Sometimes, when calling in debts from friends, I mimic a silver screen drug lord calling in a debt from a business associate, promising a bloodbath of gun violence should he fail to pay up. It’s more like an unintentionally comic Tony Montana-in-Scarface type of threat, rather than a coolly menacing Michael Corleone-in-The Godfather threat, and admittedly, it’s not particularly funny, but I do it anyway.Lately, I’ve been tempted to unleash such a performance on a company that owes me £100. Back in March, over the internet, I gave them the money for some headphones that never arrived. Having repeatedly emailed them to ask for a refund (I later discovered that they have no phone number), I decided that I wasn’t going to get the money back by sociable means. For the first time, I turned to Money Claim Online.

Money Claim is the internet front for the small claims court, and purports to be a ‘simple, convenient and secure way of making or responding to a money claim on the internet’. I logged my claim without much hassle and waited for a response from the company. I got no response, and nor did the court, so I was granted default judgment.

Bearing in mind that this was my first ‘appearance’ in court, I thought, naively, that default judgment spelt victory. To me, perfect justice had been delivered.

Not so. I filled out a few more forms online, then waited for my stolen cash to roll into my account. A few weeks down the line, and there was still no refund. I called up the Money Claim people for advice. They told me that there was nothing else they could do, and that I would have to instruct bailiffs. The only problem was that if the bailiffs did manage to remove £100 worth of property, they would likely take £100 in fees.

This left me with one dilemma and three questions. Should I throw in the towel and give up on the case, or spite this thieving company and send the bailiffs round anyway (with a net monetary gain of zero pounds, but a slight sense of smug satisfaction)? How have I ended up paying out £25 in court fees on top of the £100 for the non-existent headphones, won my case, yet found myself worse off than if I’d never taken it to court? If I had instructed a solicitor, would the outcome have been any different?

And last but not least, what would Tony Montana or Michael Corleone have done?