him. He's clearly in a bad way if he was willing to sell my friendship.
I just don't know what to do. Do I have any recourse with regard to the unauthorized debits from my account, or is it tough luck?
Thank you.
I have been a total idiot. A friend of 5 years really helped me out once, and now he's in a bad situation with his business (he got divorced, lost everything, the usual) and I've been trying to help him. I run a small business over here in the UK, and I put up the money to buy him some stock over in the US, contacted customers and made the sales for him - all he had to do was ship the items out. I gave him 50% of the profit, and kept 50% to reinvest back into more stock so this would grow for him and become a stream of income. He was literally struggling to pay rent and put gas in his tank, and I wanted to help get him out of that hole permanently... teach a man to fish, and all that.
I was also helping him sell some of his own stock. He doesn't have a PayPal account, so his online sales were going to me and then I gave him my card info so he could use some of his money to pay his rent and essentials, and we'd just deduct that out of what I owed him from his sales.
This was all going fine for a few months - he was in credit (I had in my bank account more of his own money than he was taking back), until it came time to buy in more stock. It's very difficult for me to access money over in the US, living here in London (I can do domestic US to US transfers fine with online banking, but I can't, for example, send off an international wire to buy more stock with the money we'd raised from sales), so I transferred it to him to do the wire. Of course, he didn't ever send the wire. And suddenly more and more things started getting debited out of my account - things I'd given no permission for.
Now I don't know what to do. About $3500 of unauthorized debits have come out of my account (he can't take any more - I'm cleared out now), but I gave him my card information, so what can I do about it? The companies who have run my card should have done a check. They'd have seen his address did not match the card registered address. I always do this check in my business and would never process a payment where the given address did not match the card. In that respect, they're at fault. However, I feel I can't call up my bank and try and get chargebacks against these companies because I freely and willingly handed this man my card info. He didn't steal my card. These are businesses trying to make a living - why should they pay for my stupidity? I don't see how they'll ever get the money back off him. He's clearly in a bad way if he was willing to sell my friendship.
I just don't know what to do. Do I have any recourse with regard to the unauthorized debits from my account, or is it tough luck?
Thank you.
