Small Claims court?

nicholas.cheshire.1990

Hi Everyone,

Thank you for any help in advance.

I have been victim to a wonderful salesman. I was put in touch with a guy we will called "john" for the purposes of this thread.

John specialises in SEO (search engine optimisation) work for website i.e ranking your website higher on google.

He did an audit of my company website and quoted me £5,500 to have the following

Visibility Goals
A 4 fold increase in average monthly website traffic numbers based on Google Analytics between Nov16-Jan17.

Place Nest In Essex on the 1st page of Google and Bing, within the top 7 results for term "Estate Agents in Rayleigh" and "Letting Agents in Rayleigh"

Place Nest In Essex on the 1st or 2nd page of Google and Bing, within the top 14 listings for the term "Estate Agents Essex"

Place Nest In Essex within the Key Map for the term "Estate Agents in Rayleigh".

Place Nest In Essex within first 5 results on Facebook for "Estate Agents in/ Rayleigh".

Real World Figure Targets
Help increase seller leads through website to a minimum of 18 a month by end of time frame (Contact Details, Name, Email, Telephone, Postcode).

Using a whole array of tech and not tech methods, help achieve a minimum of 100 landlords within 7 months (1 month prep) + 6 months active.

Place your website and increase visibility as defined in Visibility Goals helping improve overall enquires.

Guarantee and Fees
As also mentioned on the telephone, unlike most PayPerClick/Marketing firms (which I am not) I do not believe in short term solutions as they will not fix underlying issues with performance of your business online.

My expertise lay in increasing business enquires or sales leads through digital formats of any size as the same rules apply. Therefore I offer a full refund if the targets I've defined are not met within the timeframe given although as of yet, have never had to supply a refund.

My fee is usually split into two parts, the pre and post result. Considering the amount of work required to meet these spread over 6 months the total cost of time would be between £5,500-£6,000. With payments split £2,500 pre and the remainder due post successfully meeting all the targets I have defined

...............

We finally agreed to £550 as a deposit which i paid, this guys communication up to this big was great.

i then sent him regular emails (every few days) asking for updated on the situation to which i got some sort of 'story' each time.

Eventually i ran out of paitents and sent a stern email as no work had been completed in 6 weeks. as i result i had to pay for another service.

This gentleman replied saying he would refund the money (refuses to specify when) - ive pushed and put a deadline in place which has now passed by a number of days (nearlly a week) with no funds present.

The next step for me is taking this to the small claims court, although im stuck with the following

1) i want to claim my £550 back but feel i should claim for more as he "promised and guaranteed" me business within 4 weeks which never materialised. is this fair to claim this?

2) how would i justify such arguments?

this has dominated hours upon hours of my time in chasing him when i should of been working so i feel like i should get some numeration for this.

for instance he promised me the business of 10 landlords during Feb, which would of been £450 income for the first month and £350 for the remaining 11 months of the contact. as well as sales.

the problem is i am realistic and know sales fall apart in the property industry for a million and one reasons so feel i cannot charge him to the business he guaranteed. the landlords however i feel i should.

any advice would be fantastic!

TIA

wealdroam

nicholas.cheshire.1990 wrote: »

Hi Everyone,

Thank you for any help in advance.

I have been victim to a wonderful salesman. I was put in touch with a guy we will called "john" for the purposes of this thread.

John specialises in SEO (search engine optimisation) work for website i.e ranking your website higher on google.

He did an audit of my company website and quoted me £5,500 to have the following

Visibility Goals
A 4 fold increase in average monthly website traffic numbers based on Google Analytics between Nov16-Jan17.

Place Nest In Essex on the 1st page of Google and Bing, within the top 7 results for term "Estate Agents in Rayleigh" and "Letting Agents in Rayleigh"

Place Nest In Essex on the 1st or 2nd page of Google and Bing, within the top 14 listings for the term "Estate Agents Essex"

Place Nest In Essex within the Key Map for the term "Estate Agents in Rayleigh".

Place Nest In Essex within first 5 results on Facebook for "Estate Agents in/ Rayleigh".

