Smartphone retailer Hubside.Store under fire (again)

Electronics chain Hubside.Store is under fire (again): the chain seems to be doing exactly what its predecessor, Switch, was condemned for, leading to its demise.

History repeats itself

Does history keep repeating itself? Young consumers are complaining about Hubside.Store, the smartphone and computer retailer owned by the French group Indexia. This is the same group that took over Switch in 2020, shortly after which complaints were filed by consumers who had been sold expensive insurance without their consent.

Ultimately, Belgian consumer organisation Test-Achat collected hundreds of complaints and the financial markets authority banned Switch from selling insurance products on the Belgian market. Shortly afterwards, the chain disappeared completely and the French owner decided to concentrate entirely on its sister formula Hubside.Store.

In the crosshairs of the authorities

Today, complaints are also surfacing about Hubside.Store, and they sound very familiar. In radio broadcast De Inspecteur, young people testify that they were lured into a Hubside shop with the promise of a free power bank. However, they were tricked into signing up for several so-called trial contracts, but these turned out not to expire – and were difficult to cancel. A well-known practice, it appears, which the chain also uses regularly in its domestic French market.

In France, Hubside.Store has long been on the radar of the authorities for misleading commercial practices and even swindling. In Belgium too, the practices could be described as misleading, according to the FPS Economy, reports VRT Nws. Test-Achat claims to have received 40 complaints in one year. Meanwhile, the Flemish mediation service has already received 215 complaints since 2021.