Most of us want to be sympathetic when someone we know loses their job and falls on hard financial times.
But for one guy on Reddit, his recently unemployed friend tested the boundaries of his compassion when the friend used the money owed to him for a sports bet on bills and rent.
The Original Poster (OP), who goes by the username throwaway0511221620 on the site, was angry about the situation and called his friend a thief.
He wasn’t sure if he’d gone too far, so he went to the AITA (Am I The A**hole) subReddit for perspective.
He asked:
“AITA for calling the person who refused to pay me my winnings?”
He explained:
“I won a March Madness pool this year. It was a rather large group of people – around 150 people – and everyone paid $10.00 per entry.”
“I knew a lot of people in the pool, but not everyone. The pool was supposed to pay out 70% to the winner as well as lesser amounts to the 2nd and 3rd place finishers.”
“We were all required to pay our entry fee to the pool manager – let’s call him Sam – prior to the tip-off of the first game.”
“If you didn’t pay, you were removed from the pool. Sam has run a pool for several years, but this is the first year I have managed to win.”
“I’ve known Sam for years – but we are not close. More of a friend of a friend type thing.”
“One of the features the pool site has is the ability to send text messages to anyone that opted in to that feature. It was basically used to trash talk each other – which was a blast.”
“Anyway, I won around $1,000.00. I waited for about a week for Sam to Venmo the money (the same way I had sent him my entry fee) but nothing.”
“I reached out to him via text to remind him that I hadn’t been paid. He said he would do it. Nothing.”
“Another week passed so I texted him again. He never responded.”
“I called him – he never picked up or returned my call. I called my brother since he is much closer to Sam than I am and asked him to get in touch with Sam for me since he wasn’t responding to me.”
“My brother said he would ask Sam for me, but he did tell me that Sam had lost his job a few months ago and had been working odd jobs to bring in some money so he might have been busy.”
“I pointed out that it would take a minute to send me the money.”
“Finally Sam called me. He said that he had spent the money on bills and didn’t have it to send to me. He did apologize.”
“I told him he needed to get it – that I won and I was entitled to the money. He said there wasn’t anything he could do – he didn’t have it but would get it to me as soon as he could.”
“I asked him when and he said he didn’t know. I was angry. I called him a thief and hung up on him.”
“I decided to use the app to text out to everyone that Sam had spent the money and that I should have received.”
“It was their money to begin with and I thought (and still think) that they deserved to know what had happened. Not surprising –it blew up.”
“Sam called me yelling at me for ‘humiliating him’. I replied that if you don’t want to be called a thief the best thing to do was not steal.”
“According to Sam I had cost him a job as he had interviewed with one of the guys in the pool and had been offered it, but after my text the offer was withdrawn. I don’t know if I believe that or not.”
“I could care less what Sam thinks. However my brother is also saying that I took it too far. That I had ‘kicked a guy when he was down’ and that it was a jerk move.”
“I think I was justified in letting everyone know. I’m not the one that cheated anyone. However I value my brother’s opinion. AITA?”
People on Reddit were then asked to judge who was in the wrong in this situation based on the following categories:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
- NAH – No A**holes Here
And though many had empathy for OP’s friend, most were still firmly on OP’s side.
“NTA. You were right – don’t steal if you don’t want to be called out as a thief.” –RedditDK2
“I wonder how many people in past years also had the money ‘borrowed’ by Sam but thought it would be taking it too far to let others in the pool know. OP keeping mouth shut = Sam’s running it again next year.” –rbollige
“100%. I receive a chunk of money that needs to be dispersed to a couple of people every month. I NEVER touch that money. It’s THEIR money.”
“This guy is a thief. OP tried to handle it privately, but it didn’t work, so he made it public.” –crystallz2000
“TOOK IT TOO FAR?!? How the hell is sharing the news that the coordinator of the pool is a thief WITH THE PEOPLE IN THE POOL taking it too far?”
“That’s exactly what should have happened, as I doubt you were the only one to win something.”
“He stole from everyone involved and deserves everything coming to him now.”
“The guy that was going to hire him shouldn’t be hiring him because now he has proof that the guy’s a liar and a thief and will think nothing of taking money from people because ‘he needs it’.”
NTA” –LukingEntropy
“Exactly! NTA. He’s a thief and a liar. I don’t blame the person rescinding the job offer. It would look bad on him if he pulled this with his co-workers. He’s lucky you didn’t call the cops on him. He deserved what he got.” –Slow-Cherry9128
“NTA. Since your brother is closer to this guy and doesn’t think it’s a big deal, he should give you the $1000 and collect from his friend when he has it.”
“Your brother clearly wants to support his friend and this is a great way to put his money where his mouth is. He can assume the risk or shut the fu*k up.” –CeciliaB
“One of my favorite replies whenever someone comments how ‘it’s not a big deal, it’s only X amount’ is to ask them if that’s how they feel then to go ahead and give me that same amount of money without anything in return.”
“No one has taken me up on the offer yet haha.” –Loghurrr
“NTA- he did steal the money. I am sure the others who came in 2nd and 3rd did not get their money either. HE cost himself the job. It was not his money to use.” –shadowe-foxe
“NTA. I feel bad for the guy, but those weren’t charitable donations. It wasn’t his to spend.” –mrsagc90
“NTA. People put their money into this pool and trusted that their money would go to the appropriate winners.”
“Sam broke everyone’s trust by not paying out. Its too bad Sam fell on hard times but that money wasn’t his to spend.”
“So he is a thief and the people that put money into this pool deserve to know that their money was misused.” –cattripper
“Sam ended up taking a bad personal situation and making it worse. Had he not stolen that money, he would have gotten the job and likely been able to pay those bills himself.”
“Now, not only is he still in his same employment situation, but he pissed off at least 150 people that he defrauded, wrecked his personal reputation and damaged his employment prospects.”
“He blames OP instead of being an adult, and taking responsibility for his actions. He did this to himself, I mean did he honestly expect the winner or someone to catch on? Or that OP wouldn’t tell anyone?” –anm313
“NTA. Telling the others was the right thing to do. Sam’s situation is terrible, but he abused his power as the league manager for personal benefit.”
“He technically stole from all of you. It’s not a matter of taking $10.00 per person, it’s taking $1,500.00 of money that was not his. He was trusted, and abused the trust.”
“You did his former employer a favor, because someone who can’t be trusted to account for money honestly among friends is a liability to any company.”
“The kicker is that I bet most of the people in the pool would have GIVEN him $10.00 if he’d been honest about the situation.” –claireofication
“NTA. IF he had responded to you, and IF he had given a timeline, then it would have been taking things further than needed.”
“But he set himself up for this. He ignored you, he refused to give any sort of timeline, and that makes it fair to say he probably had zero intention of following up when he was ok financially.”
“He did it to himself, and the others absolutely deserved to know what happened.” –Legitimate-Chart-289
Hopefully OP can avoid this situation in the future.