Shalom Chashuva Rabbonim and Dayonim.
First off – poschim bichvod achsanya.
Thank you very much for whomever is hosting this service.
My question is related to two maasim which happened to me this past year.
First Maaseh:
A mechaber of a pairush on mishneh sells his mishnayis on the basis of a phone call with the bill enclosed.
I send him his check and wait for it to be cashed.
I get a phone call from a person in a store saying he found my check made out to the mechaber and does not know who this person is.
I tell him I will call them and tell them you have their check.
I do so and again wait to see when the check will be cashed
The check is not cashed after 3 weeks and I call the mechaber back. He tells me he gave it to the store owner and this was used as a third party check and the store owner gave him credit for the 120 dollars that was on the check.
I say if so then the seller got my money for his goods and I am done with my chiyuvim.
if the store owner does not cash the check, ihu d’afsid anafshey.
I don’t even know who the guy is to begin with.
So whats the din – do I have to chase this?
Second maaseh:
I buy a disk of 12,000 torah volumes for a computer.
It’s quite expensive:
1200 dollars.
But they are willing to charge 50 dollars a month for 18 months or so until the balance is paid off.
So I agree and I give them my credit card to charge me the monthly amount.
Three months go by and still no charges.
I send an email to them telling them – what’s going on – nothing is being charged.
They say oh we must have messed up – is it okay to charge you the last three months all at once.
I say, sure – go right ahead.
Again, I wait and nothing.
No charges.
So I say to myself – again this is happening to me.
People are not charging me for goods and services they provided to me.
Is this my lucky day or what.
This is a sach gelt now so I am feeling pretty guilty about using this disk.
Okay, so I wait and a year goes by and I tell the story to a friend of mine.
He goes ahead and calls the chevra at the computer disk place about me without my consent and tells them they should charge me now so I won’t be ovair on genaiva.
Such a tzadik! May we all be zocheh to have such friends.
Now I have no problem paying for something in my possession. This is already paid out.
Question 1: Was I mechuyav to pursue this beyond my reminder to them that they had not charged me yet.
Question 2: Was my friend allowed to do what he did?
Question 3: Can I have Tarumos on him?
Not that I will do anything – this is really only l’hagdil torah ul’haadeerah.
Sorry to be maarich but as a dayan you need to see the full picture. Correct?
Answer:
First case:
Since the person you paid with check passed it on to a third party, you have no obligation to search for him in order to find out why he didn’t cash the check [see שו”ע סימן ע”ג), especially since he has a Shtar Chov. If he does not want to deposit it – it is not your problem. (Perhaps the person who gave him the check does have a Chiyuv).
Second case:
1. The Achronim disagree if the Lender does not demand the repayment of a loan is there an obligation to repay it.
2. Since the debt still exists, your friend had the right to remind them.
3. You do probably have a zechus Taromes. [see פתחי חושן הלכות הלואה פ”ב סעיף ד ובהערות שם]
נחלקו האחרונים אם מלוה לא תובע את הלוה האם יש חיוב לפרוע לו או לא, ומכל מקום החוב קיים גם אם לא תבעוהו, מותר לאדם להזכיר לחבירו שחבירו חייב לו מעות, אולם יתכן ויש בזה מקום לתרעומת כמו שמצינו לגבי שליח של בעל הבית שהבטיח סכום פחות מאשר בעל הבית שהפועל יכול לבוא עליו בתרעומת.
עיין פתחי חושן (הלכות הלואה פ”ב סעיף ד ובהערות שם)
