Paris (AFP)

Particularly vigilant on the prices of masks and hydroalcoholic gels during the health crisis, the DGCCRF said on Monday that it had carried out 41,600 checks and tracked down scams for "miracle" anti-Covid-19 products.

From April, the General Directorate for Competition, Consumption and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) worked in collaboration with customs, the gendarmerie and financial and fiscal controllers, in a national "task force" against fraud and coronavirus scams.

"There were twelve + withdrawal-recall + hydroalcoholic gels and we found batches of non-compliant masks as part of the + task force + which gave rise to withdrawals from the market or marketing bans," explained the director of the DGCCRF, Virginie Beaumeunier, during a press conference.

Some hydroalcoholic gels contained, for example, an insufficient dose of alcohol for satisfactory disinfection. Agents have also been trained in internet checks to identify "scams, such as fake disinfectant lamps, fake sterilizers, fake food supplements", detailed Virginie Beaumeunier.

"In the coming months, the DGCCRF will be particularly vigilant on payment deadlines, which are likely to lead to chain bankruptcies", for his part assured the Minister for SMEs, Alain Griset, adding that "exemplary sanctions" will be applied to bad payers who have benefited from state aid.

In 2019, some 22 million euros in fines for non-compliance with payment deadlines were imposed on 209 companies, according to the annual report of the DGCCRF published on Monday. By targeting "everyday fraudsters", the management checked nearly 100,000 establishments and 15,000 websites and registered more than 55,000 consumer complaints.

- "name and shame" -

Last year was marked by "the growing importance of control needs to support the ecological transition and the fight against everyday frauds", explained the director of fraud repression, in the preamble to the report.

These "daily" crooks are inventive: hidden subscription subscription, abuse of weakness in home repair, fake administrative sites and above all abusive canvassing.

To respond to this, the DGCCRF has stepped up checks by targeting principals, tripled the amount of fines and developed the "name and shame".

The energy renovation of housing has been the subject of special attention by its 3,000 agents because "the development of offers + insulation at 1 euro + has unfortunately been accompanied by fraud, based on massive and aggressive telephone canvassing campaigns ", added Ms. Beaumeunier.

In October 2019, the French energy giant Engie was fined 892,500 euros for abusive canvassing.

In addition, 2019 was marked by the development of controls linked to the implementation of the EGAlim law (or "Food law"), but also by the conviction in September of Amazon by the Paris commercial court. : the American online commerce giant must modify within six months, and under penalty, several clauses of the general conditions of use of its "marketplace" and pay a fine of 4 million euros for its commercial practices.

Another sizeable sanction: that of the telephone operator SFR to the tune of 3.7 million euros, in November 2019, for repeated breaches of legal payment deadlines.

In total, the DGCCRF recorded, in 2019, 55,912 consumer complaints (-13% over one year), a decrease which is "in line with the trend observed for ten years" according to its report.

The "Signal Conso" application, tested in three regions in 2019 and generalized in early 2020, received 22,000 reports from consumers witnessing a malfunction.

Another investment in digital technology: the DGCCRF plans to use artificial intelligence in its investigations, in particular to look for unfair terms in contracts or to detect false consumer reviews on a website, always with the aim of better targeting and to be more efficient in controls.

© 2020 AFP