After 2 years 1 month and 14 days of battle, I have finally received a letter from the Tamworth County Court this morning to confirm Brian Keates, the person who mis-sold me a laptop on eBay in 2009, has paid a full amount of £606.19 towards to the debt that he owes me. It has been an awful and frustrating journey. I can now see and understand what a victim experiences and suffers from crime.

Now looking back and seeing the whole thing, there are few things I wanted to point out.

eBay

The whole incident started at the eBay website. When I first had the problem with the seller, Brian Keates, I contacted eBay to file a dispute and seek for assistance. Just like many other eBay members, eBay offered me no help or whatsoever. All they told me to do was to try to talk to the seller to resolve the issue. eBay made it so obvious that they did not want to know about the problem at all. In the end, eBay sent me a final response to my dispute saying I should contact a local authority or police to resolve the issue. eBay is just a disgrace to online shopping!

Police

God know how much time I have spent with the police regarding my case. I told the police at the very beginning that it was not the first time Brian Keates mis-sold a laptop on eBay, therefore his action should be seen as a fraud. The police was not interested in my case. They kept telling me it was a civil matter. I had to make a formal complaint to the Chief Inspector at the Warwickshire Police before my case was transferred to a police station in Staffordshire to get investigated.

I gave an interview to the police at Atherstone police station. I spent 5 hours at the station to give evidences and to make a statement to my case. I brought a pile of hard copies of evidences to the station. I was told by the police that Brian Keates would be interviewed as well. It did not surprise me when Atherstone police station contacted me few days later to say they did not take any legal action against Brian Keates. I knew it from the beginning that the police was not interested in my case. There was too much work for them to look at and investigate my case, and this comment was given by a friend of mine who is a retired West Midlands police officer.

What makes me angry most with the police is that, I have provided a pile of evidences to the police to support my case, but instead of being a proper crimestopper, the police listened to what Brian Keates told them. Brian Keates had no evidence to support his action. All he did was to make up different stories and to tell lies. The police trusted and believed what Brian Keates said instead of my physical evidences. I really feel that my tax money has been spent on the wrong people.

British Law

During the journey, I kept asking myself why the law always protects the guilty ones and scarifies the innocent ones.

The Judge ordered Brian Keates in October 2010 to pay me £506.19 to cover the debt that he owed me. Brian Keates refused to pay out, so I had to apply for a warrant of execution which cost me £100. Brian Keates then applied to suspend the warrant, therefore my case needed to be seen by the Judge again. In June 2011, after a 30 mins hearing, the Judge rejected Brian Keates’ application for suspending the warrant, so the warrant could now be passed to a bailiff to be executed.

What I found it hard to understand is, when the Judge ordered Brian Keates to pay out his debt in October 2010, how could he refuse to pay? And when he did not pay, why did I need to apply for a warrant to force him to pay? When someone is ordered by the Judge to do something, they can either obey or the court should do something to follow up the matter. I just cannot see the law is protecting me as an individual. I waited for 15 months to get Brian Keates convicted and another 10 months to get Brian Keates to pay me the money. Why can justice only come so late under the law? Are we really protected by the law?