riverbasin
New Member
I'm under the 3 year statute of limitations on a installment contract fraud.
Small claim date comes up this Friday.
The antique is expensive $5500 value. I only have $1000 in play though. The contract is a simple receipt form stating my down payment and that this would be an installment purchase, with no rules or fees or timelines whatsoever.
The seller told me in detail about long term sales on expensive antiques like I had selected when I made the commitment on the initial purchase some 2 years ago. I made periodic visits to the shop to stay in touch and assure my commitment was ongoing, and paid a large amount a year later, sending a receipt request and envelope. No receipt was returned to me. Bad business manners - no details on the contract, no receipts to track the payments. I ceased paying out money without seeing the item personally, and the distance and $5.00 cost of fuel ended my traveling days and over the road driving that took me past this antique shop.
My next trip by was this fall, and I was coming into enough money to pay off the item. I stopped, its gone, asked where it went, and seller says "OH S..." under a muffled voice. I learn he sold it to another party just recently - like weeks before I showed up. Never ever contacted me over the past 2 years since my large payment, which I have detailed phone records to prove. I've compiled every single call from the region on a spreadsheet.
Owner first offers me merchandise value in the shop, then tries to get me to look at a even fancier cabinet then I had selected but his co-owner brother has the keys and is away this afternoon (that I had visited the shop for first time in 2 years). I can't stick around, continue the dialogue by phone. By a week, the story has changed, and they are denying me equal value, or a better antique, just refusing to pay out anything, and I'm out - thats it.
Lots of lies, lots of fraud. The company is a bad one according to the other antique shops in this town that exists at this antique shopping destination. The 1" wad of installment contracts he flashed at me when I came in this fall just prove he is lying when they rebutted a attorney general inquiry saying they do no long term layaways, and that I had refused their many many attempts to get this matter paid and closed.
I know the economy is the reason for this - he's in fear of shutting down, no one is shopping or buying, and he flashed the installments at me saying no one had made any installments in months. Zero money moving through the way over priced shop. He took a short sale on my antique and expects me to absorb the shortage out of my $1,000 I had paid to date.
Useful law or cases I can reference?
This is barely a contract because of the lack of a form, and rules. But I have records on all I paid, and will have to argue case history of long term layaways to get my contract upheld. I can also submit the written notes of the co-antique store owners in town alledging the long string of aggravated customers and defrauded purchase attempts , but they won't appear or go on recording because " they have to live with these people".
Small claim date comes up this Friday.
The antique is expensive $5500 value. I only have $1000 in play though. The contract is a simple receipt form stating my down payment and that this would be an installment purchase, with no rules or fees or timelines whatsoever.
The seller told me in detail about long term sales on expensive antiques like I had selected when I made the commitment on the initial purchase some 2 years ago. I made periodic visits to the shop to stay in touch and assure my commitment was ongoing, and paid a large amount a year later, sending a receipt request and envelope. No receipt was returned to me. Bad business manners - no details on the contract, no receipts to track the payments. I ceased paying out money without seeing the item personally, and the distance and $5.00 cost of fuel ended my traveling days and over the road driving that took me past this antique shop.
My next trip by was this fall, and I was coming into enough money to pay off the item. I stopped, its gone, asked where it went, and seller says "OH S..." under a muffled voice. I learn he sold it to another party just recently - like weeks before I showed up. Never ever contacted me over the past 2 years since my large payment, which I have detailed phone records to prove. I've compiled every single call from the region on a spreadsheet.
Owner first offers me merchandise value in the shop, then tries to get me to look at a even fancier cabinet then I had selected but his co-owner brother has the keys and is away this afternoon (that I had visited the shop for first time in 2 years). I can't stick around, continue the dialogue by phone. By a week, the story has changed, and they are denying me equal value, or a better antique, just refusing to pay out anything, and I'm out - thats it.
Lots of lies, lots of fraud. The company is a bad one according to the other antique shops in this town that exists at this antique shopping destination. The 1" wad of installment contracts he flashed at me when I came in this fall just prove he is lying when they rebutted a attorney general inquiry saying they do no long term layaways, and that I had refused their many many attempts to get this matter paid and closed.
I know the economy is the reason for this - he's in fear of shutting down, no one is shopping or buying, and he flashed the installments at me saying no one had made any installments in months. Zero money moving through the way over priced shop. He took a short sale on my antique and expects me to absorb the shortage out of my $1,000 I had paid to date.
Useful law or cases I can reference?
This is barely a contract because of the lack of a form, and rules. But I have records on all I paid, and will have to argue case history of long term layaways to get my contract upheld. I can also submit the written notes of the co-antique store owners in town alledging the long string of aggravated customers and defrauded purchase attempts , but they won't appear or go on recording because " they have to live with these people".
