Blog Home
Welcome to the Elkin Law Office
Solving Your Own Consumer Complaints
There are many types of claims and matters that you can potentially handle on your own, and if you follow certain guidelines, most businesses will respond to favorably to you. First and foremost, try not to get angry. For the same reasons that insurance companies try to make the claims process difficult, so too do businesses with regard to their returns. If you get angry, you are less likely to receive a favorable response, so remember to ask politely.
You should already know that the sales person, generally, cannot help you. You must speak with a manager, but that is not always satisfactory either. Lots of managers appear to have little or no customer service training. Many businesses claim they have good customer service when, in fact, they do not. If you cannot get any satisfaction out of the manager, do not waste your time, just ask for the corporate office or executive address. You will be absolutely amazed at the positive response you will receive from a corporate executive if you bother to take the time to write a thoughtful, concise letter about your experience with the company, product or service. In three paragraphs, you should be able to write a brief description of what product or service you purchased and for what purpose. You should next explain what went wrong and what you expected to happen at the store level. You should then request your remedy and ask for a response.
Some companies will not respond because their corporate culture has no concept of customer service and, I, for one, would never avail myself of any product or service offered by that company again. In contrast, if you do receive a response from a company, more often that not, they will endeavor to accommodate. Do not to threaten or demand in your initial correspondence. Most people respond better to a request than a threat. If you do not get a response, or the response is not satisfactory, you might want to consider talking to an attorney or taking the case to court. Good Luck!
Using Small Claims Court
The people's court, General Sessions, as we call it in Tennessee, can now handle cases having a potential value of up to $25,000, in most jurisdictions, which is a $10,000 increase over its former jurisdictional limit. General Sessions can be a great way to resolve disputes where the parties cannot seem to reach an agreement. For small and medium sized businesses, lots of contracts involve values in the $25,000 range. Personal injury cases with medical expenses not to exceed $4,000 may also be perfect for the General Sessions forum.
General Sessions is advantageous because it's filing fee is low, under $100; individuals do not need a lawyer, although corporations do; and cases are usually set for hearing within thirty (30) days of being filed. What more could you want? There are some limitations with General Sessions and those include: an automatic appeal to Circuit Court if either side does not agree with the judgment; no jury trial, so the judge will make the decision; and since the judge has a lot of cases to deal with, you may be prodded to keep your evidence brief.
There are some advantages to having an attorney represent you because your case will usually be called at the top of the docket and the attorney will know how best to present your evidence. Some judges are more strict than others, but there are rules associated with presenting evidence and you cannot win your case if you cannot get the evidence in the record. Most people do not understand that pieces of paper are generally excluded from evidence unless they fit one of several well-defined categories of information. There are also situations where an attorney will object to evidence and actually win a case by stopping the other side from submitting improper evidence, which is what the news media usually describes as a "technicality."
Even with its imperfections, General Sessions is usually the best place to go for small claims.
Post
Posted by: JKE
July 21, 2008
Topic:
If my clients would just follow some simple advice, it would alleviate a lot of the need for my services after the fact. When two parties come to an agreement about something such as the cost to repair, the price to build, or the fee to provide, just make a few notes on a piece of paper and both parties sign it. If there is really an agreement about what is to be done, by when, and for what price, this seems to me to be a fairly simple process. It does not have to be anything fancy. It does not have to be on letterhead or stationary. It does not even have to be spelled correctly. It just needs to be enough information that the Court, if necessary, can make a determination about the intent of the parties. So please, quit it already. Write down the date, the people involved, the price, the time to perform, and the basic information about what is to be accomplished. If people will bother to do that, they will likely solve a lot of issues and potentially save a lot of money. (You may want to consider a provision for court costs, discretionary costs, and attorney’s fees for the prevailing party in the event litigation is necessary)
The Elkin Law Office
Julie-Karel (JK) Elkin
222 2nd Avenue North
Nashville, TN 37201
Phone: (615) 732-6167
