10% of people ask for money through SMS and email

Study by Serve finds that even more people ask for money owed to them through SMS and email

There’s nothing quite as irritating as going out to lunch with a friend and finding yourself in that awkward moment at the end where you know you’re going to have to fight with that person over the right to pay the bill.  I hate this because if it were left up to me, everyone would pay their own damn bill.  But no, you always have that one friend who ends every lunch or cocktail hour with “don’t worry guys, I got this.”  And then as much as I would LOVE to say “have at it,” I know that that would be tacky, because it’s culturally expected of me to fight that person for the right to pay the bill in full.

Mixing money with any relationship—whether it’s a friend, family member, or significant other—is a risky gamble, and a new survey from American Express’s Serve takes a hard look at how people approach the issue.  Exactly how people choose to ask for a loan—or ask for money that’s owed—is particularly interesting: people prefer to initiate money conversations via text messaging over email or social networking sites like Facebook.

To be clear, the vast, VAST majority of people prefer to ask for money in person—77%, to be exact.  It seems like the most tactful way to ask for money.  Some 12% prefer to do it in a phone call.  And then there are those who want to ask as indirectly as possible.  Of the 1055 polled, 6% of respondents said they’d prefer to ask for money via text message, and 4% said they would do it via email.  A sad and lonely 1% of respondents said they would do it through social media. 

Interestingly, a slightly higher number of people are more willing to use text messaging and email when they want to talk about money that someone owes them.  Naturally, you don’t want to put someone on the spot if they don’t have the cash in hand, so 9% of respondents said they’d prefer to ask about money owed to them via text message, while 8% said they would do so via email.  And another lonely 1% said they would do so via social media (although interestingly, men are twice as likely to go through social media to bring up money issues than women…meaning all of eight male respondents said this, compared to four female respondents).

You can easily spot some pretty clear patterns.  When it comes to asking for money, you want to ingratiate yourself as much as possible, which means asking in person.  If that’s not possible (because your rich aunt lives on the other side of the country), then you turn to the most personable tools available—the phone, followed far behind by email.

But when it comes to asking for that money back, you know it’s impolite to put someone in the hot seat, so you want to be as indirect and casual as possible. 

No matter what, it’s all going to be awkward.  In fact, the only things that respondents said could be more awkward than bringing up money that was loaned out is sending an email to the wrong person, sitting through an important meeting with a food stain on your clothes, going through an entire job interview with food in your teeth, and having your parents accompany you on a first date.