Trust can be extraordinarily fragile when finances and friendship mix.

In this story, one man offered a generous loan to his friend to get his totaled car back up and running, but he soon discovered his friend planned to redirect the money to unnecessary accessories instead.

He couldn’t shake the sinking feeling that his act of kindness was about to be completely taken for granted.

You’ll want to keep reading for this one.

AITA for wanting my money back after offering a loan.

I (M 22) have a friend (M 22). My friend works three days a week, two hours away from our city.

Recently, he crashed his car and came to me because he is not insured for his private vehicle and needed money to repair it ASAP, as he depends heavily on his vehicle to get to work since there are no public transport lines in our region.

So this man decided to do something very generous for his friend.

I am lucky enough to be in a very generous full-time position where I am financially comfortable and can afford to help people I care about.

Knowing that my friend’s employment depended so heavily on his transport, I offered to loan (not give, loan!) him the money and said that he could pay me back over a period of time that he could afford.

The initial repair of the car was going to cost $12,000, so I loaned him that amount.

However, it didn’t take long for the warm and fuzzies to dissipate completely.

Now, recently (six days since the accident and the loan I gave him), he has called me and said that he appreciated me giving him a loan, and that his father ended up paying for the repairs anyways.

He said the money I gave him would go toward some upgrades he’s been “wanting for ages.”

He couldn’t believe his friend would think this was okay.

In my mind, I was doing a nice thing by giving him a loan to salvage his car so it was operable and reliable, allowing him to continue with his employment and transportation.

But since his father has done that, I kind of assumed that I would get my money back, as his car has been repaired.

He obviously never authorized his loan to be spent like this.

I don’t want to give him money to add all these upgrades to his car that he wanted before the crash—completely unnecessary things as well, like a new spoiler, top-of-the-line rims, and window tinting.

These are all things that do not affect his ability to get to work.

AITA?

It sounds like his friend is prepared to completely betray his trust.

Redditors chime in with their thoughts.

It’s important to set his friend straight as soon as possible.

This commenter thinks it should have been obvious what this loan was intended for.

This incident may have marked the end of this friendship as they knew it.

One can only hope for the loaner’s sake that there was a solid paper trail.

His friend really revealed his true colors by treating a serious loan like free cash.

This story only proves that generosity doesn’t always guarantee respect.

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.