Small Claims Court and ebay/Paypal

Muahahaha

Just wondering has anyone on the forum here every ended up taking ebay or paypal to the small claims court? I bought a Xiaomi phone from China back last June or so and it turned out to be fake. The seller had a 99% rating so I thought it would be legit but no such luck. Agreed a refund with him and posted it back by registered post. It ended up in China but he never sent a refund. Emailed him several times but no respone, now ebay refused to deal with it and said contact Paypal, they're refusing to deal with it because of the age of transaction.

Cost of the phone was about €150. I don't really care what their T&Cs say about time limits, I want my money back. Seller is still active on ebay despite me telling them he is selling fake goods.

So I figure a small claims court application will only cost me €25. If they want to defend it my guess is sending an in solicitor out to defend the case will cost them around €300 so it makes more financial sense to refund me than fight it. What do people think, anyone ever tried this? Also who would you go after, ebay or Paypal?

OU812

They probably have rooms full of solicitors just waiting to be sent out.

Probably worth trying for the sake of €25. Keep us updated as to how you get on.

drunkmonkey

All fine and dandy talking a small claim but they could just ignore your claim, worst could happen then is you get a judgement against them, the case would want to be rock solid before you get a sherrif to rock up to PayPal/EBay to take €150 worth of office furniture.
eBay/PayPal have t's and c's unless you followed them especially about the returns process/refund you haven't much hope to getting anything.
Not sure what the time limit on a charge back is if you used a credit card but it could be something to look at if you've exhausted PayPal/eBay customer complaints procedure. Forget about having a PayPal account after pulling that stunt thought.

JustAThought

Keep your e25 - well out of the jurisdiction & small court judgements wont have any affect in China; you're jyst throwing away more money .

Why didnt you report him to ebay? They escalate if the goods are fake, - which you say they were. He should be barred so & not allowed to continue on the site selling. If you think the vendor strung you along to go over the escalation deadline then protest this too.

With regards paypal get back onto them - say you were strung along so long & it is fraud & you want it escallated to a manager & investigated.

topmanamillion

I'd agree with JustAThought it's too complex for the SCC.
You say the seller had a 99% rating?that's a pretty low rating. I'd consider buying anything from someone with a 99.7% or lower rating a gamble. You have to take into account how easy it is for someone to create fake accounts and give themselves positive reviews. I'd also by wary of buying outside of Ireland and Britain. Lastly if the deals to good to be true it probably is.

Muahahaha

OU812 wrote: »

They probably have rooms full of solicitors just waiting to be sent out.

Probably worth trying for the sake of €25. Keep us updated as to how you get on.

Yeah I figure they have inhouse solicitors. But I also figure bus/car from Blanch to City Centre-2 hours waiting for case to be called and then bus/car back to Blach is going to cost them half a day of solicitors time all for the sake of a 15 minute hearing. I'm counting on it not being worth their while financially.

drunkmonkey wrote: »

All fine and dandy talking a small claim but they could just ignore your claim, worst could happen then is you get a judgement against them.

A judgement would be fine and enforcing it shouldn't be a problem. I might do it down the District Court instead of the SCC as that is also a €25 stamping fee and if there's a judgement and they don't pay up then you go back to the judge and he will find them in contempt of court. But what I'm hoping happens is they see the court application and hearing date and just decide to pay me my €150 rather than waste their time and resources on a nothing case that would cost them a good bit more to defend than the refund. They can still get that €150 back off the Chinese seller who needs Paypal to keep trading on ebay, they're just being pedantic about sorting it out imo. As I said I couldn't care less about their t&c's, they are not the law at the end of the day.

I've put them on 7 days legal notice as my mate (a solicitor) advised. Its their move now, will update in due course

Muahahaha

JustAThought wrote: »

Keep your e25 - well out of the jurisdiction & small court judgements wont have any affect in China; you're jyst throwing away more money .

Why didnt you report him to ebay? They escalate if the goods are fake, - which you say they were. He should be barred so & not allowed to continue on the site selling. If you think the vendor strung you along to go over the escalation deadline then protest this too.

With regards paypal get back onto them - say you were strung along so long & it is fraud & you want it escallated to a manager & investigated.

I don't intend chasing the seller, sure ebay and Paypal won't even let me email him anymore cause the transaction is more than 90 days old. ebay know I'm claiming the phone was fake (and official Xiaomi website said as much when I entered the IMEI into it) and I have proof of that.


So I'm just trying to get Paypal to act in good faith and sort this out instead of their usual 'not our fault' line that they try to spin on buyers again and again. I think the facts of the case favour me and apart from that I don't think it is worth Paypals while sending a solicitor out on a 4 hour round trip to defend it when they could just take the money back from the Chinese seller in less than a minute.

daRobot

Fair play to you. You've got to give it a bash, and no harm trying.

