In 2024, the plaintiff claimed that they signed four loan contracts with the eight defendants, mainly agreeing to lend 1.5 million yuan, 2 million yuan, 1.5 million yuan, and 1.5 million yuan to the eight defendants. Among them, the first three loans had a term of 18 months, and the last loan had a term of 12 months, with an annual interest rate of 36% for all four loans. After the contracts were signed, the plaintiff transferred 1.5 million yuan, 2 million yuan, 1.5 million yuan, and 1.5 million yuan to the defendants at that time. After the four loans matured, the eight defendants did not repay as agreed. After the plaintiff urged repayment, the defendants provided a repayment plan to the plaintiff on April 1, 2020, stating that as of January 24, 2020, they still owed more than 7.2 million yuan in loans. Since the issuance of this repayment plan, the eight defendants have still not repaid the principal and interest of the loans to the plaintiff.
The defendants believe that, as instructed by the plaintiff, they have fulfilled their payment obligations to a third party, and all debts have been settled, providing repayment records.

Case Analysis:
The "love triangle" in lending relationships is not advisable. The so-called "love triangle" refers to the borrower being A, the lender being B, and the repayment object being C. In private lending cases, special attention should be paid to triangular relationships. In this case, the plaintiff provided a loan to the defendant but required the repayment to be made to a third party. In other words, the plaintiff lent the funds, and the third party collected the repayments, with evidence showing that the repayments were indicated as the first and second payments. The remaining repayments were continued by the defendant to the third party, and the plaintiff had no objections. In this case, during the court hearing, the plaintiff did not recognize the funds paid by the defendant to the third party as repayments, only acknowledging that the first three payments were repayments, and the defendant's payments to the third party were unrelated to this case. In this case, the defendant had no dealings with the third party and provided WeChat chat records and repayment details as requested by the plaintiff for the defendant to repay the third party. The second-instance court, based on the advantage of evidence in civil litigation, determined that the defendant's transfer to the third party was repayment of the loan in this case and made a legally revised judgment. Therefore, when encountering triangular lending, it is essential to keep good evidence (written documents, WeChat chat records, etc.), especially evidence of the lender's instructions to repay the third party, to avoid disputes over repayment amounts that could lead to economic losses.

Court ruling:
The Zhengzhou Jinshui District Court first instance determined that the plaintiff is a professional lender, and the loan contract involved is invalid, but did not recognize the defendant's claim of having repaid, ordering repayment of over 6.5 million.
The Zhengzhou Intermediate Court second instance upheld the ruling of contract invalidity, and changed the ruling for the defendant to repay the plaintiff over 800,000.