Small Claims Court against an ebay retailer - Mediation didn't work

fine27

Hi All
I need some advise on a small claims court case. I will keep it very brief

Bought a wheel bearing from ebay and 6 months later, bearing started to make noise. Took it to garage and it was diagnosed as a faulty wheel bearing which was replaced.

On the ad, it said that the wheel bearing comes with 2 years warranty. To claim, I have to provide a letter from the garage stating how it was diagnosed.

Provided this info to the ebay seller and they rejected the claim 2 weeks after saying not enough information on the letter.

I sent a reply back saying the ad stated in needs to be from a VAT registered garage, business letter head and thirdly how it was diagnosed. All 3 points are covered and the seller ignored my message. I chased again week and a half later and still no reply.

I paid court fee £35 to process the claim in small claims court. Cost of the part £39.

Today mediation failed as the seller only wanted to refund £20 in total.

A few points which are important to mention - 1. Seller said on the ad, no refunds and replacement only. I would have been happy with the replacement before court case as I could have sold it and recoup some of the money now I'm asking for refund of course.

It has gone to court stage now, I wanted to ask your opinion as there is a further fee of £25 before I go down this route.

Has anyone else been through similar process?

Thanks 

Mildly_Miffed

You've already spent £35 on a claim for a £39 part - and you've turned down a £20 refund via mediation.
You now want to put another £25 into this.
That'll mean you've spent £60 to chase £19.

How much time have you put in? Do you value your time at all?

At what point will you decide to cut your losses?

caprikid1

Whilst the bearing failed how can you prove it was fitted correctly ? Easy enough for a bearing to fail if fitted incorrectly.

Mutton_Geoff

Choose your battles, life is too short and no matter how right you might feel you are, as they say, there are two sides to every story and as many divorcees will attest to, fighting your corner can be very expensive and only the lawyers win.

With the number of fakes and copies on Ebay, it is not a place I would buy important car parts from.

ThorOdinson

When you say they offered to pay £20 in total, you mean they don't want to pay the court fee either?

If so, and if you don't mind spending the time, I'd go for it. You have a decent case and you should get all court fees and things like time off work paid too.

There is a very good chance that they will just offer to pay up before going to court. It will be your local court so likely a pain for them to attend.

It's up to you but you have a decent chance of prevailing.