It is a national investigation which lasted between 2019 and 2021, in other words before the revelations of journalist Victor Castanet who, in his book Les Fossoyeurs (Éditions Fayard, 2022), presents the deplorable state in which the system of accommodation for dependent elderly people. Unsurprisingly, the report of the Directorate General for Competition, Consumption and the Repression of Fraud (DGCCRF) confirms the disastrous, and often misleading, economic management of most private nursing homes in France.
«Between 2019 and 2021, nearly a thousand checks were carried out», specifies the administration under the Ministry of the Economy, which has looked into the financial abuse of establishments belonging to large groups or operating in a manner independent. Among them, more than half present at least one anomaly. These non-conformities are classified according to four categories: discrepancies between the accommodation prices displayed and those actually charged, abusive holiday contract clauses (disadvantageous termination terms, request for a disproportionate security deposit, etc.), misleading commercial practices (lies about the qualification of activities, invoicing of services included in the minimum base, etc.), and finally irregularities in invoicing occurring after the death of the resident.
On this observation, the DGCCRF indicated that it had sent 17 minutes to establishments that had instituted unfair practices, and that it was actively participating in the inter-administrative work carried out since April 28, 2022, in order to improve transparency. financial institutions. The report also recalls that residents and their families can report any financial abuse on the government website SignalConso and any abuse to the prefecture of the department.