I wasn't sure where to put this, so I put it here.
I live in California
About 2 years ago I decided to help a good friend of mine purchase a PC through Dell. He had poor credit at the time and was unable to sign up for the monthly payments so I went ahead and got the PC for him under my account using the monthly payment. He had (unfortunately) agreed verbally to give the money to me each month for the payment, which was $28/month. He added his bank account to my Dell account so that I could automatically withdraw the funds required.
This was fine until he switched banks because he was unhappy with Bank of America. He had moved from the city(was living across the street from me before) not too long after that and it became increasingly difficult to get him to give me the money as I could no longer automatically get it. He had to start driving down to hand me the money in person. He started skipping months of pay in up to 3 month spurts. However, he would make up for it and give the amount of pay he missed. I was fairly lenient about it since he was still paying me...eventually.
Here is where the real problem is. He hasn't paid in 11 months now and is actively avoiding me. My only contact method with him at the moment is Facebook. While it is very obvious he is logging on and updating his statuses and such, he avoids my messages and pretends he doesn't see them, even though I can tell he has because it says "seen x date x time" if he does.
My question now is, can I do anything about this? Dell was no help and said I couldn't put the payments under another's name/account. I have no formal agreement such as a contract stating that he owes me x amount and agrees to pay x amount monthly. However, I have records of his bank account being on my Dell account showing that I have, at one point, been receiving payments from him. He's also knowingly expressed on Facebook that he knows he owes me the money, still has the computer in his possession and "feels bad" for avoiding me and not paying. At this point he owes $308 and the larger the debt gets the less he'll be willing to pay it.
I live in California
About 2 years ago I decided to help a good friend of mine purchase a PC through Dell. He had poor credit at the time and was unable to sign up for the monthly payments so I went ahead and got the PC for him under my account using the monthly payment. He had (unfortunately) agreed verbally to give the money to me each month for the payment, which was $28/month. He added his bank account to my Dell account so that I could automatically withdraw the funds required.
This was fine until he switched banks because he was unhappy with Bank of America. He had moved from the city(was living across the street from me before) not too long after that and it became increasingly difficult to get him to give me the money as I could no longer automatically get it. He had to start driving down to hand me the money in person. He started skipping months of pay in up to 3 month spurts. However, he would make up for it and give the amount of pay he missed. I was fairly lenient about it since he was still paying me...eventually.
Here is where the real problem is. He hasn't paid in 11 months now and is actively avoiding me. My only contact method with him at the moment is Facebook. While it is very obvious he is logging on and updating his statuses and such, he avoids my messages and pretends he doesn't see them, even though I can tell he has because it says "seen x date x time" if he does.
My question now is, can I do anything about this? Dell was no help and said I couldn't put the payments under another's name/account. I have no formal agreement such as a contract stating that he owes me x amount and agrees to pay x amount monthly. However, I have records of his bank account being on my Dell account showing that I have, at one point, been receiving payments from him. He's also knowingly expressed on Facebook that he knows he owes me the money, still has the computer in his possession and "feels bad" for avoiding me and not paying. At this point he owes $308 and the larger the debt gets the less he'll be willing to pay it.
. We don't recommend "threats" and he does not need the assistance of an attorney.