LDLC condemned for “deceptive commercial practices” on its 5-year warranty

For a few months now, the LDLC store chain has been offering a five-year warranty on all smartphones, computers, televisions and PC monitors sold on its site… Well, almost. Technically, the brand actually offers a free three-year commercial guarantee which is in addition to the two-year legal guarantee of conformity. An important distinction for justice.

Indeed, the Consumption Housing Framework of Life association (CLCV) filed a complaint against the company for deceptive marketing practices relating to the presentation of its guarantee offer. A complaint which earned the company a formal condemnation.

A geographically located conviction

At the heart of the problem, an advertisement broadcast for a few days in two metro stations in Paris and which in fact promised five years of warranty for some of the devices sold by the site. If a small asterisk clearly indicated the dual nature of this guarantee (legal + commercial), the courts considered that the presentation was not clear and readable enough for users of public transport. “The difficulty with this poster is that we could not clearly differentiate between the commercial guarantee and the legal guarantee“, estimates Olivier Gayraud, lawyer with the CLCV. “However, the consumer code says that we must be able to differentiate between a legal obligation and a commercial advantage.“.

Particularity of the conviction, the framework in which this conviction was broadcast was taken into account. As LDLC wishes to remind us, the company was only condemned on one point: the fact that the legal notices of this double guarantee were written in a font too small to be read by a metro user. “If the asterisk was visible to an attentive consumer, the footnotes were not“, notes the Paris judicial court. Passing quickly on a train, it is impossible to grasp all the nuances of the offer and especially the fact that the two-year legal guarantee is an obligation and not a commercial advantage. An interpretation confirmed by Olivier Gayraud. “It is the context of the metro that it aggravates, it is a problem of places“, points out the manager.

2 + 3 = 5

If “the three-year commercial warranty offered by Groupe LDLC is free“reminds the company, it cannot be cast in the same mold as the legal guarantee of conformity.”There is an information problem“, regrets Olivier Gayraud. “The commercial guarantee is optional and is not regulated. A commercial guarantee means nothing as such“

Unlike the legal guarantee which establishes a very precise framework of support, the conditions of application of an additional commercial guarantee (free or not) are entirely left to the responsibility of the reseller who offers it. “When you announce a big commercial promise which in fact contains legal obligations, it guides the choice in a way that is not necessarily informed.“, adds the CLCV, which points out that “the information on guarantees really needs to be improved in general“.

Since then, LDLC has corrected the situation with a much more explicit poster campaign in the corridors of the Paris metro. The idea is always to highlight the free commercial guarantee, but “to the extent that this presentation is lawful“don’t forget to specify the company.”When this type of action results in correcting this type of deficiency, we welcome it.“, concludes Olivier Gayraud.