UAH 95,000 Recovered from an Instagram Seller Who Failed to Deliver a Dog to Israel and Refused to Return the Money

A pre-trial demand, a lawsuit, a dismissal at first instance, and an appeal: the path that ended with the client recovering every hryvnia she had paid, plus her legal fees.

Overview

A client of Disputes Law Firm, who permanently resides in Israel, purchased a puppy from a private seller she found through Instagram and paid UAH 67,912.48 in advance covering the animal itself, medical tests, vaccinations, and delivery. The dog was never handed over, and the money was never returned. No written contract existed between the parties: the offer was published on a website and on social media, the terms were agreed in a messenger app, and payment was made by bank transfers that carried no stated purpose.

The court of first instance dismissed the claim, reasoning that without a written contract there was no obligation, and additionally ordered the client to pay the defendant's legal fees. The Dnipro Court of Appeal reversed that judgment in full: the oral contract was terminated, and the seller was ordered to pay UAH 67,912.48 in advance payments, UAH 4,844.80 in court fees for both instances, and UAH 22,000 in legal fees — UAH 94,757.28 in total. The client recovered the entire amount through enforcement proceedings.

Background

In May 2024, the client came across an Instagram page advertising the sale of pedigree dogs and convenient delivery arrangements to countries worldwide. The profile featured a large number of animal photographs and positive reviews, and its "Links" section pointed to a website with detailed dog descriptions, purchase terms, and delivery conditions. The client selected a purebred four-month-old Pomeranian priced at EUR 2,500. Because she permanently resides in Israel, delivery to that specific country was the decisive condition — and the seller publicly advertised exactly that service, confirming in correspondence dated 11 May 2024 that delivery to Israel was possible.

On 15 May 2024 the parties agreed all terms through a messenger app: the price of EUR 2,500 excluding delivery, vaccinations, and logistics; an advance payment of UAH 21,800, equivalent to EUR 500; reimbursement of UAH 10,850 for the medical tests and vaccinations required for entry into Israel; EUR 800 for air delivery from the Republic of Moldova to Israel plus ground transport to Moldova and back; and the remaining EUR 2,000 payable at the moment the animal was handed directly to the buyer. The client made the first payment that same day, and the seller confirmed receipt in writing.

Between May and July 2024 the client made three transfers in total: UAH 10,850 for medical tests and vaccinations, UAH 21,800 as an advance payment for the dog, and EUR 800 for delivery. Converted at the National Bank of Ukraine rate applicable on the date of the final payment, the aggregate came to UAH 67,912.48.

Delivery had been scheduled for June 2024. After receiving the money, however, the seller informed the client that the law had supposedly changed and that dogs could now be taken out of Ukraine only once they reached seven months of age. No such provision existed in any applicable legislation, and nothing of the kind had been mentioned when the contract was concluded. The client agreed to wait, and the parties set a new delivery date of 01 August 2024.

Delivery did not take place on 01 August 2024 either. The seller then unilaterally proposed changing the terms and handing the animal over in a third country, the Republic of Cyprus. That condition was unworkable for the client: the pet import rules of Israel, established by the veterinary regulations of the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture, require proof that the animal has been in the owner's possession for at least 90 days before entry. Taking possession of the dog in Cyprus would have made bringing it into Israel impossible.

Two deadlines missed, a justification that existed nowhere in the law, and an alternative that defeated the very purpose of the contract. As of August 2024 the obligation remained unperformed, no acceptable delivery terms had been proposed, and the money remained with the seller. At that point the client turned to Disputes Law Firm.

Legal Position and Steps Taken

The Pre-Trial Demand

The engagement agreement was signed on 09 August 2024, and by 14 August 2024 Attorney Dmytro Chuguienko had sent the seller a formal pre-trial demand via WhatsApp — the same channel through which every negotiation about the purchase had taken place. That choice mattered in its own right: it placed the demand in precisely the environment where the seller had previously set the terms and acknowledged receipt of the funds.

