Last Friday night I gave a lift to 3 friends for a night out. One of them, who was wearing a pair of pure white designer label jeans has been sending me cheeky messages all day because apparently there is a stain on the back pocket of her white jeans and she says it came from the back seat of my car and she wants me to replace the jeans.
I have just examined the back seat of my car and can see nothing that should stain clothing and have sat on the seat myself and slid from side to side on in in my light blue jeans and they've remained stain free. I admit I am not an obsessive car cleaner but it is cleaner than most, especially in the back as it's rare for anyone to sit there and I never put anything there apart from maybe shopping bags. If I'm carrying anything dirty it goes in the boot, with the seats folded down if required.
I haven't replied yet as I'm unsure what best to say. I've known this girl for a few years without really knowing her that well but she's always been very highly strung and liable to flip her lid and bombard people with hundreds of text messages one after the other if she doesn't get the response she wants.
I can't say for certain that she didn't stain her clothes from my car seat but even if she did, is it really my responsibility? I offered her a lift, I didn't get paid for doing so, surely it is her responsibility to look after her own clothes. How does she know the stain didn't come from the seat in the bar for example?
I can think of occasions were I have stained clothes from sitting on things in bars, in cafes, on buses, in taxis, park benches, etc and it never once occurred to me to demand compensation from someone. I just put it down to one of those things. Is it a reasonable thing to do?