Looking forward to your updates.

VincePP

Muahahaha wrote: »

J I don't really care what their T&Cs say about time limits, I want my money back.

You may not care, but a court will care and as you have agreed to the terms and conditions (whether you bothered to read them or not) there is absolutley not a chance in hell that any court will even give your case a look, let alone allow it proceed.

Cheap electronics from China will more than likely mean fake. Buy local and have a rock solid guarantee. It may cost extra, but you don't get scammed.

Dodge

Muahahaha wrote: »

I don't really care what their T&Cs say about time limits

I wouldn't be bringing this up in court

Polo_Mint

Just a simple question:

Did you just post your only evidence back to the seller? :pac:

nava

Polo_Mint wrote: »

Just a simple question:

Did you just post your only evidence back to the seller? :pac:

Seller and ebay/Paypal will ask you to post the item back to get a refund, also must be track to show it was deliver.

Polo_Mint

nava wrote: »

Seller and ebay/Paypal will ask you to post the item back to get a refund, also must be track to show it was deliver.

Incorrect

Counterfeit items

If a buyer suspects that an item is counterfeit, and there are strong indicators that the item is counterfeit, we don't require the buyer to return the item to the seller. The buyer agrees to cooperate with us to ensure the proper disposal of the item. In such instances, we refund the buyer for the full cost of the item and original shipping, and the seller reimburses us for the refund. The buyer may not sell the item on eBay or elsewhere.

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/money-back-guarantee.html

nava

Polo_Mint wrote: »

Incorrect

Counterfeit items

If a buyer suspects that an item is counterfeit, and there are strong indicators that the item is counterfeit, we don't require the buyer to return the item to the seller. The buyer agrees to cooperate with us to ensure the proper disposal of the item. In such instances, we refund the buyer for the full cost of the item and original shipping, and the seller reimburses us for the refund. The buyer may not sell the item on eBay or elsewhere.

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/money-back-guarantee.html

Ok, I didn't know about that for counterfeit items.

I assume as seller agreed to refund is the reason why buyer posted back.

Polo_Mint

nava wrote: »

Ok, I didn't know about that for counterfeit items.

I assume as seller agreed to refund is the reason why buyer posted back.

I know Hindsight is always good

The issue now for the OP is that he has posted it back, And if he is to bring anyone to Court. He no longer has the evidence.

Muahahaha

VincePP wrote: »

You may not care, but a court will care and as you have agreed to the terms and conditions (whether you bothered to read them or not) there is absolutley not a chance in hell that any court will even give your case a look, let alone allow it proceed.

that is completely not true, only last October my mate who is a solicitor successfully sued a tattoo artist on behalf of a client who got a tattoo done which was a total cock up and now has to be removed. The defence of the tattoo artist was that the customer signed their T&Cs which stated that they are not in any way responsible for how the tattoo turns out. Once the judge saw the tattoo on your mans arm he was having none of their excuses and told them to take responsibility for their actions.

T&Cs might be part of a contract but other laws can sometimes supercede them, consumer rights being a case in point.

In any case I'm hoping this case doesn't even get to court, thats why I'm taking it- its the threat of court that I hope will get me my refund and if all I have to lose is €25 with potentially €150 to gain then why not? No point in lying down like a sheep, thats what Paypal want you to do.

A Dub in Glasgo

ebay are the platform where the seller is selling
paypal are the payment processing company

Did you open a dispute at the time on ebay?

Mick Murdock

VincePP wrote: »

Cheap electronics from China will more than likely mean fake. Buy local and have a rock solid guarantee. It may cost extra, but you don't get scammed.

It would apply in this case if it was an Apple of Samsung device but Xiaomi are China's largest smartphone company and there's no reason why a €150 phone would be counterfeit.

Sadly with Ebay and Paypal you have to open a dispute with them to guarantee a refund. They side with the buyer 99% of the time.

When did you buy and return the phone? I think you have 90 days with Paypal now. It can also take a long time for an item to reach China unless you are sure it's been delivered?

Muahahaha

Yes I did open a dispute on ebay at the time and the seller agreed a refund. But now its outside Paypals 90 day policy because of both the time the postage back to China took and because when the phone arrived in the post office over there the buyer didn't pick it up. After 8 weeks of nothing happening I sent him the tracking info to show him it was in his post office. Im still not sure if he ever picked it up but it certainly has not bounced back to me so I assume he has.

Mick Murdock

If they agreed a refund surely PayPal would enforce this?

Did you close the case for some reason?