Real World Figure Targets
Help increase seller leads through website to a minimum of 18 a month by end of time frame (Contact Details, Name, Email, Telephone, Postcode).

Using a whole array of tech and not tech methods, help achieve a minimum of 100 landlords within 7 months (1 month prep) + 6 months active.

Place your website and increase visibility as defined in Visibility Goals helping improve overall enquires.

Guarantee and Fees
As also mentioned on the telephone, unlike most PayPerClick/Marketing firms (which I am not) I do not believe in short term solutions as they will not fix underlying issues with performance of your business online.

My expertise lay in increasing business enquires or sales leads through digital formats of any size as the same rules apply. Therefore I offer a full refund if the targets I've defined are not met within the timeframe given although as of yet, have never had to supply a refund.

My fee is usually split into two parts, the pre and post result. Considering the amount of work required to meet these spread over 6 months the total cost of time would be between £5,500-£6,000. With payments split £2,500 pre and the remainder due post successfully meeting all the targets I have defined

...............

We finally agreed to £550 as a deposit which i paid, this guys communication up to this big was great.

i then sent him regular emails (every few days) asking for updated on the situation to which i got some sort of 'story' each time.

Eventually i ran out of paitents and sent a stern email as no work had been completed in 6 weeks. as i result i had to pay for another service.

This gentleman replied saying he would refund the money (refuses to specify when) - ive pushed and put a deadline in place which has now passed by a number of days (nearlly a week) with no funds present.

The next step for me is taking this to the small claims court, although im stuck with the following

1) i want to claim my £550 back but feel i should claim for more as he "promised and guaranteed" me business within 4 weeks which never materialised. is this fair to claim this?

2) how would i justify such arguments?

this has dominated hours upon hours of my time in chasing him when i should of been working so i feel like i should get some numeration for this.

for instance he promised me the business of 10 landlords during Feb, which would of been £450 income for the first month and £350 for the remaining 11 months of the contact. as well as sales.

the problem is i am realistic and know sales fall apart in the property industry for a million and one reasons so feel i cannot charge him to the business he guaranteed. the landlords however i feel i should.

any advice would be fantastic!

TIA

This is clearly a business to business transaction and as such consumer rights do not apply.

You will need to read your contract to decide whether or not you have a claim.

Perhaps MSE's Small Claims Court guide can help you.

steampowered

nicholas.cheshire.1990 wrote: »

1) i want to claim my £550 back but feel i should claim for more as he "promised and guaranteed" me business within 4 weeks which never materialised. is this fair to claim this?

2) how would i justify such arguments?

What you have described could - potentially - constitute a breach of contract claim.

In a breach of contract claim, you get damages to put you in the position you should be in if the contract were properly performed.

In theory, I think you could claim for any lost profit as a result of not getting the additional business you were promised. You would however be expected to prove exactly how you calculated this and provide the supporting evidence. It might be easier just to claim a refund.

this has dominated hours upon hours of my time in chasing him when i should of been working so i feel like i should get some numeration for this.

Generally, you cannot claim for time spent resolving the issue.

There are a few cases where people have successfully done this. However in those cases the claimant proved that the time they spent resolving the issue meant they could not spend time elsewhere, and their business suffered a quantifiable financial loss as a result.

Personally I would focus more on getting a refund unless you have some hard, quantifiable numbers to justify a claim for more.

You are expected to write a 'letter before action' giving 14 days warning of your intention to lodge a claim if the matter is not resolved. If you don't get any joy from that, you can then issue a claim through the moneyclaimonline service.

theonlywayisup

I think the OP has done a pretty good job at getting their website some visibility.

nicholas.cheshire.1990

HI Guys,

Ive checked through the contract and the contract is worded very badly but overall does state his terms and clear dates to determine what about of business he GUARANTEED during each month.

he does state in his contract that if this is failed then he is happy for a refund, on emailing the guy to mention i wasnt happy he offered a refund and was happy to pay it back although is refusing to specify when.... ive tried chasing several times but had no luck so i feel either debt collection (where i believe i have to pay the collector) or small claims is the option....

steampowered

Debt collectors have no more legal powers than you do. You'd be better off going straight to small claims if you feel that you have a case.