Not your usual Ebay story...

[juneflight]

What is the name of your state? CA

Okay, I've read most of the forum posts regarding botched EBay sales. I have a couple questions and request for opinion that I would appreciate your time reading. Thanks!

First, brief story: I sold ~$1k item to person in another state. Buyer claimed arrived "broken." Buyer proceeded to initiate chargeback, intimidate, etc. I asked for patience while insurance claim was being processed. Buyer escalated emails, demands, etc. Fedex responded some time later "will not insure, package insufficiently packed." Huh, that's weird! I tracked down the agent in buyer's town who said "recipient noted that shipper was likely shipping broken goods intentionally." Implication was that that prompted the insurance rejection.

Received broken item several days later. Unpacked and found... item works fine. ?!

Sent note to buyer indicating item was fine and would offer either to refund original price minus $300 for depreciation and to cover some of the cost of my nearly 50 hours I'd put into working shipping agent and ebay over on his behalf. Also offered alternative of shipping item back to him.

Approx. one year later I hear "I have filed suit in small claims."

Approx. one year later I hear "I have received default judgment against you" in buyer's county court.

Approx. one year later I'm getting emails and demands to pay up again. Notice from him of amount of judgment, interest rate, yadda yadda.


Questions are:

1. Don't I have to be served notice that I'm going to be in court?

2. What constitutes a legitimate "serving?" (His claim is that notice was mailed to my work address.)

3. Can I contest the judgment on these grounds?

4. Can I do #3 from here?

5. Do I need to anyway? Still feels like he's basically blowing smoke.

6. I read about domestication of his judgment. How much does this cost/what's the effort entailed? I can't seem to get a sense of this.

7. Will domestication even be permitted since it was a default judgment?

8. At that time, can I challenge it again on grounds that I never knew of the claim to begin with? Better to do that or something else?

Finally,

9. What would you do in this situation?

Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[seniorjudge]

1. Don't I have to be served notice that I'm going to be in court?

2. What constitutes a legitimate "serving?" (His claim is that notice was mailed to my work address.)

3. Can I contest the judgment on these grounds?

4. Can I do #3 from here?

5. Do I need to anyway? Still feels like he's basically blowing smoke.

6. I read about domestication of his judgment. How much does this cost/what's the effort entailed? I can't seem to get a sense of this.

7. Will domestication even be permitted since it was a default judgment?

8. At that time, can I challenge it again on grounds that I never knew of the claim to begin with? Better to do that or something else?

Finally,

9. What would you do in this situation?

Thanks for your thoughts.

1 Yes

2 Could be good; not enough facts

3 No, unless the time for appeal has not passed. If , however, you are claiming fraud from the git-go, you may be able to contest it.

4 I do not know what this question means

5 Your choice

6 I hope a CA attorney is on here; I do not know if foreign SC judgments can be domesticated or not! Sorry....

7 and 8 See 6

9 Tell her to bite rocks.

 

[juneflight]

2 Could be good; not enough facts

Sorry about that. What facts would discern it one way or the other? I think buyer will claim that papers were served via fax to my office; unfortunately incoming faxes to that number are never delivered to the approx. 100 of us who share the same line.

3 No, unless the time for appeal has not passed. If , however, you are claiming fraud from the git-go, you may be able to contest it.

Fraud? That's interesting. In what way would fraud come into this picture?

4 I do not know what this question means

I meant can I do any contesting remotely, or do I have to be in person in the state where the judgment was made. It sounds like this is irrelevant if the previous answer is "no dice."

Thank you for your time!

 

[tuncatunc]

I'm living in seattle WA,

I'd like to ask it here because I have kinda similar case.
I purchased a laptop from a seller at ebay. he never sent the item and never refunded money back.

The seller is living in MI and I'm in WA.
Is it possible to sue him for a small claim from WA?

It was my first impression that the buyer sued you for small claim from his county at different state.

Regards.

 

[seniorjudge]

I'm living in seattle WA,

I'd like to ask it here because I have kinda similar case.
I purchased a laptop from a seller at ebay. he never sent the item and never refunded money back.

The seller is living in MI and I'm in WA.
Is it possible to sue him for a small claim from WA?

It was my first impression that the buyer sued you for small claim from his county at different state.

Regards.

Are you familiar with the term hijacking?

 

[tuncatunc]

No, I'm not familiar with that term hijacking.

Thanks

 

[seniorjudge]

No, I'm not familiar with that term hijacking.

Thanks

It means that you should start your own thread with your own question.

 

[nanaII]

Faxing..

You cannot legally "serve" a document by faxing it. It must be served in person, or sent "certified mail/return receipt requested". If faxing were allowed, faxes many times end up in the trash. There is also no way to prove that the person being served even received it. That was their first mistake..

 

[nanaII]

Interesting information

I did a google search and found an interesting article on the following website:
http://www.nolo.com/lawcenter/ency/article.cfm/ObjectID/19813EC9-683B-4ACE-BCCD66E622B07CB6/catID/D80CF756-DBF6-432D-B625E7D1A29183D0

According to it, small claims cannot be filed against you if you live out of state.

 

[dws1632]

If the guy was even allowed to file an out of state small claims, he would have to do it in YOUR jurisdiction.

Have you contacted the supposed court to verify the judgement?

You must recieve the notice in person or by registered mail that you are being sued. The only exception is if there is no known address for you (by him or in public records), then the notice would be posted at the court some time in advance. Although, you don't live in his jurisdiction so he couldn't sue you there anyway.

If you find out that he made up the judgement claim against you, you could probably sue him for that in a higher court. I don't know what it would fall under though (fraud, deception, falsifying court documents, etc...). You could probably get him arrested too if you reported him to HIS local cops.