Small Claims Tribunal denies invitation deposit refund over unproven amount

The Small Claims Tribunal denied Janice Leung’s claim for return of the withheld portion of a HK$1,200 invitation-printing payment because the hearing record did not establish the specific amount she wanted refunded. It made no monetary award and did not find that printer Kelvin Yip was entitled to retain any particular sum.

The dispute concerned 80 invitations and a Saturday-noon collection time. Janice maintained that the promised time remained binding; Kelvin said readiness depended on artwork approval by Thursday evening. But the immediate obstacle to a refund was more basic: the Tribunal could not calculate an award from a claim described only as the withheld portion of the payment.

The Tribunal distinguished two separate gaps in the evidence. Kelvin had not justified any deduction, but that failure did not establish how much Janice sought back. No itemised deduction, receipt, cost document or amount retained was presented. The applicable rules required a remedy to match a proven amount, rather than one selected without evidence.

The collection deadline was also unresolved. Janice repeatedly described an order slip recording Saturday noon, but the slip itself was not presented as an exhibit. The Tribunal therefore could not inspect its terms or determine whether the collection time was conditional.

The Thursday WhatsApp exchange linked Saturday-noon readiness to approval by 6 p.m. Janice replied that she would check after work, and no approval appeared in the excerpt. However, the excerpt did not prove that approval had not occurred elsewhere, specify a replacement deadline or establish that Janice accepted one.

The Tribunal found that Janice had not proved an unconditional Saturday-noon promise. It expressly declined to treat that conclusion as proof that Kelvin’s interpretation was the agreed term.

Janice relied on her description of the order slip and the project messages. Her submissions identified 80 invitations, a HK$2,400 total price, a HK$1,200 FPS payment and Saturday-noon collection. She argued that the recorded collection time supported returning the withheld payment.

Kelvin asked the Tribunal to deny or reduce the refund because timely approval was a condition of Saturday readiness. He acknowledged, however, that the message neither established an agreed later deadline nor supported any deposit charge.

He also conceded that he could identify no specific deduction and had no itemised record, receipt or cost document to substantiate one.

The order was placed with Kelvin’s Kwun Tong printing business. The supplied chronology records approval on Friday morning, followed by Janice asking about Saturday-noon collection. At 11:40 a.m. on Saturday, Kelvin said the invitations would not be ready by noon but could be completed later that day. Janice requested her money back.

Although the initial case overview described a request for the full HK$1,200 deposit, the formal judgment treated the hearing claim as one for an unspecified withheld portion. The denial rested on that missing calculable amount and the unresolved deadline evidence—not a finding that Kelvin had proved a lawful basis for keeping the money.