We all have debts somewhere or the other and we try our level best to repay that debt. While some of us can do it with ease, some of us face issue after issue to repay it. The situation leads us to find alternatives like consolidation loans or shifting existing loans to another bank at a cheaper rate. But what happens when you take a loan from a loan shark due to a bad reputation with banks? They give the loan without any problem at a high interest rate and most of the time it will be a noncollateral loan. Why I am saying all this because one of my friend has become a victim of a loan shark and to repay the loan he has now shifted to online gambling.
In my country online gambling to an extent is legal but as we all know the house always wins. He tried multiple online gambling platforms but never made any money. Two days back he called me up and said he found an online casino that had a few bugs as one of his colleague was able to cash out a handsome amount by using some tricks. I won't go into details of those tricks as it was complicated for me to comprehend, what he wanted me to check was to find out whether it is possible to trick the system. He asked me to check the casino and he even gave me his account information to try a few games.
I was earlier skeptical and denied his request but he insisted that I take a look. I did and found that the games are not that tough to be rigged if done correctly but when I checked the account balance and found out that he had already invested a good amount of money to make a win and lost a substantial it I was furious with him. Now, he wants me to help him so that he can pay off his debt at the earliest. I have already told him that gambling is a dangerous cycle and it can lead him to more debt. Still, he insists that I help him and is willing to take a risk.
I haven't replied to him and I am not answering his call as I feel I would be doing injustice if I say yes. I am confused and do not know what to do, what do you guys suggest?
I haven't seen anyone in here pointing out the obvous: IF there's a bug to exploit, why is your friend still losing money? And why is your money somehow better for exploiting it? This just reeks like desperation. And just because he is your friend, it doesn't obligate you to break the law. In fact he is being a shitty friend for asking that instead of loan from you. So don't go that road, no matter if the exploit works or not.
If you want to help your friend, you must first:
1: Understand his situation. He is going for desperate measures, because he is desperate. Blaming doesn't fix his situation. If you live in an area where police is too corrupt to help, or your friend has nowhere to hide, there's a very real and urgent issue, and that's a threat against him. Loan sharks don't use collateral or legal ways to collect their money, as they most of the time operate illegally anyway. They literally can break legs and harass the victims and their close friends or relatives, if they know/ find out where they live. They also could force victims to break the law to pay their debts, and this could in fact be one of these schemes. So first they need to deal with direct threat, after that they can focus on other issues, like the one that lead him to this deep end.
Even if loanshark is operating legally, your friend could be ruining rest of his life as interests build up and he would end up paying those forever.
2: If you have money to help, i wouldn't keep my hopes up getting that money back ever. And you need to ensure that the money goes directly to the loan shark. Addicts tend to lie and might even gamble that money away, as depending how their brains are wired, they might not learn anything from this. All they get would get from this bail out is a dopamine reward, linking this to loan sharks = good in their brain. Also before you give any money to your friend, sit down with him and make him explain how he doesn't get into this situation again, and don't accept any other answer then him blaming directly himself and admitting he is an addict that needs help (other then monetary as well).
And since this situation is extreme, i would demand for extreme measures. I would demand he seeks for legal guardian of interests, he could even point you as one, so that you would have legal rights for his money. You would get paid for that job, but it's hard and level of responsibility would be high. But if you are up for it, that's an option. If legal guardian seem too emasculating for him, maybe he doesn't yet accept his situation. And the fact he he believes that luck would get him out from this makes me believe he doesn't have a clue what he is doing, nor any kind of sense of financial responsibility.
3: If you leave in somewhere with minimum corruption, in where you can trust police, he shouldn't just pay, loan sharks often don't have a leverage they claim to have, but they definitely will harass and threat you. Luckily for your friend there are ton of places where you can report loan sharks. Those you can find by googling but this all depends where you live. If this is a real option for you, i would definitely go for this road.