Prepaid for services I did not receive

[Becki C.]

state: TN

I prepaid my former manicurist $350 for nail services. i had done this twice previously with no problem. the reason behind my prepayment was because she said she was "hurting" for money and asked if i could afford to prepay. since i had done it in the past with no problem, i agreed to do it agian. she closed her shop and when i went for my appt., she wasn't there. i reached her by cell phone 4 times and she kept blowing me off for 2 weeks. finally, i told her that i wanted my money refunded. she agreed to pay and i scheduled 3 different times to met with her to retrieve my money. she called with an excuse every time of why she needed to reschedule once again. i want to go to small claims court and i do have a copy of the cancelled check i gave her. in the "for" column on the check, it says "prepayment for nail services". i also have a gift card she gave me with the amount on it as well. nowhere does it say on the gift card that there are no cash refunds. would i need anything else in court to "prove" my case?

Rebecca

 

[BL]

http://www.tba.org/lawbytes/T9_1800.html

You have the proof you need I'd say. The only thing that might happen is they might say they gave you the service .

 

[Becki C.]

yes, that's what I was worried about. what happens in that situation? am i just out of luck then?

 

[BL]

Can you put together prepayment's date and the Date the shop closed ?

Can you put together prior prepayments and times of services time lines , as a time lines ?

Was the prepayment for 1 visit, or more .

If you can show it is more likely than not you didn't receive the Servic(es), you shouldn't have a problem.

 

[Becki C.]

actually, i can put together a couple of things. i still have the gift card i had for prepayment prior to this one that she has not given me services for. i kept track of my appt. times on it (i went every two weeks). therfore, i can show that from the time i prepaid with this gift card, i had just finished using my first one. also, i gave her the money april 23 and she failed to show for our appt. on may 28, which would be the first time i was using the gift card that i got on april 23. since i was going to see her every two weeks, in theory i couldn't have possibly been to her more than two times before she closed her business. since she charged $25 every time i went to her, i could only have used $50 of the $350 i gave her, right? i didn't get a chance to use any of it, but i'm just saying that if she wanted to try to bilk me out of some of the money, she could only hope to do so to the tune of $50. we'll just see what happens.

i don't know if i can prove the closing date of her shop. she left owing the landlord money and i don't know if the landlord would give me a letter stating when my manicurist vacated the premises. i'm not the only one she did this to, but none of her other former cients want to go to court. they just want to forget about it. i may never see the money, but it's the principle of the whole thing. what really gripes me is that i've know her since we were 10 years old. she grew up around the corner from me and we played together as children. her ex-husband tells me she's deeply into drugs so i guess the best i can hope for is just to get the judgement against her and hopefully i can collect one day.