@proclaimer - how did you sue them? I thought they were a Hong Kong company? Did you serve the papers (or whatever it is you do in a small claims case) to their return address on the Isle of Wight? Did they turn up and fight? Did they pay?

Good on you for standing up to them anyway.

After 2 weeks of waiting for a refund, I've filed a dispute with Visa. Hopefully they'll take it from here..

Nick

Well, I'm hoping to get my money back courtesy of VISA, and I wonder whether there's some consumer protection fund thing.. Like, if you get hit by an uninsured driver, you can claim from a fund maintained by the insurance companies (and ultimately, us).

I'm just really surprised anyone even showed up at court.

I heard that all Trading Standards could do was refer things back to HK..

Good on Proclaimer, anyway.

I used the on-line service to sue them in in the small claims court, as I recall it was in Nottingham. I certainly had a UK contact address, (I believe they gave that to me in an e-mail exchange), for them to have the papers served. There was no actual court attendance. It was all mail.

The court agreed to my claim and gave them 60 days to respond, to contest, with a defence. They did not respond so the claim was deemed undefended so I 'won'. 2 weeks after that Simply Electronics paid me my refund, including postage and £50.00 in compensation that I claimed for my time and inconvenience.

This was 2 years ago.