My friend lent $10,000 to someone over 3 years ago.
does he still have a chance to get it back through small claims court?
Was it documented?
No. There no prior written agreement. Word of mouth.
Wouldn’t the cost of initiating a civil suit negate any benefit initiating that suit?
word of mouth?
zero chance.
tell your friend to take that roughly $300 worth of trouble as a one-time expense to find out early to not trust that person, ever…again…
small amount to realize this earlier in a friendship
I think there’s some kind of form you can fill out for about NT$30 at the post office that officially expresses intent to begin legal action. This is frequently enough to get people to comply. But probably not much use without documentation or evidence.
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Whether the obligation has expired or not is determined by the relevant parts of the Civil Code and the details of the case.
Not necessarily (are there witnesses?), but the friend is clearly at a disadvantage, and a lawyer would charge far more than that to take on the case. 
And you never know, if asked by officials, he may admit it.
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And at the very least, the defendant would probably be annoyed to receive a court summons, so there’s that. 
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Or perhaps be offended and decide to not pay the debt at all!
It seems the debt isn’t being paid anyway. Just saying. 
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Another powerful motivator that really works on Taiwanese people is the threat of public humiliation. Filing a public lawsuit, giving interviews to the likes of Apple Daily and TVBS are very strong motivators.
If the individuals involved are foreigners, then even better! The Taiwanese love to point out the evil doing big noses’ transgressions!
Many people would rather pay up than deal with a bunch of negative attention.
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You really think apple daily has nothing better to do than to talk about someone failing to collect 10,000nt debt?
Was there any drama involved?
Was anyone killed or seriously injured?
Was any serious harm or death threatened?
These might be something they would consider before they would air your story.
It has to appeal to the greater audience.
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You mean like throwing a banana skin out of a car window ? 
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It might actually work better if the person not only owes you 10,000, but he owes a lot of people around him money and he wouldn’t pay it back. Double plus if he’s a foreigner. Then when he does something stupid, really stupid like pee on the MRT platform during rush hour…
That’s Apple Daily front page material right there…
“Dirty foreigner deadbeat debtor and pees on MRT platform”
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