Sonia Casado (Avilés, Asturias) gave her husband a voucher to an Ideal aesthetic clinic, but discovered at the first appointment that the facility was not open. After a quick internet search, they concluded it was a scheduling error and discovered the company had closed. “My husband didn't have a Christmas present and had to start legal proceedings to claim the money.” The same story repeats itself in Seville: “I found out because my daughter went to an appointment on January 3rd and found that the doors were closed were. […] “They didn’t answer the phone and we didn’t receive a message,” explains Esperanza Guerra, who is still paying a deposit of 1,500 euros for herself and her daughter.
The end consumer is usually always the weakest creditor when a company plans an abrupt closure. And Guerra expands on this intuition: “They didn't give us any deadlines, but we know from other examples that we've seen that returning the money usually takes time.” Burofax, bankruptcy, class actions… Casado explains that he is immersed himself in this legal vocabulary since he knew he had to claim the money. The affected groups have set up communities on some social networks and WhatsApp in which they express their doubts and keep the information up to date.
Ideal Centers closed shop permanently last December and has not yet completed many treatments that have already been paid for or financed through small loans that some sufferers continue to pay. In addition, the closure leaves 600 jobs in limbo, distributed among the group's various companies (Centros Ideal, Idealiño, Teambeauty SL, Artaco, Salud y Belleza SL, Dibea Estetic, CA Estética SL and Centros de Depilación Láser Ideal SL ). , among other things).
Centros de Depilación Láser Ideal was 100% owned by Dibea Grupo Cristina Álvarez, the parent company of the group. In the last financial statements filed in the Madrid commercial register – both from 2021 – the subsidiary recorded a negative result of just over 500,000 euros and the parent company lost around 230,000 euros. In a statement published on its website, the company explains that the closure is due to the economic difficulties it has experienced since the pandemic and “most particularly” due to the “limitation of bank loans”.
The Ideal Centers model included both owned and franchise centers, although after the outbreak of the pandemic, the group increased its commitment to the former, as EL PAÍS explained in 2022, to try to recover its sales. While total sales including franchisees were around 50 million euros in 2019, they fell to 31.3 million in 2021.
The problem for users arises when the closure affects services that have already been paid for and not used. “It is important to remember that if the services were financed by consumer loans provided by the beauty center itself, they have the right to stop paying,” they explain from the Association of Users of Banks, Savings Banks and Insurance Companies (Adicae). . Casado is in this process: “Now I have to file a police report and I have sent a certified letter to the company itself asking them to pay back the part I paid in cash.” He is also trying to make the monthly payments to stop because he had financed part of the treatment with Cofidis.
The case of Centros Ideal is not the only one, and there are also other precedents in Spain, such as that of the Dentix dental clinics in 2020 or iDental in 2018. In both cases, the closure also occurred overnight, leaving many customers without treatments and trapped in a long court case with their money back.
From Facua they insist on the “lack of protection” of consumers in these processes. “We have been waiting since 1984 for the development of the General Consumer Protection Law, so that every business open to the public is obliged to take out liability insurance against the risk of closure.” […] If this compulsory insurance existed, consumers would be able to request reimbursements from the insurance company if such a clinic were closed,” explains Rubén Sánchez. Furthermore, he points out: “If a company closes with the argument of alleged insolvency, it will open bankruptcy proceedings, and here consumers are not exactly the first to collect money.”
Different options
Both experts and consumer associations recommend exhausting out-of-court claims before initiating criminal proceedings – even if you do not receive a response from the company – and always keeping all documents. Eva Rodríguez (Gijón, Asturias) says she financed a treatment worth 1,200 euros and paid another in cash for 300 euros. “I had no problems with the finance department because they will transfer me to another center, but I don't have a receipt for the cash payment.” It is money, he says, that he considers lost.
“It is very common for companies to declare bankruptcy due to sudden closures,” explains Leticia Grande, lawyer at Reclamadores.es. In fact, these procedures increased by 26% in Spain during 2022, affecting 9,189 companies, according to the latest available data from the General College of Economists. Once this phase begins, Grande explains, it will be published in the State Gazette with a month's notice so that creditors, natural or legal, can assert their claims. “In this way, all those affected can appear and represent their rights and interests.” Although he emphasizes that every case is different and it is advisable to consult a specialist. “The case of a person who owes 50 euros cannot be the same as that of a person who owes 1,000 euros or has an associated loan.” We must analyze the damage and possibilities of each person before initiating legal proceedings,” he concludes.
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