Trader changes company name to avoid warrantee.

HerefordSteve

Some months ago I bought, through eBay, a car battery that became defective after two months. Although I managed to contact the seller he avoided my plea to refund or replace. I had two independent technicians provide proof that the battery was defective.  Eventually I was asked to send the battery back, at my expense, but I have heard nothing since. I started a Small Claims Court case against the provider but he has claimed no knowledge of my purchase. It seems that he has changed his business/ trading name - -to avoid honouring the warrantee?? Checking at Companies House this seems to be quite a frequent event for this trader. 
How should I proceed??

Olinda99

your claim is not against the new company but against the old company - they are separately legal entities 

if the old company has been closed down then you have no recourse

the reply assumes of course tha he was operating through a limited company. if he was just operating under just a trading name then he is personally responsible no matter what the trading name is so you can go after him. you file your small claims documents under his name not the name he was trading under

challengedavid

did you happen to buy it on a credit card and over £100 if so might be worth claiming with them?

RFW

I'd check with Trading Standards. You should probably have done that prior to going  to the Small Claims.
There's a difference between changing a trading name and changing a company.
So if I set up Dodgy Car Batteries Ltd and stop trading and then start Really Dodgy Car Batteries Ltd then you won't be able to sue one if you buy from the other.
If the company is Joe Bloggs Ltd t/as Whatever then changes to Joe Bloggs Ltd t/as Something Else, then you can sue. Given you say you've checked Companies House then I assume it's the former and they just keep opening new companies and liquidating the old ones.
There's a possibility that an offence is being committed and Trading Standards would have a look at that for you and could possibly prosecute the person. It's certainly an area they'd look at.

RFW

challengedavid said:

did you happen to buy it on a credit card and over £100 if so might be worth claiming with them?

That's certainly worth a look.
I'd also give Ebay a try. They shouldn't have asked you to return a faulty item at your own expense. It sounds like you're out of time to go through the correct way with them but try contacting them via Twitter to speed up a complaint process.
Also worth checking if the seller still uses the same Ebay account, if they do that could give you a bit more leverage to get an ex gratia refund from Ebay.

Exodi

This is called Phoenixing and it's not terribly uncommon:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/phoenix-companies-and-the-role-of-the-insolvency-service/phoenix-companies-and-the-role-of-the-insolvency-service

Generally bodies do not intervene in this practice, as otherwise holding all directors of new companies personally liable for debts deters new businesses This is included in this article, and specifically about the OP's circumstances here.

4. What we cannot investigate

We cannot use our powers to investigate or resolve individual commercial disputes between companies and their employees, customers, creditors or shareholders. For example, where the complaint is about:

• not paying an individual creditor (such as a customer or supplier)

Of course I appreciate it does feel in bad faith when businesses repeatedly phoenix, e.g: J Smith Windows, John S Windows, J S Windows, Smith Windows. There's a show called 'Can't Pay Take It Away' where you see the enforcement agents regularly frustrated as they are informed the debtor 'AB Cars Limited' apparently no longer exists but a totally unrelated business, called 'A to B Cars Limited' is in it's place.

DullGreyGuy

HerefordSteve said:

Some months ago I bought, through eBay, a car battery that became defective after two months. Although I managed to contact the seller he avoided my plea to refund or replace. I had two independent technicians provide proof that the battery was defective.  Eventually I was asked to send the battery back, at my expense, but I have heard nothing since. I started a Small Claims Court case against the provider but he has claimed no knowledge of my purchase. It seems that he has changed his business/ trading name - -to avoid honouring the warrantee?? Checking at Companies House this seems to be quite a frequent event for this trader. 
How should I proceed??

You need to definitively find out which legal entity you bought from, that is the legal entity you need to pursue. Trading names are an irrelevance and just changing a company name doesn't change the legal entity. 

As others have already pointed out there are phoenix companies but to close a company is not an activity that can happen in weeks