Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California

Re: Should I try to recover money as a fraud victim?

You could sue the party in Small Claims Court and argue that the contract was entered into on your computer in your county. The defendant could argue that venue is in their county but they would have to come to the Court that you file in to argue a change of venue. If they are coming to California they may as well appear at court an argue their case. You can send the lawsuit to the Sheriff's office in the state that the party resides and request that they serve the complaint. You would have to request the address from somewhere if you don't have a physical address for the defendant. You could send a formal written request to paypal or the auction site asking for the address of the party or, you can subpeona it. If you won a judgement you would have to file a sister state judgement in the state that the resident resides in order to collect the judgement. I think your first course of action is to see how hard it is to get an address on this person. Once you have that, call the court in the county in which they reside and ask how much it costs to file a sister state judgment. It might end up costing you a lot more to collect the judgment than the actual cost of the purse. You also have to figure the time you are going to have to spend tracking this person down, going to court, serving them, filing a sister state judgment, and finally hoping they have money in a bank account that you can get at. If you need any help getting a subpeona or filing a sister state judgment, please feel free to contact my office. My toll free telephone number is 877-546-9918, or email me at [email protected].

I do have one other idea. You could file a lawsuit in Municipal Court. The reason you may want to go this route is this person committed fraud. He intentionally misrepresented facts to you regarding a sale of merchandise. The product that you received was not what they advertised. If we can show proof of fraud you can ask for punitive damages. Punitive damages are awarded to punish a defendant for intentional fraudulent acts. You can sue for up to $25,000 in Municipal Court. The filing fee varies between counties, but is usually between $90 and $100. If you are low income you can apply for a waiver of court fees and costs and the Court may allow you to file the lawsuit without having to pay the filing fee. I could prepare the lawsuit for you and either represent you or help you represent yourself, which would be cheaper since you could make the court appearances and I would prepare all of the paperwork and help you prepare for Court. Give me a call or email me if you are interested in more information or if you have any more questions.

John Hayes, Esq.