I just saw a discussion on Twitter about borrowing money and it reminded me of an old story. When I first started a small company in Zhongguancun, I rented a house. Every quarter, the landlord's younger brother would come to collect rent. Sometimes he paid by check, sometimes in cash. At first, he would give me a receipt issued by the landlord's company. Over the years, I got to know him and the landlord's brother quite well, and he often forgot to bring the receipt, but I didn't mind.

One year, just before the Spring Festival, the brother came to collect rent again. He said he was passing by and forgot the receipt. Coincidentally, I had money in the bank, so the accountant wrote him a check. Once the check was issued, it needed to be recorded, so he signed the stub of the check.

Then he didn't rush to leave and continued chatting with me. Suddenly, he said that his mother was hospitalized and urgently needed money, asking if I could lend him 100,000 yuan. I felt our relationship wasn't that close—just saw each other quarterly—and besides, his landlord's older brother's family was well-off, so why would he come to me for a loan? It didn't seem right, so I politely declined, saying I was also tight on funds. To my surprise, he wasn't giving up and asked how much I could lend, saying he wouldn't mind borrowing as much as I could give, even offering high interest. I felt even more suspicious and firmly refused. Seeing I wasn't interested, he awkwardly left.

A month later, the landlord's accountant suddenly came to see me, asking if I had paid the rent. I said yes, and she wanted to see the proof. I showed her the signed check stub from my brother, and she then told me that this brother wasn't the landlord's real brother. The rent check hadn't been returned, and he had already run away after borrowing from everyone around. Luckily, I had the check with a stub and signature; otherwise, it would have been hard to explain. Also, I was fortunate not to have lent him money to save face, or I would have been like a meat bun hitting a dog.

A few months later, my company started receiving constant collection calls from various banks. It turned out that the house and phone number were used by the landlord's previous company, and the "brother" had used that work phone to apply for credit cards. Before fleeing, he maxed out all his credit cards.

The lesson I learned from this is that finance is no small matter—verbal agreements are not enough; you must have proper documentation. Also, when someone you don't know well suddenly asks to borrow money, think carefully—it's very likely a trap.