Should you nudge friends to pay up?

How much of a nudge should you be when trying to get reimbursed for a group gift?

A group of friends who have belonged to a book club for more than a decade were overjoyed to learn that one of the club’s members was expecting her first child. As a surprise, the group decided that it would chip in on a group present for their fellow reader.

After a flurry of emails, the group agreed on a present and one of the book club members, a reader we’re calling Paige, agreed to purchase the gift and then get reimbursed from fellow book club members. The idea was to have the gift in time for their next monthly book club meeting at which they could present it to the soon-to-be mother.

Two of the 10 book club members Venmo-ed Paige their share of the gift’s cost right after it was ordered. Once the gift arrived, Paige emailed everyone except for the expectant mother to let them know. In a reply-to-all on her email, another book club member asked how she would like to be repaid. Paige responded that reimbursing her via the Venmo app as a few others had already done would work fine.

Upon receiving the news, one more of the book club members Venmo-ed her share. That meant Paige and three others had paid their share and six more book club members were yet to pony up.

“How much should I nudge them to pay?” asked Paige, acknowledging that they all agreed to share the cost and know that she outlaid the money.

Paige wanted to know if it would be wrong to send an email to all of those who hadn’t paid to tell them they could pay her now or they could give her cash or a check when they passed around a card to sign at their next book club meeting when they planned to present the gift? “Does that send the message that I don’t trust them to repay?” Paige asked.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with Paige sending a reminder to her book club friends. Partly, this will let them know of her plan to circulate a card for them to sign at their next meeting, but it will also provide a nice reminder.

The one risk of the plan to let those who owe money to pay what they owe when the card is circulated is that it could send the message to them to hold off paying their share until then. If Paige is OK with that, then her plan seems sound.

But the right thing would be to send it to everyone in the group (other than the expectant mother) rather than just those who didn’t pay. By doing so, she’d be including them on her plan and by naming them she would also make clear to others that those three had already paid up.

There’s no reason Paige should worry about being left paying for more than her share of the gift, but whenever someone agrees to foot the cost for a group gift for which others could reimburse their share, there’s always a bit of a risk. If Paige clearly presents options for those who have yet to pay, it will serve as a reminder and might provide her some peace of mind.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy, emeritus, at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. 

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin

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