help to decipher

coldfire0101

hello to all, i am probably putting this in the wrong forum so i apologise if it is.
ive been dealing with a company that im trying to get a refund from and we are at the stage where they are being very unco-operative and the only route left is county court (small claims) after i mentioned this to them i received an email with the following - 'We remind you that you are liable to mitigate your losses and that any unecessary legal action will be treated as malicious. We will of course defend any legal action to the full extent of UK law.' - now im not dumb but this has confused me a bit, im not actually sure what they are trying to say with it.
if any can translate this to laymens terms i would be be very greatful
thanks in advance

tinkerbell28

They are trying to scare you a bit. However they are saying you are liable to mitigate your losses.

You are, you can't just say I want x. You have to quantify your losses and show you have done everything to keep these down.

The can counter claim, depends on what has happened, what is going on? More info needed, really.

DevCoder

They are saying that any claim brought to court that they deem frivolous, they will defend and seek court costs plus any losses from yourself.
The first part about mitigating your losses would infer that you are claiming a consequential loss above the cost of the original product or that the product was such that you could have foreseen and had time to act to offset any loss caused by the product.

It would help if you gave a bit more information.

forgotmyname

Its a we dont want you to take us to court in case we lose letter.

Send them a letter before action. If you have not done so.

Say you have tried mitigating your losses yet as they still refuse to refund they leave you with no alternative course other than court and expensive legal fees.

You can of course help me mitigate my losses by refunding me in FULL.

I will then have no losses to mitigate and will no longer be required to employ someone expensive for legal advice.

PS. Please also add the cost of this envelope and the stamp to the refundable amount.
I have mitigated my losses by not adding the cost of shoe leather and siliva required to post the letter or the cost of the icecream on the way home.


Thank You.

bris

Without knowing the problem they could be right.

If you have failed to mitigate your loss then a court would not take to kindly to it.

It may be that a compromise can be reached but you are stubbornly refusing to budge, this may be why they are calling the court action malicious and yes you could lose the court costs and have to pay their reasonable costs.

Ectophile

The "mitigating your losses" is quite reasonable. If you are losing money because of something they have done (or not done), then you should do what you can to minimise the loss.

Here's an example: suppose you are a self-employed contractor earning £200 a day working for your customer. Then your brand-new car breaks down, and the garage fails to fix it. You could try to claim for £200 a day lost earnings, but their lawyer could quite reasonably ask why you didn't just get a taxi each way, and claim the taxi fare as your losses instead.

The rest of the letter is just scare tactics.

coldfire0101

thanks for replies. this email makes no sense to me.

the problem is a set of sports earphones that are designed to be worn when training/jogging etc, first time i used they they fell out several times and became quite frustrating. i tried all the different earbuds and none kept them in my ears
i contacted the seller and informed them of this and the only help i got was 'we dont accept headphones in return for hygeine reasons( i can understand this), but this leaves me with an expensdive set of headphones that i cant used for the reason they bought.
after several back and forth's via email the seller basically said we've never had a problem with them end of (not a quote there).
after looking through the net for a while and finnaly scanning through the sales of goods act i forwarded on the section about products being fit for purpose which ounce again was told by them never had a problem so they are fit for purpose, this then led to an email about cliaming a refund through county court.
im not trying to claim any more than the initial cost of the headset im not claiming any loss of anything (unless it does go to cc)
now i beleive if i buy a product to do something it should do it
if im in the wrong here hands up fine but i dont beleive i am

frugal_mike

What do these earphones claim they do that makes them suitable for jogging where a normal earphone isn't? Are there any instructions you may have missed?

paddyrg

From your update it sounds like they're trying to scare you off, and that your case appears robust. I suspect they'll bluster and protest but not show up in court TBH over a pair of earphones. Whether you can get money out of them is another question, but a court can at least make the judgement whether they ought or ought not do so.

coldfire0101

frugal_mike wrote: »

What do these earphones claim they do that makes them suitable for jogging where a normal earphone isn't? Are there any instructions you may have missed?

they are advertised as being designed for sport, sweat resistent etc.
no i didnt miss any instructions, i went through the titchy tiny little booklet several times.

the seller hasnt offered any kind of assistance, most places would say have you tried this or that, there first response was no refunds

keyser666

A thorough understanding of fit for purpose is needed, just because they dont fit you or slip out when you are using them does not mean they are not fit for purpose because they could easily be fine on another person