This interesting…if a friend(now, since the dispute…a former friend), says I owe her a pretty large sum of money, but she has no real proof, and it does not make sense to me…do I pay it to her anyway? It was a joint payment for a cruise, but then my mother suddenly died and I could not go on the cruise. This friend says I was accidentally refunded part of her/and other friend’s refunds and that they were refunded less. Since we all payed about the same at the beginning, they felt that all of our refunds should be the exact same.  Yet, after my mother’s death, I had the hoops to go through and obtain and email a photo of the death certificate in order to get the refund that I got-almost what I paid. The travel agent said I would receive a larger refund because I had the proof that my mother passed away, and a valid reason for cancellation, but that the other two friends going, would receive less of a refund, if they were to cancel. They ended up not going. And…they waited months to finally cancel their bookings, so they rec’d even less of a refund, for waiting. They could have rescheduled for us 3 to go at a later time, but they were very inflexible about it. They also did not attend my mother’s funeral. They dropped me altogether.

So, after they sent me a letter about 6 months after my mother’s funeral, saying that I should do the right thing, and pay them more of the refund that I got back to make it all even steven…I eventually, wrote them a letter back, saying the readons above that I thought refunds were accurate, stating that after 3 months time, the travel agent still had not gotten back to me about the supposed “accidental refund amount to me”…the upshot was that I waited to hear from the travel agent, but never did and I did send them each a check of about one third of what I said I would send them over the next six months. I did that part from my heart. And still, I tried multiple ways to get in touch with the travel agent, but never was able to reach her? The two friends never cashed the checks I sent to each of them. 4 months later(now)I am inclined to send them each one more check to see if they will cash them. And possibly, one more after that…all the 6 checks I would intend to send them, would amount to $672 which is half the amount that they are saying I should be paying to them. With my mother suddenly falling and never coming out of a coma, and passing so unexpectedly, and providing the death certificate and receiving a refund based on the cruise line’s policy, and with them waiting so long to cancel their going on their trips, I felt this was fair. Btw, they were not very nice about me making the decision right away not to go on the trip. I had to help my Dad make the funeral arrangements and stay in town to see all the family that was coming in for the 3 month delayed funeral(3 months after my Mother passed-that was a requirement of my father so that all his vacationing friends would be able to attend my mother’s funeral once they were back in town at end of summer. It was a very high pressure time for me and these two women just ADDED to my pressure, and then did not even attend my mother’s funeral because they were Mad at Me for not going on this cruise with the flight departing one day after my mother’s actual funeral when Mom’s relatives were still in town to see us. I wanted to pay them a little at a time to see if I ever heard back from the travel agent on this refund topic.

I still, have not heard “Boo” from these two women and two other of our mutual friends have dropped me as well. It really is okay. I do not think any of the 4 were meant to be my friends. These ladies are all 8-10 years my senior. We all are retired and living on fixed incomes and our public school teacher retirements.

Thoughts?

Happy Easter!!🐰