The Debt

When my Dad sold his house, he had quite a lot of very nice furniture he wanted rid of.  He was aware that even good furniture isn’t particularly worth that much money second hand, so he asked my sister and I what we wanted, for free of course, and asked if we knew anyone that would make a small donation for any of the remainder.  A guy at my office wanted the Victorian desk, captains chair, filing cabinet and bookshelf, which is lovely looking dark wood furniture, good as new condition, as it was very well looked after.  This furniture would have cost £2,500 when originally bought and my dad just asked for £60.00.  The guy, lets call him Charles, is a well educated, comfortably off Doctor of Archeology.  So, he takes delivery of the furniture and I spend the next TWO months asking him for the money, how wasn’t he embarrassed? it was so annoying, I paid my Dad, so effectively Charles now owed me, which I advised him of.  Eventually, after the millionth time of asking , he said he didn’t carry much cash and could he wire it straight into my bank account, I said certainly and gave him my details.  He wired me £50.00, shorting me of £10.00.  I advised him we had agreed on £60.00 and showed him the texts! That was two weeks ago, and despite me asking him another twice for the difference, no money has appeared in any shape or form.  He chats to me when he is in the office, he has no shame at all, and I am out of ideas how to approach this anymore.  Obviously I am furious, it’s not the amount, it’s not that I can’t afford the £10.00 loss, it’s the damn principal, he has thousands of pounds of lovely furniture and he has effectively shorted an 82 year old man out of the right money, well he hasn’t, as I gave my Dad the money.  But really? what a posh piece of trash this guy is, wouldn’t you all agree?