After about 5 years of operation, consumer mediation is still struggling to make itself known.

While it allows some disputes to be resolved outside the courts, it is in fact still "underused", said the Commission for the evaluation and control of consumer mediation (CECMC) on Monday in a report.

Entered into force in 2016, the system obliges all consumer sectors to offer free mediation to their customers in the event of disagreement.

In 2020, the CECMC nonetheless recorded nearly 170,000 requests for the settlement of disputes, an increase of 60% compared to 2017, the first full year of implementation of the system.

Difficult to find the contact of the mediator

“We can draw a positive assessment” of the measure, judged during the presentation of the report Marc El Nouchi, president of the CECMC. “But it is a device that is still underutilized compared to its potential”. According to him, the existence of consumer mediation is not sufficiently known to consumers, and it is sometimes too difficult for them to access. "It is already difficult to find the contact details of a company, but finding the contact details of the mediator in the general conditions of sale is even more difficult".

Another problem: if there are already 91 mediators for almost all economic sectors, some small businesses are not yet covered by the device, for example bakers and pastry chefs, or dyers.

"Either they are not aware of this legal obligation, or they consider that they are not made for" that, analyzed Marc El Nouchi, who asks for the creation of a transversal entity of mediation for these companies.

Applications often deemed inadmissible

In total, in 2020, 156,300 mediation requests were effectively processed.

Of these, more than half (52.8%) were deemed inadmissible, mainly because the consumer had not previously entered customer service in writing.

Of the requests deemed admissible, 85.8% were completed, and the mediator's proposals were accepted in three out of five cases.

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