The legal position rested on the provisions of the Civil Code of Ukraine governing the form of transactions, the essential terms of a contract, the seller's obligations, and the consequences of breach, together with Article 11 of the Law of Ukraine "On Electronic Commerce," which provides that a contract may be concluded through an exchange of electronic messages between the parties or by accepting an offer made through a website, email, or other electronic means of communication.

The demands were specific: terminate the oral sales contract of 15 May 2024 and return the funds within seven days of receipt. Receipts for all three payments and a printout of the WhatsApp correspondence were attached. The evidentiary foundation on which the entire case would later rest was assembled and served on the seller before any court was involved. The demand went unanswered on the merits and unsatisfied.

The Claim and the Judgment at First Instance

In October 2024 a claim for termination of the sales contract and recovery of the advance payment was filed with the Dovhyntsivskyi District Court of Kryvyi Rih, Dnipropetrovsk Region.

The defendant denied that any agreement had ever existed. In her response she argued that neither an oral nor a written contract had been concluded, and that the exchange of 15 May 2024 had been nothing more than a discussion of the sale and delivery arrangements. The payment records, on her account, contained no stated purpose, making it impossible to establish any basis for the transfers. At the same time, she explained her failure to deliver by pointing to force majeure — the cancellation of flights to Israel amid the threat of war — and asserted that she had cared for the dog for three months, prepared its export documents, and completed all tests and vaccinations. She also sought UAH 20,000 from the client for her own legal fees.

That position is internally contradictory: a party cannot simultaneously owe no obligation and invoke the impossibility of performing it. Nevertheless, on 03 December 2025 the court of first instance dismissed the claim in full. It held that no written sales contract had been concluded, and that a general oral understanding together with records of money transfers did not establish any contractual obligation on the defendant's part; in the court's view, the claimant had failed to prove agreement on all essential terms — subject matter, price, and time for performance. The client was further ordered to pay UAH 9,000 toward the defendant's legal fees.

Formally, the matter could have ended there. The amount in dispute was comparatively modest, and an appeal meant a fresh court fee, further work, and the risk of having the loss confirmed. The judgment was appealed because the error at first instance was one of law rather than of assessment: the court had equated the absence of a single signed document with the absence of a contract altogether.

The Appeal: The Legal Mechanism

Article 218 of the Civil Code of Ukraine expressly provides that a failure to observe the written form prescribed by law does not render a transaction invalid, except in cases specified by law. In its judgment of 29 June 2021 in case No. 910/23097/17, the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court clarified that non-compliance with the written form indicates neither invalidity nor non-conclusion of a transaction; its sole general consequence is a restriction on the evidence admissible where one party disputes that the transaction took place. Written evidence, audio and video recordings, and other evidence remain admissible; only witness testimony is excluded.

The mechanism by which this contract was formed turned on three successive provisions. Under Article 641 of the Civil Code of Ukraine, an offer to conclude a contract includes documents or information published in open access on the internet that contain the essential terms of the contract and propose to conclude it on those terms with anyone who responds. The website and the Instagram page, with their descriptions of the animals, prices, and delivery conditions, constituted precisely such information, and the personal correspondence gave those terms concrete form. Under Article 642(2) of the Civil Code of Ukraine, where a person who has received an offer performs, within the time allowed for a reply, an act consistent with the terms of that offer — including payment of the corresponding sum — that act constitutes acceptance. The client's payments therefore amounted to acceptance by conduct.

A separate ground of appeal was the first-instance court's failure to examine the correspondence between the parties or to assess it in law. In its judgment of 21 June 2023 in case No. 916/3027/21, the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court established that where correspondence makes it possible to identify the participants and may substantiate the parties' arguments as to the existence of a relationship between them, a court may admit that correspondence as evidence and weigh it together with the other evidence in the case. In its judgments of 13 July 2020 in case No. 753/10840/19 and 18 February 2021 in case No. 442/3516/20, the Supreme Court recognised message screenshots and messenger printouts as relevant and admissible evidence.

