Ebay small claim court, success !! But now won't pay

redsclubbedup

Hoping someone can advise me. Basically back in Feb I sold a product over Ebay, i ended up stupidly refunding the item, before receiving it back to the sum of £520 (i know!)

after months of trying to get it back, teh only option left was to take the buyer to small claims court for the £520 as he never sent the unit back.

he didnt reply to any of the courts letters, so by default they found in my favour, and ordered him to pay the money.

the last summons however / order to pay has now been returned to the court, marked "GONE AWAY" - i used the address that the unti was posted too for the court details. and apparently even if he returned it in this manner it is still classified as "served" .

Does anyone know if there is a way I can check he still resides at the address ? surely even if he had moved the mail would have been forwarded onto him ! he has been ignoring this for months - i know he's in the country still

honeyD

You can check on 192.com to see who is listed at the address. Other option is the electoral role and see if he is listed. Not sure how you go about that though.

RFW

redsclubbedup wrote: »

Hoping someone can advise me. Basically back in Feb I sold a product over Ebay, i ended up stupidly refunding the item, before receiving it back to the sum of £520 (i know!)

after months of trying to get it back, teh only option left was to take the buyer to small claims court for the £520 as he never sent the unit back.

he didnt reply to any of the courts letters, so by default they found in my favour, and ordered him to pay the money.

the last summons however / order to pay has now been returned to the court, marked "GONE AWAY" - i used the address that the unti was posted too for the court details. and apparently even if he returned it in this manner it is still classified as "served" .

Does anyone know if there is a way I can check he still resides at the address ? surely even if he had moved the mail would have been forwarded onto him ! he has been ignoring this for months - i know he's in the country still

I know the law has changed a bit, so not certain, but I think your best course of action would be to get in touch with a bailiff. You want one who won't ask you for any money, otherwise you may be throwing more away.
There are other options which the court can point you in the direction of, but they mostly involve finding them, the bailiffs would have the resources to do that.

Premier_2

The court should have advised you how to go about enforcing judgement if needed.

http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/infoabout/enforcement/index.htm

cyril82

i'd definitely consider getting an enforcement order and then handing it over to a bailiff, they will establish if the guy is still at the address and if not have methods of tracing him.

Basically they will monitor his credit file, if he ever applies for credit again at his new address he will flag up and they will look for him on the electoral role. they have a few other methods as well and are quite effective at tracking people down.

There is a good chance he is still at the address and just sent the form back as gone away to try and throw you off.

Good luck.

chja

Not sure if the default would allow you to obtain a CCJ or equivalent against him. Mucking up his credit rating may get his attention.

soolin

This is something that has always concerned me having read an article on a different forum here. We are all quick to say sue for things, I do is myself, yet that is no guarantee of actually recovering funds. The system still allows the other party to basically say 'no chase me for it' and then you have to be prepared to use bailiffs and such like.

I think we need to be careful in future not to give the impression that once you win at a small claims court you get your money handed over that day and all is well.

Debt_Free_Chick

Soolin is right. I usually make this observation to anyone wanting to pursue via the small claims court. The judgement is simply the Courts agreement that you are legally owed the money ... does nowt to actually get the money in your pocket though.

Is it worth it for £250? Remember to look at the amount you need to pay a bailiff to pursue this.

kevinyork

My partner and I tok someone through the County Court system a few years back and basically he used every stalling tactic going. He would not turn up for court dates then present stupid reasons and the court would simply set another date which he would then not attend either.

Finally, after around 15 months the judgement was awarded in our favour against him but because of the length of time that had expired he had now moved. The court bailiff was next to useless. They dont investigate where the person may have moved to and unless we could provide the address to the bailiff then the bailiff said he could do nothing. Maybe a private bailiff would be better but possibly mor costly.

We found the County Court system slow and cumbersome and weighted in the favour of the other party. He got all his court costs free as he claimed to be unemployed when in fact he was a self employed courier.

soolin

I think that maybe we need to have a sort of cut and paste 'reminder' that we can use when we advocate small claims in future warning that the system does not guarantee you your money back.

Edit : If someone who is better with words than me could write something brief I'll add it onto a sticky thread somewhere .

cyberbob

soolin wrote: »

I think that maybe we need to have a sort of cut and paste 'reminder' that we can use when we advocate small claims in future warning that the system does not guarantee you your money back.

Edit : If someone who is better with words than me could write something brief I'll add it onto a sticky thread somewhere .

Also if your going to do that it needs to be remembered that the system in Scotland is slightly different. You cannot do it online you have to put the claim into your local sheriff court. Also there are not baliffs in Scotland. There are sheriffs officers whoose powers differ from baliffs (they are not as strong).