Simple present vs simple past

I saw these sentences somewhere:
“Nick tells me he wants a motorbike. Have you been putting ideas into his head?”

But I think it should be “told” instead of “tells”. Am I correct?

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This might not be grammatically correct, but it’s a common construction and is OK as-is.

You can also substitute ‘informs’ for ‘tells’.

Nick informs me…

You would only use this construction if it was recent. For example you would not use this construction if Nick told you a year ago.

Not everything needs to be technically “correct”. Language would be too stilted if it was. Of course language would be easier to learn if everything followed a fixed set of rules, but it doesn’t.

The example you gave is OK as it is, but I don’t recommend using that construction yourself.

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