The service voucher sector is particularly regulated in Belgium. Its price is fixed throughout the country, and it is normally not allowed to do anything. Caroline, who contacted us via the orange Alert us button, is nevertheless surprised to learn that she will soon have to pay 2 euros more per service voucher. Is this increase allowed?
Caroline, an accounting worker and mother of two young children, regularly uses a title agency service to lighten her household chores. Back problems make activities like ironing difficult. Home Clean Service suited him perfectly: “The ladies are really very nice, they do their best, they work very well, they try to go as fast as possible, I’m really very satisfied“ she confides to us.
However, Caroline is now thinking of changing service: she has received a document “where we were warned that from 1is March, for each hour, so for each service voucher, there would be a supplement of 2 euros. That’s almost a 25% increase. It is obviously not deductible, it goes directly to Home Clean Service“.
What does Home Clean Service management say?
“I have postponed the date of introduction of this supplement as much as possible, aiming more at the level of the ironing centers to promote local contact, the employment of locals, to play a social role… But I nevertheless have to ensure a balanced budget. The ironing activity alone cannot cost the company and represent a loss” writes the director of Home Clean Service in the famous letter given to users. According to her, “this complement is now inevitable“.
This increase of two euros is badly experienced by Caroline: “The company justifies this with the cost of equipment, the price of premises and the price of electricity. But the increase in the price of energy is for everyone! So I think it’s not right” she tells us. “I don’t think it’s entirely justified to make the user pay the costs that are their responsibility, when it’s more uphill than it should go, asking for help or whatever. I don’t think it’s up to the user to pay any additional charges“.
What does the law provide?
In reality, the price of the service voucher has not increased in itself. It still costs 9 euros, like everywhere in Belgium, it’s in the law. This price concerns the first 400 checks purchased, and then it is 10 euros for the next 100. Each user must then be limited to 500 service vouchers per calendar year. With the tax deduction, service vouchers are only supposed to cost 8.1 euros. So is this increase legal? “We are presented with a fait accompli, but we should still be asked for an amendment to the contract that stipulates it and put our agreement or not“, regrets Caroline.
Unfortunately for Caroline, there doesn’t seem to be anything illegal about the practice of Home Clean Service. Pieter-Jan De Koning, operational manager of the Consumer Mediation Service, explained to us that there are two conditions for increasing the price of the service voucher: “the consumer must be informed in advance by a press release, and must have the possibility of canceling his contract before the increase takes effect“. So what if the agency does not meet these conditions? “The contract is then not valid, the consumer can continue to pay as he had concluded, and can request a refund if he has paid a surplus.“.
Test-purchase adds to this, that “the costs (of increase) must be real and reasonable in relation to the services provided“. They must also “be the subject of a detailed invoice“, and “be paid in a form other than service vouchers“.
If all the rules are respected, the consumer’s only last resort is to terminate his contract.