Maximum sanction imposed on Rappi for consumer protection | Companies | Business

The Superintendency of Industry and Commerce imposed a fine of $ 1,755,606,000 on Rappi SAS, equivalent to two thousand legal monthly minimum wages in force, for violation of consumer protection standards that regulate the quality of service provision, minimum information, public price information, misleading advertising, the availability of correct returns, abusive clauses, legal obligations that arise during the development of distance sales and electronic commerce.

(Read: Rappi launches credit card: so you can access it).

The decision is made after verifying that Rappi acted in the Colombian market not as a contact portal, as stated during the administrative process, but as a regular provider of goods and / or services that offered, commercialized and distributed them, for profit, through the use of an electronic commerce platform.

(Applications and ‘pickers’ would have an employment relationship).

Thus, the Superintendency of Industry and Commerce, when studying the business model, was able to establish that Rappi SAS:

one. It receives income from transactions and consumer relationships that were carried out through its platform.

two. The payment that the consumer makes for the product is received by Rappi SAS through the means provided on the platform and subsequently and on a weekly basis, it distributes the values ​​obtained to commercial partners, discounting, among others, the value for use and rent of the platform, compensation for delays, incomplete or erroneous orders, as well as delays in the delivery times of the products sold.

3. It receives income for the services that it offers without the intervention of the allies, in services such as “Rappi antojo”, “Rappi cash” and “RappiPrime”.

Four. It has its own payment methods such as RappiCréditos and RappiPay.

5. The figure of the Rappitendero is prevailed to perfect the consumption relationship, because as a supplier it is in charge of not only the offering and marketing of the products, but also the delivery of them, for which it makes a platform available to said messengers called Rappitendero through which it indicates the conditions of time, mode and place for the delivery of the products to be supplied.

6. It subrogates in the patrimonial rights of the Rappitenderos, becoming a creditor of the consumers and reserves the right to revoke and cancel the orders requested by the users directly.

7. It directly attends the PQRS, upon receipt, processing and deciding on them through its customer service department.

8. It is the taxpayer of the lawsuits that are filed before the Delegation for Jurisdictional Affairs and there are antecedents in this way, which determined the responsibility of Rappi as a supplier.

9. It broadcasts its own advertising and that of its allies, which it sends to users, among other channels, through text messages.

10. It has the power to modify the public price information of the goods and / or services that are on its platform and carry out the payment reversal process.

eleven. You can unilaterally change the prices of the products. This was established in the terms and conditions in which the increase in the value of the products exhibited up to 10% was foreseen and it was also proven that it obtains a profit derived from the extra cost of the price of the same.

As a consequence of the quality of habitual supplier of goods and services through electronic commerce and evaluated the evidentiary material in the file, this Superintendency found that Rappi SAS:

• You did not indicate in a sufficient, precise and truthful way, the restrictions to access promotions and offers.

• It did not provide in a clear, sufficient, timely, accurate and truthful manner the information related to the prices displayed visually in its electronic commerce platform, nor did it guarantee the right that assisted consumers to only pay the advertised price.

• You did not sufficiently provide the information corresponding to the correct returns, since by including the return of returns in “RappiCréditos” in its business model and not in legal tender, it was obliged to sufficiently inform said provision, to effects of guaranteeing the minimum information for the adoption of reasonable and informed consumer decisions.

• It included abusive clauses that limited their liability, implied waiver of consumer rights, presumed the expression of their will and restricted or eliminated their ability to enforce the guarantees before Rappi.

• It did not inform consumers in advance in the sales transactions through remote methods, the existence of the withdrawal rights and the reversion of the payment, nor the processing of the same.

• It did not guarantee the right of reversion of payments that assisted consumers, by not making timely reimbursements within the established legal terms.

• It did not guarantee the right of consumers to receive quality products and services, finding proven failures in the provision of after-sales services, such as: i) delays in the delivery of orders, ii) cancellation of products, iii ) non-application of coupons, iv) non-refund of money, v) omission in loading the RappiCréditos, vi) non-delivery of products, vii) delivery of products other than those requested or in poor condition, viii) unjustified charges, among others .

BREACH OF ORDERS

Likewise, This Superintendency through Resolution 65397 of October 16, 2020, sanctioned Rappi SAS, for non-compliance with five (5) of the seven (7) orders issued last August 2019, aimed at informing the origin of the right to withdrawal and reversal of payment, PQRS reception mechanisms were available that would allow the monitoring of them, the contractual provisions of the terms and conditions were adjusted, the total price of the products was reported including all additional costs without their modification being possible and established in the agreements with the allies the intervention of each one against the effectiveness of the guarantee.

For the above, This Superintendency, in addition to declaring the breach and consequently imposing the sanction, granted the investigated party a new term of thirty (30) business days counted from the notification of the sanctioning act to prove full compliance with the foregoing, so penalty of initiating a new administrative sanctioning procedure against him.

The remedies for reconsideration and appeal proceed against administrative sanctioning acts.