She took my deposit and ran.

laurenjo123

Hello everyone. Need some advice on a recent situation that happened! A few weeks ago, I made contact with a mobile hairdresser in Kent and we arranged an appointment for Friday at 12:30. Her page seemed legitimate and she had reviews from other customers which made it very trusting. The deposit was paid of £100 to buy the hair and have it for my appointment.(This is a standard procedure as if a client cancels, the hairdresser is left with hair extensions they will not use. These cost about £100). I was emailed a receipt from her. This was made via bank transfer.

I waited for her to arrive on the day arranged. I then contacted her 15 minutes after the arranged time and had no response. I then tried to contact her at 1.15 again and she had deleted me off all social media etc. I then went to the police station to ask for advice. They took a report off me and put me in contact with ActionFraud.
ActionFraud contacted me 3 days ago stating that they had contacted the woman and she had said she was 'ill' and will unblock me and refund my money. I was advised to call back if any problems.
2 days later, I had not received any message from this woman. I emailed her from the email I received the receipt off and she responded saying she is not refunding me because 'as discussed previously, if an appointment is cancelled twice she gets to keep my deposit'. She is making up false information and saying that I cancelled these appointments which never happened and I have evidence of the messages.
I have spoken to ActionFraud and they have said it is a civil rather than a legal issue. They advised me to contact trading standards and take her to a small claims court if I wanted to. She said the evidence would most likely work in my favour.
Could anyone please advise on what I can do in this situation as court would be my last resort!
Thanks.

stuartJo1989

To be honest, I think ActionFraud (police) probably have bigger fish to fry.... In your case it is hard for a third party to establish a true case of fraud (it is a "your word against mine" situation, as you correctly point out) and the police probably should be spending more time/resources on chasing the higher level criminals who rake in thousands, maybe millions, from fraud. It doesn't make it right (and it doesn't necessarily make your case a "civil" one, it is probably a "criminal" one tbh), but your situation is trivial in comparison to the sort of things ActionFraud are probably going up against.

I think you should be focusing less on fraud and more on reclaiming the money back. Sadly, small claims court is probably your only option here...

laurenjo123

stuartJo1989 wrote: »

To be honest, I think ActionFraud (police) probably have bigger fish to fry.... In your case it is hard for a third party to establish a true case of fraud (it is a "your word against mine" situation, as you correctly point out) and the police probably should be spending more time/resources on chasing the higher level criminals who rake in thousands, maybe millions, from fraud. It doesn't make it right (and it doesn't necessarily make your case a "civil" one, it is probably a "criminal" one tbh), but your situation is trivial in comparison to the sort of things ActionFraud are probably going up against.

I think you should be focusing less on fraud and more on reclaiming the money back. Sadly, small claims court is probably your only option here...

Thanks for the advice, it was a foolish move of me and I definitely will not be going about it that way again!
Do you think I should approach her before taking her to small claims court or do it anyway?

KeithP

laurenjo123 wrote: »

Do you think I should approach her before taking her to small claims court or do it anyway?

You certainly need to give her one more chance before starting court action.

You need to send a letter before claim.
It needs to state the problem - that she hasn't provided the purchased service.
It needs to state the resolution - the return of your money.
It needs to state what will happen if the refund isn't forthcoming - you will start court action after (say) 28 days without further notice.

Google letter before claim for many samples.

While you are waiting for her response, have a read of MSE's Small Claims Court guide.

unholyangel

OP see if you can print out/get screenshots of your call log and any communications with her.

The two attempts to contact her you made on the day of the appointment will go a long way - after all, why would you be contacting her 15 & 45 mins after your arranged appointment time unless she had failed to turn up? Presumably you'll have an incident/report number from actionfraud also and may be able to get something from them or your local police showing you contacted the police straight away/PDQ after the scheduled appointment was missed (and why would you have done that if you had cancelled the appointment).

Include them in your LBA to her - the LBA should be as succinct & to the point as possible, but you can include additional evidence/info on separate pages if necessary. I'd also perhaps point out to her that if she's alleging you cancelled the appointment, she should be able to provide some sort of proof of that along with proof that she ordered the extensions you agreed on in preparation for the appointment.

I agree with the other poster it probably should be criminal - I suspect she hasn't even ordered the extensions (it would be a bit silly to have the hair extensions and not turn up when its the installation of them that earns her money) which would go some way to proving she never had any intention of performing the contract and took money from you under fraudulent pretences.

ThumbRemote

Do you know where she lives? I suspect she wouldn't want someone turning up at her doorstep and causing a scene.

laurenjo123

Thank you everyone. I will look into Letter Before Claims like you suggested. I do have all the evidence needed, so hopefully it will not be too much of a trouble to get it back.
I do not know where she lives but it is in my area. When I went to the police station, they found the woman and address on their database but obviously could not give me any personal details.

pinkshoes

You need to start doing some research and finding her address. That way you can easily send her a "letter before action" threatening court action if she doesn't refund.

You will need her address to do this though, so you had better start researching.

ThumbRemote

Indeed - if you don't know where she lives, you can't take her to court.

waamo

Just bear in mind you may be throwing good money after bad trying to reclaim any money from her. Finding her address may not be easy and even if you do enforcing a ccj isn't always as easy as you think.

laurenjo123

How is it possible to get her address if she doesn't give it to me herself? surely not every person that gets scammed will know their scammers address? Is there no other option for me?