Help Needed Customer Threatening to take us to Court

[Esk247]

All this over some tables and chairs? that you've replaced..twice

I'd of told them to go whistle, what a load of nonsense and waste of time.

Get an article in the local paper, 'businessman taken to court over chair' .. great headline.

 

[deniser]

What an amazing story. Go to the hearing and don't worry about it. It is very unlikely that this awful woman will turn up and you'll win the case.

 

[deltauk]

Guys,

This gives a lot of strength, I have paid £75 hearing fee as well.

I hope all goes fine from now.

Things are so hard for small businesses and you dont need a customer like this !!!

Regards
D

 

[deltauk]

Dear Clare,

I am not sure if you remember, you very kindly helped me with the counter claim draft letter. Now i have to only worry about the my claim. I have paid £75 hearing fee and working on the proof to send to court.

Am i right to send:

1) A defence letter
2) witness letter (confirming the customer agreed to gave my table back to me?
3) Proof of payment sent

Have a I missed anything?

Many Thanks
D

Hi DeltaUK

Are you the Claimant in this matter?

If so that is why the hearing fee is payable. You can pay it by cheque made payable to 'HMCS' or some of the courts accept debit cards but if you cannot get through by phone probably not an option!

The hearing is normally at the Defendant's local county court. You would have received an allocation questionnaire and that would have been the time to specify a particular court. If it is really inconvenient then you could write to the court and ask them to change but you'll need a good reason why you cannot travel and why the Defendant should travel to you.

You can take a friend to the hearing and if you are uncomfortable speaking they can ask for permission to speak for you and act as your McKenzie's friend. If you are a witness you will still have to answer any questions the judge has.

You should take copy documents to the hearing for example proof of the money you are owed, evidence of problems with the works etc (I've not read through all the posts) This should be sent to the otherside and court 14 days before the hearing together with a witness statement. It will normally tell you to do this on the court order.

Good luck!

Clare

 

[Spongebob]

When it's all over, go and buy yourself a can of builders' expanding foam.

Then go round to this woman's house under cover of darkness and squirt a big dollop up the exhaust pipe of her car.

It won't achieve anything except give you a warm glow knowing that she will lose a day's work trying to get her car started!

She won't suspect you - people like this have more enemies than they can count.

 

[deltauk]

Hi Everyone,

I just wanted to let you know that my court hearding for this case is this Thursday, I have never been to court before and not really sure what to expect.

More importantly i am going to take all the paper work etc, pls let me know if i have missed anything?

Thanks
D

 

[Esk247]

This is really drawn out and pointless. Are the courts even bothering with this nonsense over tables and chairs? i would have thought it was something so minor that it wouldn't even register on the radar.

I think you'll be in and out in a jiffy, they won't want to piddle around with this nonsense type of claim, they've got bigger fish to fry...people who haven't paid the TV license or Council tax or summink.

 

[paulears]

Don't be worried - the courts do not like being arbiters for unreasonable people. When the official looks at the paperwork you have and the correspondence - they'll see that you'd been more than reasonable and I have no doubts that if you stick to your guns, remain factual and don't lose your temper, then you will win. Let's be honest here - this woman has been threatening all sorts and if she works for a legal firm, they will have advised her already - and the advice was probably "you're on your own". If they really thought there was a case, then you'd have been dealing with the solicitors not the customer. If their own boss didn't take it on, you have few worries.

County Court is nowhere near the formality of Crown Court - create a good impression, have everything documented, and a proper timeline of the entire thing - they like this, when you can single out dates and times - and love emails.

Take it easy, and if you get stuck on what to do or say - ask the officials for their advice - they will gladly guide you through the process.

 

[Keefy]

Go and get her!, you have nothing to fear. You have done nothing wrong and If you just state the facts the court will see the same.
You sound like a good honest business person and that's what the court will all so see.
Just relax, have all your paper work in order. If she does turn up, and rambles and brings in unrelated nonsense, she will look completely unreasonable and stupid.
Just stay calm. It will be over in 5 minutes, you can then walk out knowing you have not only been honourable, but proved so in the court. Then have a treat(drink) and put it down as a life experience and move on.

 

[deltauk]

Guys,

Hand on my heart, I am so thankfull to all of you. You are right I will go there with all the documents and make sure i follow everyone's advice. At the end of day i am out of pocket and minus my goods. All i want is my table back so i can then make sure i have done justice to my business !!!

