Superintendencia de Industria y Comercio

The Superintendence of Industry and Commerce, as national authority for Consumer Protection and Personal Data Protection, has launched an investigation against CONSTRUIR COMUNDO, for alleged violations of the consumer protection rules and illegal operations of credit through the EASTBAY and POPCASH applications, as follows:

1. Misleading information. The SIC alleged that EASTBAY and POPCASH, when giving a loan, did not provide sufficient, clear and accurate information, regarding the terms of payments and the charge for using the platform.
2. Service quality failures. For allegedly requiring credit payments before the reported due date, initiating and executing an aggressive recovery process with alleged threats, and sharing users’ credit information with their personal contacts.
3. Abusive clauses. For allegedly stipulating abusive clauses in the "Terms of Service" of the applications, by unlawfully trying to limit the responsibility of the supplier and transfer it to the consumer.
4. Absence of attention mechanisms. The SIC claimed that the applications lacked proper mechanisms for consumers to file their requests, complaints and claims, additionally, consumers were unable to obtain a record of the date and time of application as well as a mechanism for follow-up.

On the other hand, the SIC launched an investigation on personal data breaches. It was discovered that said applications, at the time of the request for digital loans, collected private information without having the previous and express authorization of the users, in order to use it in the aggressive recovery actions previously mentioned.