Ah, another lesson in interstate commerce!!!
Q1) can i take this person to court?
A1) Yes. Anyone with any kind of reason can take another 'to court'.
For sake of clarity, I am going to reverse the order on the next two questions:
Q2) "or would they come to ohio?"
A2) They MIGHT come to Ohio for your lawsuit but they would be fools to do so (or maybe they just want a short vacation).
Q3) "if so do i have to go to vermont?"
A3) As mentioned above, you could sue in Ohio and they could make an appearance in Ohio and you could get a judgment in Ohio. Or, they could no-show on your Ohio court date and you would get a default judgment in Ohio. However, neither of these judgments would be enforcable. Here is the problem... unless the Defendant (now the Judgment Debtor) has any seizable assets in Ohio, you have NOTHING to seize to enforce the judgment. And the Ohio judgment has NO validity in Vermont. They can sit in Vermont and thumb their noses at any enforcement that you try with your Ohio judgment. Now, you can certainly use your Ohio judgment and domesticate it into Vermont and then use the Vermont laws to attempt enforcement, but you will have to pay another filing fee, etc. in Vermont. And, if the Ohio judgment was a default, they might have fairly sound reasons to prevent the Ohio judgment from being accepted into Vermont.
Or, you could file in Federal court (read, BIG BUCKS!!).
Bottom line.... if you are going to litigate at all, you need to do it in Vermont. And unless the agreement included a 'venue statement' saying whose laws were valid, or you had provision for attorney fees and costs, you will probably not be able to recover them. Consider the lost $200 as a lesson in how NOT to purchase interstate product. Use a credit card, at least you will have some protection.
