Consumer Law, Warranties Oral Agreement Out of State Online

[Tygersgirl]

I live in Virginia and the person to whom I sold an item to lives outside of Va. We communicated via email and she practically begged for me to accept payments twice a month. I agreed being that she said that she would make a payment two days after we tweaked our agreement. (She was supposed to pay via PayPal) I shipped the item to her (duhh?!? dumb moment) however I was not able to ship it to her as quickly as she and I hoped. She has not made any payment at all. I have sent her several emails asking if she intended to pay and when and she tells me that she's had so many issues with either PayPal or stolen identity, blah, blah, blah. Can I take her to court and how would I do it being that: 1) she lives outside of VA and 2) via email agreement? Thanks for any responses. BTW: I have given her a final deadline of December 1st to make a payment of some sort!

 

[Michael Wechsler]

1) Yes, however you will need to file in a court higher than small claims if you intend to file in VA.
2) Yes, it is enforceable.

My feeling is that the amount may be small. Your filing fee might be close to the amount due. What you might want to do is demand the item be sent back your you will report this buyer for mail fraud - see Wikipedia's explanation which I'll summarize below:

Mail fraud is an offense under US federal law, which refers to any scheme which attempts to unlawfully obtain money or valuables in which the postal system is used at any point in the commission of a criminal offense. Mail fraud is covered by Title 18 of the United States Code, Chapter 63. As in the case of wire fraud, this statute is often used as a basis for a separate federal prosecution of what would otherwise have been only a violation of a state law. "Mail fraud" is a term of art referring to a specific statutory crime in the United States of America. In countries with non-federal legal systems the concept of mail fraud is irrelevant: the activities listed below are likely to be crimes there, but the fact that they are carried out by mail makes no difference to which authority may prosecute or the penalties which may be imposed.