It also mattered that the defendant never disputed that the correspondence had taken place — she disputed only its legal characterisation. The appeal further relied on the Supreme Court's judgment of 20 March 2024 in case No. 752/16778/22 on the allocation of the burden of proof: once a buyer has produced a payment document, it falls to the seller to rebut the buyer's account and to establish that some different legal relationship existed between them.

Outcome

On 28 April 2026 the Dnipro Court of Appeal allowed the appeal in full, reversed the first-instance judgment, and delivered a new decision. The panel found that the printed correspondence — in which the seller stated the price, specified the vaccinations required, and confirmed her readiness to deliver the dog to Israel — constituted an offer by its very nature, and that the buyer's payments constituted acceptance. The court enumerated every essential term the parties had agreed: subject matter, parties, price and payment dates, time for performance, and the point at which performance would be complete.

The court rejected the argument that the payments lacked a stated purpose, holding that it was disproved by the correspondence itself, in which the defendant specified the amounts and what each was for, and to which the buyer replied with payment receipts sent through the same messenger. The defendant offered no alternative explanation for why she had received the money.

The Court of Appeal terminated the oral sales contract of 15 May 2024 and ordered the defendant to pay UAH 67,912.48, UAH 4,844.80 in court fees for proceedings at both instances, and UAH 10,000 in legal fees for the first instance. By a supplementary judgment of 12 May 2026, a further UAH 12,000 in legal fees for the appellate proceedings was awarded. The total recovery came to UAH 94,757.28.

The money was not paid voluntarily, so the judgments had to be enforced. On the client's application, a private enforcement officer opened enforcement proceedings and took measures aimed at securing actual recovery: an attachment was placed on all of the debtor's movable property and on the funds in her bank accounts. Attaching bank funds is usually the fastest instrument available, but its effectiveness depends entirely on what the accounts hold, so the enforcement officer simultaneously investigated the debtor's assets through the state registers.

Within a month of the opening of enforcement proceedings, a vehicle registered to the debtor was placed on the wanted list. Placing a vehicle on the wanted list means that its details are entered into the relevant information systems and that the vehicle becomes subject to location, seizure, and subsequent sale toward satisfaction of the debt. The debtor paid the entire outstanding amount the very next day.

Two years of denying that any contract had ever existed ended in voluntary payment within twenty-four hours of enforcement reaching a specific asset. The client received every sum awarded to her in full.

Conclusion

This case demonstrates that a contract which never existed on paper at any stage is a fully binding obligation. The offer was published on social media and on a website, the essential terms were agreed in a messenger app, acceptance took the form of a bank transfer, and the purpose of the payments was established not from the payment records but from correspondence in which the seller herself named the amounts and what each was for. The absence of a signed document narrows the range of admissible evidence; it does not extinguish the contract or the duties arising from it. The defendant's position — denying that a contract existed while invoking the impossibility of performing it — became an argument in the client's favour in its own right: a party who had received money could offer no alternative account of why she had received it.

In practical terms, the decisive stage came after the dismissal at first instance. Losing a case where the amount in dispute is modest, and where the court additionally saddles the client with the opposing party's legal fees, naturally pushes toward giving up. The client was sceptical about filing an appeal, and understandably so: two years of litigation had produced nothing, and a new instance meant another court fee and the risk that the loss would simply be confirmed. We pressed for the appeal because we were convinced the first-instance judgment was wrong — the court had given no legal assessment to the parties' correspondence and had equated the absence of a single signed document with the absence of a contract, an error in the application of substantive law that belonged precisely in appellate review. The Court of Appeal confirmed that position in full.

It is worth bearing in mind, separately, that a judgment does not by itself return anyone's money — actual recovery comes through enforcement, and in this case the debtor settled only once enforcement reached property she owned. For anyone entering into a transaction through social media or a messenger app, one straightforward rule follows: preserve in full the correspondence in which the seller names the price, the deadlines, and the purpose of each payment, and send payment receipts through the same channel used for the negotiations. That body of evidence is what takes the place of a signed contract.