2024-04-11 12:40:42
The showdown will take place before the courts. Fnac Darty confirmed on Thursday legal proceedings against its former partner, Sfam (Indexia), which sold insurance for telephones and multimedia products between 2017 and 2019 in the group’s stores. The company is facing criminal charges for deceptive commercial practices.
“We filed a complaint,” said Thursday on BFM Business Enrique Martinez, general manager of the distributor, many of whose customers complain of having been unduly taken sums which have sometimes reached several thousand euros in a few years. A Facebook group “Mutual aid for victims” from Sfam in particular is still active today, followed by some 5,800 people.
“We helped them”
While they had not subscribed to any changes to their contract, customers who had, for example, taken out insurance of around 15 euros per month for their telephone, with Sfam, saw deductions from several subsidiaries of the Indexia group (Foriou, Serena, Hubside) multiply. “Customers who had this type of contract abusively, we helped them,” assured Enrique Martinez, confirming information from the media l’Informed.
“After numerous alerts and reminders addressed to the Indexia group, the company Fnac Darty Participations et services took the company Sfam before the Paris commercial court in January 2023 in order to force it to process customer complaints, by means of a penalty,” the group told AFP. The court has several times ordered Sfam to communicate documents, in particular “summary tables of the progress of processing customer complaints”, according to a February decision consulted by the press agency. “The procedure is still in progress,” added Fnac Darty.
In 2018, the boss of Indexia, Sadri Fegaier, discreetly purchased 11.35% of Fnac-Darty for 335 million euros. In debt, the group had to sell its shares last October which served as guarantee for a loan. The end of the Fnac/Sfam partnership came after the General Directorate for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) opened an investigation in 2018, which resulted in a criminal settlement of 10 million euros. .
A second investigation was opened immediately. Indexia will this time be judged at the end of September for deceptive commercial practices before the Paris Criminal Court. Indexia and Fnac Darty have also been sued in civil proceedings by around 400 consumers. The first hearing will take place on September 12 in Paris, according to their lawyer Emma Leoty, who hopes to obtain reimbursement from her clients.
Internal social crisis
Sfam has been singled out on numerous occasions in recent years, and has no longer been able to market insurance products since April 2023. Procedures are also underway with the DGCCRF (Directorate General for Competition, Consumption and Protection). the repression of fraud). Furthermore, other companies bought by Indexia, such as Info Presse and the Hubside stores, have also been accused of undue deductions.
The situation is also tense internally at Indexia: dozens of employees and former employees of the group in Romans-sur-Isère in Ardèche, where the company’s headquarters are located, are demanding late payments. Guest Wednesday on France Bleu, the city’s various right-wing mayor Marie-Hélène Thoraval said she was “very disappointed” with the company. “I ask that the contracts signed with these employees be honored with the employees,” she insisted. As for customers, “if they have been harmed, they must be compensated,” she added.
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