Help and advice please :-Been taken to county court for £15 ! yes £15

justwondering25

Help and advice please...

Okay long story short....

I bought a item from a ebay business seller on november the 1st for £23 , it arrived , bought another item from the same seller on November the 8th for £8 , but decided to cancel the 2nd order , which I did within 1 hour , the seller they said they had cancelled the order , no worries great.

Anyway , just logged into my ebay account various messages from the seller , they had made a mistake and refunded the 1st order and refunded me £23 , instead of cancelling the 2nd order for £8 .

Various messages asking for the payment of £15 to cover the original order , as they had made a mistake and cancelled the 1st order and not the 2nd order which was £8

So last message from them in a long list of messages , basically said they had filed a county court papers at Northampton court for the outstanding balance and they will no longer be able to accept payment by paypal , only via the details as shown on the county court paper work that I should receive shortly .

I presume they will be claiming £15 and not £23....as they have not refunded me the 2nd order amount.

So i guess I am going to be stuck with some kind county court processing fee from the courts plus the £15

I looked online and i can see the fee if processed online for under £300 is £25. or £35 if processed via the mail.

Does this mean if indeed they have processed a county court against me , I will likely have to pay £15 + £25 county court fee ?to clear the debt ?

I have not yet received any paper work , the last message was from 5 days ago.

I know people will say , it is unlikely the business seller will follow through , but I guess it is best to prepare for the worse......

Arleen

If he said that he can't take payment via PayPal anymore then he is almost certainly filling. You will have to pay 15+25 if you agree that you owe the money, and even more if you deny it and it goes to a hearing. But... I can't understand, why didn't you just pay the 15 quid in the first place?

justwondering25

Basically because , I had not logged into my account for the past few weeks , it is only today that I have found a list of messages...

Crazy really !

justwondering25

I am surprised that the seller has not had to at least attempt to contact me by post before filling a County court application as opposed to a number of eBay messages.

Arleen

Because sending letters would cost more than it's worth it. He is already doing it to prove a point and likely thinks you want to stiff him. The only thing to do now is waiting for court paperwork, respond that you admit the liability and pay it, that's it.

justwondering25

Hi Arleen, thank you for your replies.

So I presume no CCJ or a bad mark against me, if paid in full within the allowed time period of I presume 14 days?

justwondering25

P. S Merry Christmas

Superscrooge

Contact the seller and explain what has happened.

When someone owes you money and you send them messages that get ignored. It is only natural they assume you have no intention of returning the money.

They will then know you are not deliberately ignoring them and it might not be too late to sort this out.

Arleen

You are at least month+ away from a CCJ so don't stress it. Simply admit and pay the debt once you get the paperwork, done.

PixelPound

justwondering25 wrote: »

I am surprised that the seller has not had to at least attempt to contact me by post before filling a County court application as opposed to a number of eBay messages.

Has he not? Have you contacted him to ask why not. Part of the pre action protocol is that the dispute has to try to be resolved by letter first. Also what timescale are we talking when you said you were offline, you said weeks - is that a couple of weeks or are we talking months.

Arleen wrote: »

Because sending letters would cost more than it's worth it. He is already doing it to prove a point and likely thinks you want to stiff him. The only thing to do now is waiting for court paperwork, respond that you admit the liability and pay it, that's it.

But he still has to follow procedure, to not do so could invalidate the claim. The change in the law was to cut down on bogus claims where due diligence wasn't done to try and resolve the dispute before hand. We also don't know whether he is just asking for the balance plus fee.

The OP paid for the first order, cancelled the second one and expected a refund. There is the question of why the OP didn't check to see if he had got the £8 refund. Was it a case of not checking for refunds and assuming they are paid back or getting £23 instead and thinking it as a bonus.

Arleen

nic_c wrote: »

Has he not? Have you contacted him to ask why not. Part of the pre action protocol is that the dispute has to try to be resolved by letter first. Also what timescale are we talking when you said you were offline, you said weeks - is that a couple of weeks or are we talking months.


But he still has to follow procedure, to not do so could invalidate the claim. The change in the law was to cut down on bogus claims where due diligence wasn't done to try and resolve the dispute before hand. We also don't know whether he is just asking for the balance plus fee.

The OP paid for the first order, cancelled the second one and expected a refund. There is the question of why the OP didn't check to see if he had got the £8 refund. Was it a case of not checking for refunds and assuming they are paid back or getting £23 instead and thinking it as a bonus.

You are likely confusing the pre action protocol for claims made by businesses who make debt claims, which would be correct for them. But to make a money claim against another individual doesn't have such requirements, just that you tried to resolve it. And the mountain of ebay messages will be plenty for that.