I will keep you posted guys, wish me luck

Regards
Delta

 

[paulears]

Although I'm sure this is just coincidence, I bought an Oak dining room table just over a year ago. In March while watching TV there was a loud BANG and the top panel of the table had split. They gave me another, and just a few months ago, the same thing happened. It always has a table cloth on it, so to be honest, I didn't bother the shop again. A good friend of mine who is a 'proper' craftsman/carpenter/antique restorer was here a few weeks ago, and I mentioned it to him. The design has a frame around the top, with the main top 'inlaid' into the frame via routed edges and a routed slot in the frame. The problem was they glued the panel in, and the grain in the panel ran at right angles to the grain in the surrounding frame. As such, as the timber swelled and shrank as the room temp and humidity changed, the glue stopped the panel sliding in the groove, and eventually it simply split. A problem in the factory, probably, he thought, hand assembly by somebody who didn't realise glueing all 4 sides would result in failure.

Best of luck with this - I think it will be fine.

 

[deltauk]

Thanks Guys,

I will keep you posted on what happens tom!

Regards
D

 

[arcon5]

op - court case was yesterday right?

Were all awaiting the update

 

[deltauk]

Hi Guys,

My hearfull thank you to all of you, I won the case, she didnt even turn up and sent a letter "through a friend" a month ago that she wont be coming to the court.

The judge saw all the evidence and awarder the cost of the table and costs along with my expenses.

I could have not done without you guys, it just shows there are good people like yourself on forum who supported me and there are people who want to hurt small businesses.

Its so so hard to run a business and then you get people who wants to hurt your badly!!!

Guys my sincere thank you to all of you!!

Regards
Delta

 

[Cobby]

Glad to hear it turned out well, congratulations.

 

[shugied]

Hi Guys,

My hearfull thank you to all of you, I won the case, she didnt even turn up and sent a letter "through a friend" a month ago that she wont be coming to the court.

The judge saw all the evidence and awarder the cost of the table and costs along with my expenses.

I could have not done without you guys, it just shows there are good people like yourself on forum who supported me and there are people who want to hurt small businesses.

Its so so hard to run a business and then you get people who wants to hurt your badly!!!

Guys my sincere thank you to all of you!!

Regards
Delta

Best of luck enforcing the judgement!

 

[Charlie B ACS]

Congrats on the result.

Go for the Jugular when enforcing the judgement!

 

[Principled Debt Chaser!]

Hi

I am enforcing my own judgment at the moment - and have done a lot of research.

Let me know if you need any advice.

All the best!

 

[paulears]

The best thing about courts are that you get disputes heard by a neutral - and all they have to do is apply common sense, from a distance.

They also do not like people wasting their time!

 

[deltauk]

Thanks Guys,

She has 14 days to pay, and i am very honest i know she wont be paying !!

I will then ask you guys to let me know what to do!

Regards
D

 

[deltauk]

Hi Everyone,

I am here again, asking for your kind advice. As mentioned earlier the customer has failed to pay or contact me.

Please can you let me know how can I enforce the judgement?

Regards
Delta

 

[KernowQueen]

here's your basic next step info from the MCOL site, i'm sure they'll be a reply soon from someone with actual experience. good luck

 

[steve23]

Ooops - sorry, as weight of forum opinion seems to be on your side (and I may be missing something) but.....

I'm not sure you were ever fully in the right on this one - and I tended to agree with Saxondale that you should had let it go.

The customer wanted £329.99 and that would have been it - I think that would have been a lot easier rather than all the stress you have gone through.

And are you not just reclaiming the damages for the tables from the manufacturer ?

To see it from the customers point of view for a moment...

They brought a product - it developed a fault. You replaced it.

This replacement then develops the same fault and you replace that.

This third replacement then develops the same fault !

Who in there right mind is going to want anything other than to get shot of this product and go elsewhere - hence asking for a full refund.

And as the chairs were no doubt brought to match the table, I cant blame them for wanting a refund on them as well.

So again, as far as i see it - a simple £329.99 would have done the trick.

As said, maybe Im missing something.

All the best

Steve

 

[KernowQueen]

As said, maybe Im missing something.
All the best
Steve

just to recap...

Hi Guys,

My hearfull thank you to all of you, I won the case, she didnt even turn up and sent a letter "through a friend" a month ago that she wont be coming to the court.

The judge saw all the evidence and awarder the cost of the table and costs along with my expenses.

I could have not done without you guys, it just shows there are good people like yourself on forum who supported me and there are people who want to hurt small businesses.

