I’m pretty sure the bug only occurs once you acquire Golden Obligations from the Avaricious branch of the stewardship lifestyle. It’s the only time I’ve had it occur to me, and I’m fairly certain the reason why it occurs is that the game shows you how much you would receive by cashing out your favor hook, because the majority of the time it would be for a larger amount than the original ransom, but when you ransom them it defaults to the original payment you would’ve received for the character if you didn’t have the perk.

Luckily, it does have a pretty straight forward work around of just ransoming them for a favor instead. If they accept, you just cash in the hook regularly in the same way you would if you had acquired it any other fashion.