Owed money for goods not delivered

tony4207

Help!

Myself and several others have been scammed by someone on eBay. Having paid up over £500 for a LCD TV (all of us bought the same TV from the same person), we were then given one excuse after another for why the TV could not be delivered. To ease our pains we were offered a full refund AND the TV. Sounded like an offer too good to be true.

It was.

Months later none of us have received our TV's and are facing a real fighting challenge to get our money back. Some have taken this to HMCS Online and raised a court claim, including me. Not too sure how long this will drag out and whether or not I'll actuall get my money back.

Any help with this would be great.

My specific question here, and sorry to put two posts in one, is that I've been sent two cheques to cover my costs and both have bounced - REFER TO DRAWER. I think I read somewhere that in this person writing the cheques that they have entered into a contract with me and so should pay up. What are the implications for them if they do not? Are they commiting some sort of fraud by not honouring this contract (cheques)?

I feel like I should be taking out my old baseball bat, but something else tells me not too.

If the court claim goes to judgement, can I call in the court bailiffs? Can I employ a private bailiff, or can I just go round there and claim what is owed to me by seizing their goods myself (save me some money)?

Would appreciate any advice.

Many thanks,
Tony4207

ArmitageShanks

Do you have address and names??

frivolous_fay

The big question... how did you pay?

tony4207

Yes I have names and addresses. Has taken a lot for me not to go round and knock the door down....er, I mean, knock on their door.

In terms of payments, this was done by Paypal for some, cheques/direct desposits for others.

Due to being offered incentives, such as full refund & free TV, we all found ourselves outside Paypal protection (seems Paypal's deadlines differ from eBay), so we have no go-back on them. I did try, but Paypal were insistent that they would/could do nothing.

robnye

your paypal payment, was it funded via credit card... if so raise it with your credit card company.....

syanide

why didnt you do a paypal claimback before the 45 days? when it gets beyond 3/4 weeks its obviously not going to arrive

soolin

syanide wrote: »

why didnt you do a paypal claimback before the 45 days? when it gets beyond 3/4 weeks its obviously not going to arrive

I hate to say it but the scammer here actually is doing two different scams, one of which relies on peoples greed.

The first scam is obvious, selling something you don't have, but the second scam..getting people to hang on while the scammer gets away scot free is a different matter. The bait was the free TV and money back, most people would have seen that as an obvious stall, but if enough people fall for it the scammer basically gets away with cleared funds.

It is unfortunate that people will stillf all for these scams, the difficulty here is how to guarantee they get money back, and I don't think there is any guarantee that will happen. I am interested in the fact that the buyers have a confirmed address, I would be mor einterested though to know if those premises have now been vacated or were just a drop address. If the seller can be traced to a real address then small claims may be able to help, and i note that the OP has started this. However that still doesn't get money back as you would need a seperate action to recover funds, and that is where it gets difficult.

I would go to the police here as well as this was a sting set up and there may be others involved.

tony4207

soolin,

Thanks for the reply. I went to the police before raising this with the small claims court. They were most unhelpful. They basically told me that I had to deal with this via the court as it was a civil matter.

Surely this is just them being lazy. Do you know if there is anything I could do to get the police to take this more seriously than they have? Other than just turning up at the local police station and ranting on at how poorly they have treated this (serious) matter.

Thanks,
Tony4207

Premier_2

tony4207 wrote: »

soolin,

Thanks for the reply. I went to the police before raising this with the small claims court. They were most unhelpful. They basically told me that I had to deal with this via the court as it was a civil matter.

Surely this is just them being lazy. Do you know if there is anything I could do to get the police to take this more seriously than they have? Other than just turning up at the local police station and ranting on at how poorly they have treated this (serious) matter.

Thanks,
Tony4207

The police won't act because it's not a matter for them; it's a civil matter as they have informed you.

Hint: "...I read somewhere that in this person writing the cheques that they have entered into a contract with me and so should pay up..."

Yes, you can take the matter to court. Based on what you've said, you'll probably win the judgement and if necessary can employ bailiffs to enforce that judgement.
The bottom line is, if the scammer has any money, you'll probably get yours back. If the scammer doesn't have any money (or more likely has squirreled it away), you won't get your money back.

The first investigation you need to do is decide whether you believe the scammer has any money, or revenue stream. (e.g. are they working somewhere). If so, start legal proceedings. If not, put it down to experience (and learn not to be greedy in future).

tony4207

Is there anything that would stop me from visiting this person and seizing goods to the value of what he owes me?

This is probably more the job of a bailiff, but in the interest of saving money, can I do it myself without getting arrested? After all, I'm just settling the debt he owes me, right?