I have a “friend” that has owed me money for quite some time. When he came back from his military service he came home with no job lined up. I let him use my credit cards to purchase some items that he said he could resell for profits. Everything was discussed up front that this was a loan and he understood and agreed to pay me Everything back within a hear. I then went on and decided to let him use my personal eBay account to sell things to help him out. Well that’s when things went south. He listed dozens of Playstation consoles and sold them saying he was getting them from a guy, bit they never came in. So my ebay and PayPal accounts both got deducted for all of the refunds for all of those consoles because he had already used the money when it came in. I couldn’t afford to pay those refunds back, so eventually both of my eBay send PayPal accounts got frozen and eventually shut down because of this. Over the years, this “friend” of mine has made payments to me sporadically, so he still acknowledges that he does owe me, but as of today it’s been about a year since he’s sent me anything. He says he doesn’t have a job, he always says his bank account is in the negative l, him and his wife moved in with his parents supposedly and he’s saying he can’t pay me. He says it would be pointless to proceed with legal action against him because even if I won he’d have nothing to pay me with. So that leads me to my questions….
What type of lawyer/attorney would I need for this particular situation? I’d want legal action to get the money he owes me, and to possibly take action if possible for him ruining my eBay and PayPal accounts. He owes me more than 10k so I would not be able to take him to small claims court. I have kept paperwork of what he owed including interest and payments he’s made. And I also have tons of emails, texts, and Facebook messages from the conversations we’d had regarding what he owes and him acknowledging he owes. At this point I feel like he’s not caring about it anymore and is I’m the mindset of “what are you going to do about it”.
If I do take legal action and win, and he has nothing, how do I get paid?
Thank you to anyone that actually read all of this, and for any advise or information that would be helpful. In Chicago, Illinois.
I have a friend that has owed me money for quite some time
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First, you need to look at your state’s statute of limitations laws.
from what I researched the statute of limitations in Illinois for a personal debt is 5 years after the last payment was made. The last payment he made me was on June 12th of last year. So I’m assuming I have until June 12, 2026 to collect
Check this: http://smallclaimscourthouse.com/illinois/cook-county/
You can sue for damages but do not sue for calculated interest. Sue for how much money you actually lost. You will need proof of the damages. You can’t just sue for $10,000 then walk into court and expect the judge to take your word for it. If you win and a judgment is issued against your “friend” then file the judgment with the credit bureau.
What’s interesting is that there is nothing illegal or immoral about listing an item that you don’t yet have: it’s called dropshipping and it was a highly lucrative topic until everyone with an internet connection decided to jump on. You basically find an item on Amazon for $20 and you’d advertise it on eBay for 30 and you’d use the $30 that just came in to buy the item for 20 and ship it to the customer keeping the difference for yourself — this wouldn’t actually require any capital up front so I’m not sure what he would have been borrowing the money for… Instead of spending your cash and buying a PlayStation from the store, he could literally copy and paste the address of the customer into the website from which he’d be buying the PlayStation and they would deal with the shipping so he literally wouldn’t have to get off his rear end to make money. It would appear to me that he was “borrowing” money from you to use and never give back. He ruined your eBay account reputation and potentially got you banned from using eBay for a lifetime as well as open due to a risk of jail time: he was taking people’s money and promising to ship them a PlayStation and then running off with the money but he was doing this in your name so you’re the person who’s legally responsible for this and good luck proving that it was him behind the keyboard and mouse… The first course of action is to, of course, try and recuperate money from the fraudsters bank account, so he took whatever money he could from those kids that thought that they were getting PlayStations and ran off with it and you’re the person left hanging on the hook for the refunds that came out of your pocket. He straight up did you dirty to your face and you’re none the wiser… I would mercilessly report him for being a fraudster.
If you take legal action, and he has nothing, you don’t get paid. Simple as that. No one else pays for him.
if or when he gets a job they can put a Lien on his paycheck, taxes and also any personal property like a car
You need a civil attorney. I am not sure about your state but civil judgments here are usually good for 10 yrs. If he has anything in his name like a car that could potentially be auctioned to pay. If he gets a job you might be able to garnish his wages. If he refuses to pay or get a job after being ordered to by the judge he can be held in contempt.
NAL You might want to contact the state of Illinois court to determine if you can file individual small claims cases for each debt so that you can remain under the maximum threshold.
Should you be successful in your suit(s) and obtain a judgement against your “friend”, you will need to also obtain a court order granting you the ability to garnish their wages, place a lien on their property etc.
The best place to start is with your state court, the court library and their websites that give instruction, information and provide forms
https://www.illinoiscourts.gov/documents…/approved-forms/