Sonia Casado (Avilés, Asturias) gave her husband a voucher from an Ideal aesthetic clinic, but at the first appointment she found that the establishment was not open. After a quick check on the internet, thinking there was an error in the schedule, they found that the company had closed. “My husband has been left without a Christmas gift and with a judicial process to claim the money.” The same story is repeated in Seville: “I found out because my daughter went to an appointment on January 3 and she found the doors closed. […] They didn't answer the phone either and we didn't receive any notice,” explains Esperanza Guerra, who is still paying a bond in the amount of 1,500 euros for herself and her daughter.
The end consumer is usually always the weakest creditor when a company plans to close abruptly. And Guerra deepens this intuition: “They have not given us deadlines, but we know from other examples that we have seen that the return of the money usually takes time.” Burofax, bankruptcy, class actions… Casado explains that he has been immersing himself in that legal vocabulary since he knew that he had to claim the money. The groups of affected people have been creating communities on some social networks and on WhatsApp, where they express their doubts and keep the information updated.
Ideal Centers definitively closed the shutter last December, leaving unfinished many treatments already paid for or financed through small loans that some affected people continue to pay. In addition, the closure leaves 600 jobs in the air that were distributed in the different companies of the group (Centros Ideal, Idealiño, Teambeauty SL, Artaco, Salud y Belleza SL, Dibea Estetic, CA Estética SL and Centros de Depilación Láser Ideal SL , among other).
The company Centros de Depilación Láser Ideal was 100% owned by Dibea Grupo Cristina Álvarez, the group's parent company. In the latest accounts deposited in the Madrid Commercial Registry – 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 they have been going through since the pandemic and “very especially” to the “restriction of bank credit.”
The Ideal Centers model included both its own and franchised centers, although after the pandemic hit the group increased its commitment to the former, as explained to EL PAÍS in 2022, to try to recover its turnover. In 2019, its total turnover, including franchisees, was around 50 million euros, but in 2021 it had been reduced to 31.3 million.
The problem for users arises when the closure affects services that have already been paid for and have not been enjoyed. “It is crucial to keep in mind that, if the services were financed through consumer credit provided by the beauty center itself, they have the right to suspension of payments,” they explain from the Association of Users of Banks, Savings Banks and Insurance (Adicae). . In this process he finds himself Casado: “Now I have to file a complaint with the police and I have sent a certified letter to the company itself to ask for the return of the part I paid in cash.” In addition, he says, he is trying to stop the monthly payments, since he had financed part of the treatment with Cofidis.
The case of Centros Ideal is not the only one and there are other precedents in Spain such as that of the Dentix dental clinics in 2020 or iDental in 2018. In both, the closure also occurred overnight and left many clients without treatments and with his money trapped in a long judicial process.
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 Law for the Defense of Consumers, so that any business that opens to the public has the obligation to take out civil liability insurance against the risk of closure. […] If this mandatory insurance existed, when a clinic like this closes, consumers could claim refunds from the insurance,” explains Rubén Sánchez. Furthermore, he points out, “if a company closes with an argument of alleged bankruptcy, it will go to bankruptcy proceedings and here consumers are not exactly the first to collect.”
Different options
Both experts and consumer associations advise exhausting extrajudicial claims—even if you do not receive a response from the company—before initiating criminal proceedings and always keeping all documents. Eva Rodríguez (Gijón, Asturias) says that she financed a treatment worth 1,200 euros and paid another in cash for 300 euros. “I haven't had any problems with the financial department, because they are going to relocate me to another center, but I don't have a receipt for what was paid in cash.” It's money, she says, that she considers lost.
“It is very common that in cases of sudden company closures, they end up declaring themselves in a situation of bankruptcy,” explains Leticia Grande, lawyer for Reclamadores.es. In fact, throughout 2022 these procedures grew by 26% in Spain and affected 9,189 companies, according to the latest available data published by the General College of Economists. Once this phase begins, explains Grande, it is published in the Official State Gazette with a period of one month so that creditor persons or entities can claim. “In this way, all those affected will be able to appear and defend their rights and interests.” Although he insists, each case is different and it is advisable to consult a specialist. “The case of a person who is owed 50 euros cannot be the same as another who is owed 1,000 euros or has a linked credit. You have to analyze the damage and the possibilities of each person before getting into a judicial procedure,” he concludes.
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