People love asking for favors until they realize the cost isn’t just in gas money.

So, what would you do if your friends needed your vehicle and help at the last minute, but treated you like hired help the entire trip?

Would you let it go and split the bill evenly to keep the peace?

Or would you turn the tables and give them a fair rental charge for the vehicle?

In today’s story, one man finds himself in this exact predicament and decides to speak up.

Here’s what happened.

AITA for revealing the “rental costs” of my van after the trip was made?

I was recently asked to help out since my friends could not go on a trip they needed to make because the car they meant to take was not suitable for the time, and I own a travel van.

I also got invited to join said trip to drive since it was a really long trip and a short time to make it, and it was questionable if one of them could even drive due to a health problem that arose near departure.

The trip was to another country to take something there and another thing home from there.

Most of the time, I was more or less treated like staff and as someone not very welcome in their circle.

Suddenly, everyone started talking about splitting the costs evenly.

During the trip, one of them started to ask whose turn it was to pay for gas this time, and I was pointed out as the one.

Also, they spoke of evening out the costs afterwards, clearly implying I was to pay an equal amount of everything.

Of course, I was going to pay for my own food and other costs like any decent human being would, and was not going to ask for compensation for the use of the van to be a fair friend.

However, I was assuming that since the trip was not a holiday trip planned together but rather I was invited out of necessity quite last minute.

He was not happy about their arrangement and threw them a curveball.

I should not be paying for gas (at least not an equal amount which would make me the one paying the highest price for the entire trip since the van was mine and I pay for the keeping of it).

I gave them some time to make their intentions clear about how they thought the costs should be divided, and was left with the impression mentioned before, and so decided to let them know that I wanted them to pay rent per mile to cover the costs of using the van.

The price I set was the same as that of any other friend who would take a trip with the van without me, and it was very fair.

So, this led to me being called a criminal for not letting them know beforehand they’d need to pay “rent.”

AITA?

Yikes! Sounds like everyone should’ve had a talk before the trip.

Let’s see what the folks over at Reddit have to say about this.

According to this reader, he was just standing up for himself.

This person thinks the use of the vehicle was enough.

As this comment explains, the details should’ve been clarified before the trip.

For this person, there are no winners at all.

This could’ve been avoided.

It was as simple as discussing the costs before the trip.

You should never assume.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.