Bought Some Furniture From Someone, And They Won’t Refund The Money

Location: Alabama

A lady was selling furniture from her house and wanted people to make an offer. My mom offered her $2000 for two sofas and she accepted. Her listing stated that they would be available after 9/30. We went to see the sofas, my mom liked them and paid cash. The lady said she would like to hold onto them through the end of October because their house was for sale.

During October, my family had a sudden death and my parents have been taking care of my step-dad’s mom. So, my mom did not reach out about the couches.

After Christmas, my mom asked me ( I know the lady) to see if she would consider a refund because my mom didn’t know when she could plan to get the couches. She said she was very sorry, but couldn’t plan it at the time.

Two weeks go by and no response.

I reached out to the lady again to see if she had considered the refund.

She responded back how appalled that this was asked of her. She said that she told us how heavy the couches were, that her life had been hard to, a furniture store would not refund the money or would have held the couches that long. She said we used her as a storage. She said she had to remeasure, relist and RESOLD the sofas(there is a screenshot in our messages with the measurements of the sofas). She felt she was owed a part of the money. She wanted us to come up with a number of how much her time was worth.

I messaged her back my mom’s response (that she was very sorry for the trouble and inconvenience and to please accept $200 and refund the rest). She is ignoring my message.

Her house is still for sale. She is still selling furniture from her old house.

What to do??