Victim of fraudulent eBay buyer - need advice

In the small Claims court system, and it may be similar the the U.S there are those that are deemed "professional" scammers that know the system and can play it like a rock star.. File a claim and the defendant has a doctor that can say he or she is ill and an postponement is required. On and on till it is exhausted.. I went through this with a scammer helping my father who was scammed..This crook was a professional preying on people.. This scammer tried to use the fact that he is a LLC company and that the "loan" for a business went under was not his responsibility. The ONLY thing that saved my dad years ago is that this scammer make a BIG mistake and usually the best will get so greedy and confident the slightest mistake will sink them.In the note he gave my dad was "I,and or the Acme LLC company" See the error he made? He added himself as the responsible party in the note .Had he put just Acme LLC the case would be over. I showed his cocky lawyer this at mediation and his face sunk ..LOL! In the end so much work was needed to find his company digging in to the Provinces business archives .Putting a lien on his car only after going to the home to get the vin while car parked in drive way..Even then they requested adjournments until the judge 2 years later said enough! no more delays! but this is not for the faint of heart..Small claims means nothing.. You still have to get the person to pay and that is another game you don't want to play....
We finally won. We later on had to have the sheriff tow the car away from his home for auction. Then my dad had to bid on the car and won it so it wouldn't be sold for nothing. It was worth back then around 10k it would have sold for prob 3k in the end my dad just got the car for all that work done.We went the payment route first..every month a small amount to pay back the judgement we won..He stopped paying 4 months in and we had to go back to court to file a motion to get his car sold as we put a lien on it. Not fun.
You can make payment arrangements and what do you do if they stop paying? Go back to court.What do you do if they said they sent the watch back and you got a Lime in the package? What if??? Its all a big nothing unless you want to dedicate your life to hunting down this person in court and in the end you lost 10 times that amount.
Good luck but in the end it's a big toll on your life that is not worth it. Chalk it up to no more. Cash on the barrel head or keep walking son.

It depends only on how far away it is and what it costs to make that trip. The mere summons and complaint may or may not have the desired effect; but you'd want (and probably have) to mail him copies of your brief and your letter or informal "motion" in opposition to any request for adjournment. Return receipt requested and with proof of mailing enclosed in your mailing to the court. In some states, either party can request adjournments by mail; that would be helpful to you, because that means the court will be much less likely to grant that request against an out-of-state plaintiff if he doesn't avail himself of that option and only requests it after you've already flown to his jurisdiction.

Reading your summary of what he did and your request for punitive damages up to the jurisdictional limit in small claims in your brief and knowing that the judge could very well ask him what his defense will be at a later date if he shows up only to request the adjournment might make him think twice about showing up to court at all if there's a chance that the judge will ask him to respond, because he knows exactly what he did and that he has no conceivable defense for keeping both the watch and the money. If anything, it increases the possibility that he won't show up at all, which is good for you and much better than his getting an adjournment simply for the asking. Ask your lawyer for guidance about this, but your complaint should probably be for "conversion" of personal property. It would probably also be worth it to pay him for a few hours of his time to do all this for you and so that the shitbag sees that you've actually retained legal counsel for this. Because of the egregious nature of what he did, you might also have a fairly good chance of recouping your legal fees as part of punitive damages.

I doubt eBay would divulge any info about him or his other buyers, but you'd be surprised what nothing more than a deep Google search of his name and email address and eBay ID might reveal.

I was advised not to attempt small claims court with a matter of $2K here. First, I'd have to win the court case, and although I felt clearly in the right he was also a scammer and I'm sure he'd lie through his teeth and the outcome would be chancy. Then, if he refused to pay the judgement, I'd have to go to a different court to allow garnishment of wages or assets to be seized or the debt sold to a collections agent, so that's a whole nother process I'd have to go through, subject to its own delays. Then, he'd have to have income or assets, and I did get far enough to see that he doesn't hold the title to the house where he lives, so the most obvious source wouldn't work. I don't know where he banks, and I'm sure he's smart enough not to tell me.

Just like I mentioned in my above post.. Your right.It's no use.

You’re talking yourself out of this but it’s much easier than you think. Hospitals, dentists, and medical clinics do this daily. They’ll file a judgement for $200 and it will stay on the credit report for 7 years until paid. Having to travel is the biggest expense but other than that it’s just your time and you may get your money in the end. You’ll also find that lawyers never support a legal action that doesn’t involve lawyers and are happy to say “people that represent themselves have a fool for a client”.