Its so so hard to run a business and then you get people who wants to hurt your badly!!!

Guys my sincere thank you to all of you!!

Regards
Delta

 

[steve23]

Now I really am missing something :|

I didn't understand the last reply.

At a guess (and sorry If I am guessing wrong) the point being made is that this is done and dusted and they won.

But the fact that the OP won in the end does not detract from my post that it was 1) not worth it and 2) the customer may not have been so wrong.

And then following on from that - just winning in court and getting the money are two different things - as many posts on this forum will testify.

This might all go nice and smooth, be the start of another round of headaches, or end up with nothing at all happening.

Either way, I'm still not convinced this was the right way to go about it all.

All the best

Steve

 

[Charlie B ACS]

Ooops - sorry, as weight of forum opinion seems to be on your side (and I may be missing something) but.....

I'm not sure you were ever fully in the right on this one - and I tended to agree with Saxondale that you should had let it go.

The customer wanted £329.99 and that would have been it - I think that would have been a lot easier rather than all the stress you have gone through.

And are you not just reclaiming the damages for the tables from the manufacturer ?

To see it from the customers point of view for a moment...

They brought a product - it developed a fault. You replaced it.

This replacement then develops the same fault and you replace that.

This third replacement then develops the same fault !

Who in there right mind is going to want anything other than to get shot of this product and go elsewhere - hence asking for a full refund.

And as the chairs were no doubt brought to match the table, I cant blame them for wanting a refund on them as well.

So again, as far as i see it - a simple £329.99 would have done the trick.

As said, maybe Im missing something.

All the best

Steve

Steve,

Obviously you are missing something, the OP made a refund to the customer, but requested the table back, which the customer refused & claimed for further costs.

I am shocked to my guts that i feel sick, not only she got the table, a refund £624.99, now wants me to pay another £1k for the charges she mentioned.

If you read the whole of the thread you would see the OP has been reasonable & refunded & his customer has taken the pi$$.

Perhaps you should read the whole thread rather than chastise the OP for not doing the right thing!

The judgement is for the costs of the table that the customer has in her possesion!

 

[steve23]

Oh yes, read every post - in fact I expected someone else to raise the (what I thought was obvious) issue about the product being faulty 3 times.

Plus there is a post that mentions how their wooden table also split - so it seems it can happen.

I would agree that the customer was very difficult - to say the least, but I wonder how others would react if a thing failed 3 times !

I still think it would have been easier to let this be - maybe paying out the £300 odd pound that was requested.

But that said - maybe I'm too soft - when I ran my own car repair business my Unit Manager used to send me for a walk if a difficult customer came in as I always tended to side with them and not the business !

Probably why there are not millions in my bank account

All the best

Steve

 

[Charlie B ACS]

Oh yes, read every post - in fact I expected someone else to raise the (what I thought was obvious) issue about the product being faulty 3 times.

Plus there is a post that mentions how their wooden table also split - so it seems it can happen.

I would agree that the customer was very difficult - to say the least, but I wonder how others would react if a thing failed 3 times !

I still think it would have been easier to let this be - maybe paying out the £300 odd pound that was requested.

But that said - maybe I'm too soft - when I ran my own car repair business my Unit Manager used to send me for a walk if a difficult customer came in as I always tended to side with them and not the business !

Probably why there are not millions in my bank account

All the best

Steve

He did pay her the money!!!!!!!!!!!! Or are you chosing to ignore the facts in the posts you have "read"

 

[steve23]

And yes, I would agree that the whole thing seemed to spiral upwards in cost, and the customer got worse and worse.

But did she not at first ask for £329.99 to cover her costs (and getting the table repaired) and she would leave it at that ?

I just thought it would have been better to pay that and leave it there.

But forum opinion seems to be against me - so I should accept that im seeing this wrong.

The OP seems to have won in the end so far anyway.

Oh - and im certainly not trying to chastise anyone !

All the best

Steve

 

[steve23]

Oh hang on - i missed the bit about them paying the customer the money - let me go back and double check - if thats the case, ignore me

All the best

Steve

 

[steve23]

Yes - I assume we are talking about the offer to give the customer £624.99 and take the table back ?

The point (and money) that im talkng about is when all this started and the customer asked for £329.99 but they would keep the table.

My thoughts were just that this issue should have been sorted at that point.

Agreed, following this the OP makes a lot of good offers and trys to resolve this - they obviously run a very decent business - but again, I cant see why the issue was not sorted at the first contact.

