Massachusetts mom says even Small Claims Court couldn’t get money returned for unfinished hoop – WCVB Boston

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When you have work done around your home, it’s critical to never pay in full until the job is finished because if you’re not satisfied, it’s almost impossible to get your money back.
One Massachusetts woman paid thousands for a job that was never completed and said even the Small Claims Court system couldn’t get her money back. So she reached out to NewsCenter 5 for help.
Basketball hoops hang over plenty of suburban driveways, but Colleen Habeski said there’s something unique about hers.
It’s “the most expensive hoop ever,” she said, adding that she paid for it twice.
Habeski’s basketball diary begins in the fall of 2021 when she hired Mr. Hoop, a small business in Wellesley, to install a new hoop in her driveway.
“A couple folks that I know that have basketball hoops had used him,” she said. “I had heard of him, so I had some level of trust in who I was dealing with.”
Habeski said she paid a $1,500 deposit upfront through Venmo, a payment app, and two weeks later, Mr. Hoop took down her old hoop and installed a concrete footer. Then several days later, she said Mr. Hoop’s owner, Eric Elofson, surprised her with a new request:
“He says, ‘If you send me the rest of the balance, I’ll get there tomorrow and have the hoop all installed,'” she said. “‘Your kids will be psyched, they’ll have it for the weekend.'”
So Habeski sent another $1,700, even though Elofson originally told her it would only be due upon completion of the job. When Habeski got home the next day, there was still only a concrete base; no new hoop, even though she had now paid more than $3,000.
She said days turned into weeks with few responses from Elofson except a lot of dodging and weaving. After several weeks passed, Habeski hired a different company to eventually finish the installation at an added cost of nearly $2,000.
Habeski furnished text messages, emails and Venmo receipts to NewsCenter 5 as proof of her exchanges with Elofson.
After several warnings, Habeski filed in Small Claims Court and won her case because Elofson didn’t show. But that’s when she learned just how difficult it is to actually collect a Small Claims judgment.
“You go through this whole process, you think you’re finally at the end of it and nothing happens,” she said.
Last summer, Habeski paid more money — $200 — to the Norfolk County Sheriff’s Office to serve Elofson and potentially seize his assets to repay her, but for months it seems nothing happened in the case. After NewsCenter 5 inquired, the sheriff’s office told Habeski they couldn’t find Elofson or any assets. They returned her $200.
WCVB legal analyst Martha Coakley said Small Claims is an imperfect process, and cases like Habeski’s can be a challenge because they’re often not worth the expense of hiring a lawyer.
“If you have a dispute, and it is with someone who doesn’t show up at the process, for instance, trying to collect money from that person is probably going to be equally hard,” Coakley said.
Coakley, a former Massachusetts Attorney General, encourages frustrated consumers to always file a complaint with the Attorney General’s Office. She said the office may take further action against a business in the future, even if they don’t take on an individual case right away.
Filing a complaint “alerts them that this is a person out doing business who is not treating consumers fairly,” she said.
When NewsCenter 5 contacted Elofson for this story last month, he promised to send Habeski $2,000 immediately in an attempt to make her whole. But she said no payment ever arrived.
A week later, NewsCenter 5 contacted Venmo, since that’s where Colleen initially made her payments. A scroll through Elofson’s personal Venmo page shows payment after payment for basketball hoops, making it clear he uses it for business. Venmo’s website says it may reverse payments that are made to personal accounts but are actually for business purposes — payment for goods or services.
After NewsCenter 5 inquired, Habeski said Venmo contacted her and refunded her money. Finally, after a year and a half, a slam dunk.
Since Habeski initially made her payments in 2021, Venmo has been working to roll out wider purchase protection on its platform. That protection used to only come with payments to Venmo business accounts. But now there’s an option to identify a payment to a personal account as being for a good or a service. When that is turned on, Venmo deducts a small fee from the money the seller gets, but the company says users will be covered if they don’t get what they paid for.
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