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You can't trust people with money
Monday, 2 January 2006
What is it with money that makes otherwise good people lose all moral perspective?
The dubious real-estate agent may well be a good and trustworthy friend away from the office, but he'll tell his clients anything to get a few extra dollars out of them. The car salesman who may donate money to charity every week, may well think nothing of falsifying the mileage on that hard to move car.
Money is the one area of life where it seems to be every man for himself. When it comes to money, research has shown that virtually everyone is susceptible to the temptation to cheat.
Bottom line is, the vast majority of people just can't be trusted with money. If they see an opportunity to profit at your expense, many will just take it. It's a nasty fact-of-life, but a real one nonetheless.
So what should you do about it?
There's only one thing you can - be very careful with exposing yourself to being taken advantage of by others in regard to money.
Even knowing someone very well may not be adequate protection. The world is full of people with stories of being cheated by those they trusted and loved. Those they least expected to do so.
From the supposed friend who clearly values the ten bucks you lent him more than your friendship, to the family member who will stay at your house rent-free for a month just to save herself some money, the opportunities to be taken advantage of by nearest and dearest are everywhere.
And often, being cheated is preceded by sincere assurances that cheating you is the last thing that person would ever do. When it comes to money, some people will say anything in order to extract a little more of it.
One of the many examples I can give is a guy I knew who I once gave a lift to the airport. He had been living the same town as me in England, and was moving home back to Australia. I helped him carry his bags to check-in, where we discovered they were substantially over-weight.
He asked to borrow about a hundred and fifty dollars to pay for the extra weight allowance. I said no.
He begged and pleaded, and did his best to make me feel guilty. He promised to send the money the moment he arrived. He even wrote and signed a note to say he would return it.
I stood my ground and said I'd take one of his bags back to his girlfriend's house. His luggage being over-weight was not my problem, no matter how hard he tried to make it appear that it was.
His girlfriend paid for his bag to be shipped to him the next day. I met up with her a few years later after their relationship had ended, and she told me he'd never paid her back. I'm certain he would never have paid me.
One of the favorite tricks of these types is to make you feel like the bad guy. You won't help them, so you're obviously selfish. They'll do their best to create an uncomfortable situation, which they hope you'll be willing to open your wallet to get out of.
Don't let them trick you!
So be very careful - although not paranoid. If you make sure that you're always the one in control of your cash, things will go along just fine.
I'm certainly not saying that you shouldn't be generous with your money. One of the pleasures of having cash in your pocket is being able to use it to treat others. But let the timing and form of this generosity be of your choosing.
If someone implores you to be generous to them, they're making you out for a sucker.
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