The specialist reconditioning brand Hubside.Store is well known to the public, not for its services but more for its scams. “The scam of the century“, “scandal“, “never seen such a socket“: testimonials from revolted buyers are legion on social networks. Everyone complains of having been tricked into signing a multitude of contracts extremely expensive under the advice – sometimes even pressure – from the brand’s employees.
Romane, a student from Paris, fell into the trap of the Hubside.Store store. “I was with a friend, we were walking in the streets of Paris. A man came to approach us to offer us external batteries. As he was nice, we took them, and we started chatting with himthe young woman tells usand There you go in a few seconds, I was fooled“. Narrative.
The well-established Hubside.Store scam
“The salesman took us to the Hubside.Store store, boulevard Haussmann (Paris, 75009). He really tried to make us feel comfortable. ‘Sit back and make yourself at home,’ he suggested. He gave us something to drink, and even some candy. He asked us questions about our lives and our studies. He wanted to create a close bond, by sharing his personal problems. I had sympathy for him, so I didn’t pay attention anymore. I had let my guard down. When someone starts talking to you about their life, you tell yourself that they can only have good intentions.. So when he felt that the bond of trust had been created, he came to talk to us about subscriptions.
In the store, you can find iPhones, hoverboards, and many other devices. We were then given a leaflet, made to sit down and reassured: ‘Don’t worry, there’s no commitment‘. With a simple subscription, he promised me that I could try the products for free, and we just had to bring them back the following week. Since my girlfriend was underage at the time, she couldn’t participate, but it was no problem for me. He then took a tablet to read me a sort of contract, but without really showing me. Several salespeople were talking to me at the same time, so I didn’t try too hard to read between the lines. The salesperson asked me for some information, including my RIB. He assured me that it was very easy to cancel the offers and that I had 30 days to cancel them without paying anything, unless I wanted to extend the subscription. But it was too good to be true: in the end, it all paid off.
“It only takes a little thing, it can happen to anyone”
I left the store thinking I had gotten a good deal. When I got home, I rushed to tell my mother. The celebration was short-lived. She immediately felt that there was something fishy. ‘Look at your bank account right now,’ she ordered me. In less than two hours, I already had 100 euros debited. It went really fast. I first contacted the store at Bd Haussmann, and the seller flatly denied it. I got angry immediately and I threatened to file a complaint. Oddly, his speech changed. He was trying to go my way but without admitting his deception. ‘We can look at what’s wrong together, but I don’t see anything abnormal,’ he said. He was beating around the bush and not answering clearly. As he didn’t want to do anything, I called my bank to have them completely block the direct debits coming from Hubside.Store. My parents also wrote a letter to explain the situation. This wasn’t the first time the bank had heard this story, so that was enough. And I was able to get the entire amount refunded.
I later inquired about the brand, and there I saw the improbable number of testimonials. There are so many people who have been cheated and lost a lot of money. Even now, without necessarily looking, I come across posts on social networks that talk about it. I saw that a store had closed in Lyon, but there are still plenty of others. It’s still a big problem. I was lucky, I noticed it in time, without losing any money. Thinking back on this story, I still wonder how I came to sign. Especially since normally, I am very careful. Like what, It only takes a little, it can happen to anyone. The good side of this story is that I was able to keep the battery, at least it is useful to me!“
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Hubside.Store, a regular in the courts
Indexia Group, the group of which the brand is a part, has been singled out for several years. After in particular a complaint filed by the UFC-Que Choisir in 2018, the DGCCRF had imposed on him in 2019 a record fine of 10 million euros”deceptive business practices“, thus allowing him to avoid legal proceedings. Five years later, the situation does not seem to have really changed since customer complaints are still as high as ever. Criminal proceedings are underway following a new fraud investigation. The latter indicated, in a Press release in 2022, having observed “practices consisting of making consumers falsely believe that they wish to stop their direct debits or cancel their subscriptions […] that their termination requests were taken into account and even effective“.
⋙ “I was ashamed of having been fooled”: a scam victim reveals the well-oiled scheme of an online travel agency