AITA for not defending a girl I barely know after she was kicked out of the friend group for asking to be paid?

A 21-year-old woman was part of a friend group that trades services like nails or hair for equal-value work. A new member, Jane, agreed to trade £160 worth of nails for £70 of her handmade clothes. Weeks later, Jane asked for the items back or to be paid because she couldn’t afford to “give them away.”

The OP explained the trade terms but Jane escalated, posting about it online. She was kicked out of the group, but now the friend group is split, with some thinking OP should’ve paid since Jane is struggling. OP wonders if she’s the AH for not defending Jane. read the original story below…

‘ AITA for not defending a girl I barely know after she was kicked out of the friend group for asking to be paid?’

I (21f) have a group of 6 friends. 2 months ago, a new girl (Jane-22f) was introduced to the group. For context, one thing our friend group does is ‘trade’ services. For example, I’ll do one of my friend’s nails for free and she’ll do my hair for free when I need it doing in the future.

We generally try to keep the trades within the same price range. For example, if my hair costs £60, I’ll trade doing nails for £60-£70. Anything over £10 is usually paid on top of the free service (if my hair costs £60 and the nails are £100, my friend will pay me £40).

To be clear, there is ZERO obligation to do these trades and to my knowledge, no one has been pressured into one. It’s all about favours and doing nice things for your friends. Anyways, Jane joins the group 2ish months ago and immediately starts asking about my nails.

At one point, she says she can’t afford to get hers done right now so I asked her if she wanted to do a trade. Jane makes her own t shirts/clothing/accessories. The nails I ended up doing on her cost £160.

When it was my turn to pick clothes/accessories, I ended up leaving with about £70 worth. I told her not to worry about ‘paying’ me back with the £90. All in all, I thought it was a good experience and I got to talk to Jane one-on-one. It was fun. Until Wednesday (the 11th of December).

I get a text from Jane apologising and saying she realised she can’t afford to just ‘give away’ £70 worths of her stuff and she needs me to pay her asap or she needs the stuff back. At first, I’m really confused because I could not have been more clear about the how the trades work and I never forced her into one.

I apologised back to her but said I didn’t have some of the smaller items as I planned to gift them to my sister for her birthday. Jane then kept telling me to just ‘pay her back’. I said I would when I get paid from my job. The issue then became her texting.

She went to our group chat to complain about me not paying her for the clothes she gave me. She ended up letting it slip it was a trade and everyone told her she can’t back out of a deal weeks after it happened.

She ended up taking to tiktok to complain about how I ‘stole’ from her and am refusing to pay her back. In response, she was kicked out of the friend group.
However now the group is split.

Half say I should have just paid her as she does seem to be genuinely struggling, while the other half say I am under no obligation to pay her due to the agreed terms of the trade. The first group think I’m kind of an a**hole and Jane definitely thinks I am… so AITA?

See what others had to share with OP:

canadianIMG2019 −  From what I understand she provided you with 70 of goods and you provided her with a 160 nail set. So she “owes you” 70 if anything. Am I reading this post wrong?

CrabbiestAsp −  NTA. Tell her that when she pays you for her nails, you will then pay her for the products you got off her

Yupkook −  NTA. From the beginning you made the terms of the trade in your group clear. The girl agreed to it. It’s not your responsibility to anticipate that she would regret it or manage her finances. In which case shouldn’t you ask her for the money for the nails?

You already let her off the hook for £90 worth of work. That’s not stealing that’s you being kind. Instead of discussing her financial struggles in private like an adult or negotiating she decided to take it to a group chat and her tik tok that’s m**ipulative.

Your group works on mutual respect and trust for these trades. Her backtracking undermines that dynamic which isn’t fair. That said the kindest thing to do would have been to return her things once you realised she was struggling but you’re not obligated to do it.

She enjoyed the benefits of the trade and only chabged tune when it was convenient for her. Your friend sliding with her probably feel bad for her but that doesn’t make you wrong in any way. The kicking out if the group was because of the public meltdown rather than the trade.

She messed up by making a huge mess rather than addressing it the right way. You didn’t steal you followed the agreed terms and the girl caused her own problems trying to rewrite the rules after the fact.

PatchEnd −  nta. if she was “genuinely struggling” then nails as a trade is THE BEST F**KING OPTION or NO nails. duh….if she didn’t want nails, then this isn’t an issue, BUT SHE WANTED THEM!!! SHE REQUESTED THEM.

She agreed to the trade. she’s greedy and keep a list of these “friends” that think you should pay, and don’t trade with them anymore. AND these “friends” can pull their money and pay her if she is having such a hard time, because your transaction with her is finished, complete, fini, done.

Choo_Choo444 −  Tell Jane you will gladly give her all the stuff back as soon as she pays for the nail service she had…. if she wants to cancel the trade that works both ways

SnooStrawberries5153 −  NTA. I’d send her the following: If you prefer a transactional cash system instead of trading services that is ok. However based on the value of the items I received, you will owe me £90 (Nails £160 – £70 of product). Please Venmo/PayPal me the remaining amount.

silverdonu −  If she’s asking you to pay for the clothes, then charge her for the nails that she also couldn’t afford. She knew how the trade-off works. She knew she couldn’t afford to give away 70 dollars worth of clothing, but she still continued to do it.

She wasn’t forced into this. She agreed to it. In order for you to pay her, tell her “I’d love to pay you for the clothes you have gave me, but in addition to this I’d like for you to give me the money you owe me for the nails.”

Ok_Public_1233 −  NTA. If she truly understood how the trades work, she asked you for a much more expensive favor but isn’t willing to reciprocate, which is by the definition of the deal, THEFT. She wants your expensive time and product but doesn’t want to pay for it in the currency of the trade.

You were even kind enough to take lesser value for your work. And not just content to try to stir up drama in your group, she goes public with her fiction? Hell no. I’d reply to her TikTok, just as publicly, reminding her how much she TOOK from you in the promise of trade,

and that you will happily return the COST of the items you received when and ONLY when she returns the COST of your time and efforts and product, since just like in your case there is no way to return the actual items and time in mint condition.

Make sure that until she pays for what she received, you are in fact the one who could demand additional payment, but you generously ‘wrote off’ the remaining debt.

Those in your group who think you’re the a**hole should be reminded that if you asked for something without expecting to provide the agreed upon ‘payment’, they would absolutely refuse the trade.

If Jane is such an exception to the trade rule, they are welcome to pay the outstanding portion of her debt that you were going to forgive – in cash – and you will happily use that cash to pay Jane.

Otherwise they are saying that it’s okay for someone in a lesser position to demand services for free after they’ve gotten them. Tell them to go to your average Walmart and see how well that works for them.

If Jane didn’t want to fulfill her responsibility, she shouldn’t have engaged in the agreement to begin with. If she tried to pull this crap at Walmart she’d be calling the other members of the group for bail money, not a return of rightfully traded property. If she’d pulled this at a real nail salon, she’d be on TikTok for a very different reason…

PretttierThanYou −  NTA. It’s not fair to expect you to get involved in drama with someone you barely know. People shouldn’t rely on strangers to defend them—they need to handle their own issues or ask for help directly if needed.

Inevitable_Invite_21 −  NTA for not paying her, but YTA for the title of the post not aligning with its content. There’s nothing about you wondering whether or not you should defend her. For that I downvote you

It seems like Jane misunderstood the group’s norms, but her financial stress may have clouded her judgment. While OP isn’t technically in the wrong, could she have handled the situation with more empathy? Was the group too harsh for kicking Jane out? Share your thoughts below!