Our article explores a lender's trust in debt recovery actions under uncertain settings through an in vivo experimental approach. Participants faced two fictional debt recovery scenarios, where they had to determine the minimum and maximum commission, they were willing to pay a collector to recover a loaned amount. Results demonstrated that participants’ trust is conditioned on recovering an average of 60% of the debt and they are willing to give up approximately 30% of the recovered sums. These discoveries highlight the influence of psychological and social factors on financial behaviors, including cognitive biases (ambiguity effect, compromise effect, and simplicity effect) and social norms (popular culture). In conclusion, our research underscores the importance of trust in recovery processes and suggests that more lenient recovery strategies can foster durable and reliable financial relationships.