But alls well that ends well I guess

All the best

Steve

 

[steve23]

I think you need to get more shut eye at night Steve

Now that's something I will agree with !

 

[deltauk]

Hi Steve,

Thanks for replying, I will explain why I did'nt pay £325 to close the matter earlier.

All she wanted to do was use the filler /wax/stain to resolve the issue. I offered to send Homeserve (company who does odd jobs of fixing stuff) and they quoted me £60 to sort this out.

She expected to pay her £250 for two hours it will take her to sort the issue and rest the cost of buying wax/filler etc.

This seems very very unfair as i offered to replace the table or offer her a refund provided she gives me a table back.

I wont get any money from supplier as i dont have a faulty product to send them back to...

In the end i am the one who has lost out, not the supplier or this customer.

You know i didnt wanted to go to court but decided to stand up for this customer and prove a point that i was not wrong in asking the table back.

At this moment, she has £625, table and this has cost me over £250. You do the maths and imagine how i feel !!!

Look forward to your comments

Regards
D

 

[campbeji]

Ah come on!!!! This story can't end here!

I've read 77 posts and followed the hero being beaten down and then rising up to claim victory and just before the 'and everybody lived happily ever after' the story stops. What happens next, does the hero slay the dragon, will the wicked witch have an underhand trick????

I'm not going to be able to sleep tonight now

 

[steve23]

Hi,

Ok - to leave the other issues to one side - as it seems I am missing something (a brain some would say !)....

What do you think has gone wrong with the tables then ?

Three tables and they all developed a crack.

You said you cant return them to the supplier as they are not faulty, but from the outside looking in (I dont know anything about wood tables - other than they are made of wood - and used as 'tables' ) - there seems to be something wrong here.

Did an earlier post that also mentioned an issue they had with a table not say something about how the grain of the wood was wrong or something - i.e it had a fault.

Mind you - I do appreciate - that getting the manufacturers to carry the can is a tad difficult at times !

All the best

Steve

 

[deltauk]

Guys,

Thanks for all your help so far, now the deadline of 4th of Dec has passed and the customer has not send any money or any correspondence. I am not sure which way to go forward.

I can't afford to spend any more money on this as I am now very unsure if I will see any return on this.

Any help will be really appreciated.

Regards
Delta

 

[Parthelan]

Guys,

Thanks for all your help so far, now the deadline of 4th of Dec has passed and the customer has not send any money or any correspondence. I am not sure which way to go forward.

I can't afford to spend any more money on this as I am now very unsure if I will see any return on this.

Any help will be really appreciated.

Regards
Delta

Many years ago, in a land far far away, when I were a lad, I had a library card.

I borrowed a book, and forgot to return it. The fines for kids was nothing like the fines for adults. The maximum they could charge was an old penny, regardless of length of time overdue. Turns out I couldnt find the book, but every week they sent me a postcard, with a shilling stamp on it, saying I owed them a penny. This went on for weeks and weeks.

It didnt seem to occur to them that they we spending 12 old pennys and the cost of the card to tell me I owed them a penny, and they did it enough times to have spent more than the cost of the book in the first place.

You've won your case. She has a court judgement against her, which will do wonders for her credit ratings and reputation.

You are now entering the realms of spending months if not years and thousands of pounds to get back a table and a few hundred quid.

While it's gauling to let bullies like her walk away, you gain nothing by cutting your nose off to spite your face.

You won. In court, in principle and morally. Draw a line now and move on and don't let her do any more damage to your health or your business.

 

[E Storey]

If I bought a table and it split within 1 year (as in it is faulty and not fit for purpose) I would expect the supplier to replace it.

If that replacement then also broke, I would begin to suspect the goods were substandard.

If a third broke after just a couple of months, I would lose all faith in your products and would want a full refund.

I actually don't think the customer is begin unreasonable here, you have a persistent fault with your goods. Give her the refund and sort out your issues with the manufacturer.

 

[arcon5]

A refund was given. Then she refused to let him collect the table.

Thats hardly the customer being reasonable?

 

[Cobby]

If I bought a table and it split within 1 year (as in it is faulty and not fit for purpose) I would expect the supplier to replace it.

If that replacement then also broke, I would begin to suspect the goods were substandard.

If a third broke after just a couple of months, I would lose all faith in your products and would want a full refund.

I actually don't think the customer is begin unreasonable here, you have a persistent fault with your goods. Give her the refund and sort out your issues with the manufacturer.

Please read the thread properly before wading in. Thanks.