small-claims-court

Ryan in North Dakota bought a very nice HP laptop in 2007. This particular model, he DV6000, has a certain flaw, and HP extended the warranty to cover inevitable repairs. But when the computer broke down for the second time at the tender age of two and a half years, and HP wouldn't repair it for free, he was angry. He had expected to get at least four years' use out of the laptop.  More »

Jon wants us to recommend a good lawyer to sue HP for screwing him over on laptop repairs. We do not offer legal advice like that. We do, however, believe strongly in the power of small claims court.  More »

Some guy in London fell for an online iPhone scam in January, so he paid $150 to emailfinder.com to track down the identity behind the Hotmail account of the person who scammed him. Now he's suing Kim, who is completely unrelated to this story (or was, at least), for $4,368 to cover the $1200 he lost on the iPhone scam plus travel expenses for him to show up in small claims court here in the U.S.  More »

Once upon a time, way back in November, a St. Louis MBA student named Cheri was the one of the first inside her local Sears store on Black Friday morning. She rushed to get the best deal they were offering — a washer and dryer for $599. To her dismay, she found out that the heavily advertised deal was not available — customers were being asked to pay now and get the washer and dryer in 30 days. Even with this disappointment, the deal was too good to pass up, so she agreed. Months later there was no sign of her washer and dryer, so she took Sears to court. And won.  More »

Consumerist empowers consumers to take on bad companies, but sometimes even the negative PR that Consumerist can bring to bear is not enough to persuade companies to behave. When that happens, you might have to sue in order to get what you want. Here is a brief guide to your options when you decide you need to escalate your complaint to the courts.  More »

Meet Mitchell Berns. Delta slapped him with a bogus weather cancellation and, rather than sit down and take it, he booked himself and his family on another flight -- then sued Delta in small claims court and won a default judgment. Berns is a lawyer, but he didn't do anything that you couldn't do.  More »

In yesterday's post on rude telemarketers and the people who hang up on them, reader/advice giver Amy Alkon said she just successfully sued a telemarketer in Santa Monica Small Claims Court—and won! If you're one of those unlucky people who can't get the calls to stop, here's how she did it.  More »

We've been getting a lot of emails lately from people who are fed up with telemarketers ignoring the Do Not Call list and want to take the bastards to court. Now, to be fair, sometimes the people who email don't fully understand what is and what is not allowed under the law.   More »

"Jurgis" writes,  More »

Dhanushka is having some trouble getting money back from his travel agent. He writes,  More »

Last winter, David's old furnace broke down. But things got really heated up when the incompetent HVAC repairmen he hired threatened to report him to collection agencies and put a lien on his condo when they wanted him to pay up for a repair they never finished. Just to give a little atmosphere, this takes place in Chicago, famed for its merciless winters. David's story, and how fought back, inside...  More »

Reader Christina has a (broken) water heater from Sears. It's covered under a warranty, but Sears isn't willing to replace it. She's been without hot water for 3 weeks and Sears just doesn't care.   More »

Andrew's wife got mugged, the thief rand up purchases on her credit card, and now CapitalOne has sued them for $1200 and won. How can this be? Andrew writes:

In May of 2005 my wife was mugged at one of the elevated train stations in Chicago. After calling the police and filing a police report, she started calling each credit card company to cancel each account. Except she forgot about one card, her CapitalOne card. A card hardly ever used and only had a $500.00 limit...

Last December, Theodore Karantsalis received a letter from Sprint, where he was a customer, telling him that someone who banks with Wells-Fargo—where he's not a customer—was presented with his invoice and personal data when they logged into their Wells-Fargo Checkfree account. The customer contacted Sprint, and Sprint contacted Karantsalis. Karantsalis decided that he'd deal with the issue on his own instead of bringing a lawyer into it or throwing his hands up in frustration, so he took both companies to small claims court.  More »

Taking a big company to small claims court sounds like a big hassle but reader Bill has done it successfully three times. He says the time and effort spent on taking a company to small claims court is far less then how it long it takes to get companies to fix above-average in complexity problems.  More »

We were operating under the misunderstanding that Judge Judy was a broadcast of an actual small claims court somewhere, but then our legal beagle intern Alex informed us that it's really just arbitration dressed up to look like small claims court.  More »

Recently I've become intrigued by Judge Judy type small claims court TV shows. They offer a fascinating look at how little some people know about the legal system. Here's what America learned in the past week or so:  More »

Dell has decided that Saundra's warranty, which ends in 2008, ends in 2007, and won't repair her motherboard for free. Saundra has informed them of the error and sent them the relevant documents, to which Dell has shrugged. Saundra has now decided to sue Dell in small claims court. Which mall kiosk which she deliver the court papers to? Who knows, there's got to be thousands of them around the nation... Her story follows.  More »