Wife scammed taking someone to court

Henrique14

DullGreyGuy said:

Henrique14 said:

Apologies if in the wrong section (admin please move if in wrong forum) but hoping someone can help. 

My wife (very stupidly) found a Facebook page selling disocunted clothing and footwear items. 

The seller had their own page with over 800 likes, they are also a registered business as they had their own actual independent store not too far from us.

My wife purchased 3 items from this 'business' via Facebook messenger and sent the money via bank transfer for £80. This was on September 27th. We heard nothing for a couple of weeks so messaged the seller again to get an update, ignored. 

We did a bit of research to find out a few other people had also been scammed by this lady via Facebook and not received their goods. 

We finally got a response on October 11th, with the lady claiming she'd check on it for us, she sent us a tracking number from royal mail that said the label had been generated on October 11th. But to me the tracking just shows the label has been created nothing has been received by royal mail. 

Fast forward to today and still no update in tracking and she's still refusing to refund saying it's out of her hands and is still in transit. 

We have already begun the early stages of getting a crime reference number and reported to the police, but my main question is are we able to go down the small claims court route? 

Would we have a leg to stand on if my wife paid by bank transfer? We have all the screenshots of the messages of the lady promising us a refund if no update in tracking, but she's now saying it must have been lost by royal mail and she's not liable. 

It's only £80, we can do without the money, but it's the principle for me of someone scamming my wife and that lady getting away with it. 

My wife already feels terrible and knows she made a mistake sending money via bank transfer. 

What's the process of a small claims court route? Is it not worth it for just £80 and should we accept it and move on? 

When you made the bank transfer it presumably did the normal name matching? Did it match? Or did it not match and you proceeded anyway?

If it did match was it a personal name or a business name? If it was a business name did it have a Ltd or Limited suffix at the end or not?


Ultimately anyone can take anyone to court, it's how our system works. One of the challenges you may have is ensuring you take the right entity to court, was your contract with the woman or a company? Is the person actually who they claimed to be or is the owner of the company a victim of identity theft? 

Surprised you haven't already been to the shop.

It could take many hours to get your £80 back even if it is successful and most cases are not successful (over 95% of cases get a judgement in default because the third party never responds, a very small percentage ever actually get any money). If its unsuccessful you also loose the court fees. Some will do it anyway on principle, or for the experience, others will decide to cut their losses and just leave appropriate feedback (without using inflammatory words like "fraud")

Yes everything matched. I can't find the company on companies house however the shop does have an address and the lady seems to have been there in the past and she's been spotted walking around the local area where her shop is/she lives. 

The money was sent to a personal bank account in her name not a business one. 

Her business page on Facebook literally posted a few hours ago selling Halloween stock but she's put another post up a day before saying she's currently trading from home due to illness so won't be in the shop. 

But There are a few other people commenting on her latest post saying can she respond or can they come to the shop to collect their stuff, so I'm guessing they are having the same issues as us.

She did message my wife yesterday saying she would refund us after I threatened with police action, but she still hasn't. I'm wondering if I should suggest to her we will take her to court if she doesn't pay up....

born_again

Henrique14 said:

She did message my wife yesterday saying she would refund us after I threatened with police action, but she still hasn't. I'm wondering if I should suggest to her we will take her to court if she doesn't pay up....

Police won't do anything it a civil case.