Supported by consumer associations, many customers are denouncing the commercial practices of Hubside.Store, a chain of stores specializing in the sale of refurbished multimedia products.
What’s going on at Hubside.Store? On the Internet and with consumer defense associations (such as the UFC Que Choisir) reports and complaints are multiplying against this chain of commerce whose gleaming stores are now present by the hundreds in France, Belgium , Italy and Spain. Officially, and according to the multiple commercial publications that the brand is regularly bought in the media to try to improve its image, Hubside.Store “is a vast distribution network specializing in the sale of refurbished multimedia products and services to boost its purchasing power (…) which “aims to offer the best of tech, at affordable prices, in offering an eco-responsible alternative promoting reuse and the short circuit”. Either. But the testimonies left online by exasperated customers they tell a completely different story where it is rather a question “scam, fraud or abusive debits”. So many qualifiers likely to cool the ardor of the most enthusiastic Internet users.
Hubside.Store: a difficult termination
Each time, the scenario is almost identical. Customers who believe they have been cheated or abused say they were lured into a Hubside store by a salesperson inviting them to pick up a gift – a small external smartphone battery, for example. Once the customer is in the store, the Hubside.Store salespeople proceed a well-rehearsed argument where it is a question of both phone recovery and being able to afford a brand new smartphone at a lower cost. Attracted by these beautiful promises, customers then sign – sometimes in a hurry – contracts. They agree who for insurance, who for an extended warranty, who for a loyalty program (the aptly named Hubside.Reward.Club): documents from which they struggle to distinguish the financial effects, reassured as they are by “the first month free” and the possibility of “cancel within 30 days”in case the service does not suit them.
Problem, in many cases, the termination, when it proves possible, is at best an obstacle course and, in the meantime, the levies are linked to sometimes reach several hundred euros per month. This is what denounces, for example, in a recent article published in the newspaper The Parisian. Thus, Ghitta, a student at Paris-Dauphine explains “to have lost 200 euros in this story”. For Loredana, a 23-year-old caregiver, the financial loss amounted to 2,500 euros, before she could obtain reimbursement of this sum after having publicized her story with Rue89 Strasbourg.
Hubside.Store: practices in the sights of the DGCCRF
The Hubside.Store network is a subsidiary of the Indexia group, formerly known as Société française d’assurances multirisques (SFAM), a company whose head office is located in Romans-sur-Isère, in Drôme. This may be a detail for you, but for the Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (the DGCCRF), it means a lot. Because in 2018, the SFAM group, accused following an investigation by the DGCCRF of the offense of misleading commercial practices referred to in Articles L.121-2 and L.121-3 of the Consumer Code, agreed to pay a transactional fine of 10 million euros to escape to a trial. At the origin of this dispute, more than a thousand consumer complaints filed with the DGCCRF after having taken out an insurance contract without noticing it when buying a mobile phone. At the time, these insurance contracts were taken out with one of SFAM’s commercial partners, such as Orange, Cdiscount, SFR, Orange, or even Fnac-Darty, of which Sadri Fegaierthe billionaire founder of the SFAM, has been an 11.34% shareholder since February 2018. Somewhat “aggressive” commercial methods that have earned the SFAM a sulphurous reputation…
Hubside.Store: advice from UFC-Que Choisir
Today, the DGCCRF is not releasing the pressure on Indexia and its subsidiary Hubside. The DGCCRF has thus in recent days seized the Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office for having noted in particular “practices consisting in falsely leading consumers wishing to stop their direct debits or cancel their subscriptions (…) to believe that their requests for cancellation were taken into account or even effective”. The Indexia group, its leader, Sadri Fegaier, and 5 of its companies, including Hubside, will soon be tried by a criminal court. The consumer association UFC Que Choisir filed a civil action.
If you want to know more about Hubside, its business practices, the Indexia group and its insolent success, or simply if you want to defend yourself and request a refundfollowing deductions that you consider undue, the association’s website UFC What To Choose tells you how to take matters into your own hands. On the same subject, viewing a very recent survey by the magazine Correspondent on Hubside, Store and “the-secrets-of-the-youngest-billionaire-in-France”, should convince you.