Émilie Vergne, a lawyer specializing in consumer law, gives her advice on how to avoid being abused by unscrupulous salespeople and warns about “long and sometimes fruitless” legal proceedings.
What advice would you give to older people to protect themselves from potential abuse from salespeople?
EMILIE VERGNE. These ill-intentioned spirits take advantage of the ignorance of some of our elders and their isolation to infuse their discourse. It is therefore necessary at all costs to speak about it, to his family or to a trusted third party. As soon as work or subscriptions are offered, do not hesitate to ask the opinion of insiders in your entourage to find out if it is a good idea or not. We must not forget the existence of a right of withdrawal that anyone is entitled to assert. This is the first lever, very effective if it is activated in time, 14 days after signing a contract at home or by telephone.
Sometimes they are very isolated and have no close entourage to advise them…
Yes, in this case the person must be extremely vigilant. If a salesperson is too pushy, starts to pressurize, or uses biased arguments, dismiss them immediately. More generally, it is better to agree to talk to them on the phone or to receive them at home only when there are people around you. Otherwise, you must look carefully at the documents, ask for time to reflect, do not sign immediately or risk falling into the trap, and ask each time for the identity and company of your interlocutor.
What to do if the entourage or the person themselves realizes the abuse too late?
You can seek an amicable solution, with the company, to try to find common ground. Often, this does not work and it is therefore necessary to initiate legal proceedings, for abuse of weakness or fraud. But they can be long and fruitless. Abuse of weakness is very difficult to characterize before the courts. Moreover, many companies will scour a region before disappearing: they become difficult to attack. As for families, there are protective measures, depending on the degree of weakening of the person, to prevent them from falling into an abyss. Curatorship is a good example and can be effective. This is a sensitive subject that deserves to be discussed upstream.