Steve Dunne

I I purchased a laptop from FNAC in Barcelona and the attendant insisted I take a one-month Hubside and Celside trial (different branches of the same company), which I could cancel at any time within the first month. More to shut him up than through any desire to use either service (I’m still not sure what they even offer) I relented and signed up, safe in the knowledge that I could cancel it a few days later.
A few days before the end of the first month, I tried to contact both Hubside and Celside to cancel via phone, but over the course of 3 days of trying no one ever answered. I saw that the only other way to cancel was to send a letter by post (which year are we living in here?) to Paris. There wasn’t time for it to arrive before the end of the free monthly trial, so I wrote a strongly worded letter to FNAC and, fortunately, they apologised cancelled the Celside contract. However, they couldn’t do anything about Hubside.
I continued calling and a few days after the expiration of the free trial someone finally picked up, by which time they had already removed more than one payment from my account. I explained the situation and said that I never consented to this. The girl who attended me was very understanding but said that since the free trial had expired she couldn’t cancel the contract. I would have to see out the year. What she could do, however, was put me on a lower tariff (5.99 per month, rather than 10.99) and guaranteed me that upon the expiration of this 12 month contract (in March 2022) I would be free from this – let’s be honest – scam and that she could put a note on my account to guarantee that there would be no automatic renewal or anything of the sort upon expiration.
I received confirmation of the new contact via email and then left it there.
At the end of last year 2022 I discovered that not only did they continue charging me beyond the expiration of this 12 month contract (which, as I mentioned, should have ended in March 2022), but that since December 2022 they have tried take to out 49.99 euros via direct debit from my account on no less than 4 occasions! 2 of these transactions occurred in consecutive days before I realised what was going on.
I blocked the transactions and wrote to the customer service team explaining the situation and demanding they cease this activity some weeks ago. I also requested they reimburse me for the money that had taken since March 2022. I am yet to receive a response but today I saw that they have tried to snatch a further 49.99 euros from my account.
At what point does a lie become a scam, and at what point does a scam just become outright theft?
This is a despicable company and no amount of purchased positive reviews should convince you otherwise. FNAC have already ceased working with them due to the high volume of customer complaints, a number of news articles have emerged regarding their nefarious practices and they have been fined in France for the same reason.
Keep well away.