Orbidi and the Kit Digital programme: how a digitalisation promise became my worst business nightmare

What followed was, without exaggeration, the worst experience I have had as a business owner. And I have the documentation to prove it.

The promise: free digitalisation, guaranteed

The contract was clear. The Project Confirmation Order stated in black and white that “this service is 100% subsidised by the Kit Digital programme” and that “upon completion of the 12-month service period, you will not be required to pay any additional amount.” It even included a reasonable exit clause: if the subsidy was not approved, the contract would be void and non-binding.

Everything sounded perfect. I signed. And that is where the problem began.

The social media service: posts without review, without communication, without logic

The first contracted service was the management of my social media — specifically Instagram — with a commitment to regular publications throughout the contract period. What Orbidi delivered was, at best, mediocre. At worst, non-existent.

Orbidi began publishing content without asking for my prior approval, ignoring my requests for review. The content contained basic errors: incorrectly translated English headlines, factually wrong statements about my business (mentioning meeting rooms in the plural when I only have one, or private offices when I offer only shared space). My partner Charlotte, who handles part of the coworking’s communications, sent detailed corrections that went unanswered for weeks.

Those corrections, confirmed by email, were never applied within any reasonable timeframe. The Orbidi team responded — when they responded at all — with vague references to “phases” and “internal processes.” One agent after another: Pietro Biondi, Francisco González, Laura Leal, Fran… every change of contact meant starting from zero, with no institutional memory and no real follow-up.

The WhatsApp bot labyrinth

To manage issues with the laptop, Orbidi set up an automated WhatsApp channel. What followed was one of the most surreally frustrating experiences of my life: a bot that repeated the same options in a loop, and when you selected “None of the above” it promised that “one of our advisors will contact you as soon as possible”… and never did.

The laptop that never arrived: 9 months of empty promises

The second contracted service was the “Secure Workstation”: essentially a new laptop subsidised by the Kit Digital scheme at €1,000. I signed in August 2024. To this day, I never received the device.

The most striking moment in this entire process was when I asked an Orbidi advisor directly why they had not contacted me to inform me of the delays. Their reply, verbatim, says it all:

In other words: their customer service policy was to contact clients only when there was good news. Nine months of bad news equalled nine months of silence.

The final blow: Red.es demands repayment of the subsidy

On 12 June 2025, the Director General of Red.es issued a reimbursement order. The reason: the service had not been delivered in accordance with the requirements of the Kit Digital programme. Orbidi had collected the subsidy, had not fulfilled its obligations, and now I — as the programme beneficiary — was the one who had to pay the money back.

To be absolutely clear about what happened: Orbidi received €800 of public subsidy money. It did not properly deliver the contracted services. Red.es initiated the reimbursement procedure. And the one who had to pay was me — the self-employed person who had trusted the system — €815.93 out of my own pocket, including the interest accrued since December 2024.

What nobody tells you about the Kit Digital programme

The Kit Digital programme is, on paper, an excellent initiative. European funds to help small businesses and freelancers go digital. The problem is not the programme itself, but some of the digitalisation agents who execute it. The system creates a perverse incentive: the agent gets paid upon receiving the subsidy, and you — the beneficiary — bear all the risk if something goes wrong.

Nobody at Orbidi explained to me that if the service was not properly delivered, Red.es could demand repayment from me personally. Nobody warned me that the final responsibility fell on the self-employed person. That information asymmetry is, in my opinion, the core of the problem.

My advice if you are considering the Kit Digital programme

The programme can work, but not with just any agent. Before signing anything, research the digitalisation agent thoroughly, look for genuine reviews, and read the fine print about what happens if the service is not delivered. Ask explicitly who bears the responsibility in the event of a reimbursement order. And document absolutely everything: emails, WhatsApp messages, calls. That documentation has allowed me to build a solid legal case.

As for Orbidi and Plinng specifically: my experience has been the worst possible. Starting out in the coworking world already comes with enough difficulties of its own without adding the burden of a provider that fails to deliver, ignores emails for weeks, handles complaints through WhatsApp bots that resolve nothing, and ultimately leaves you with a debt you did not create.

⚠ Second brand — Same company

Plinng: the same pattern under a different name

If the Orbidi story was already serious enough, what follows makes it even more revealing. Plinng is another commercial brand operated by the same company: G97 Tech Marketing S.L. Same legal entity, same tax ID, and — as you will see — exactly the same way of operating.

I contracted Plinng’s services drawn in by three specific promises: access to Billin.net (an online invoicing platform), website SEO and Google Maps SEO to make my coworking space visible in local searches. Three reasonable tools for any freelancer starting out. Three promises that, in practice, never materialised satisfactorily.

The services: promised, not delivered

The SEO — both website and Google Maps — was never kept up to date. For local positioning to work, it requires continuous attention: profile updates, review management, regular posts, keyword optimisation by season. None of that happened. My business’s Google Maps profile remained exactly as it was before I contracted the service. The promise of local visibility became worthless.

As for Billin.net — the invoicing platform Plinng promised to include in the package — it was never even set up. It was a sales pitch that evaporated from day one, met with the same response I received for everything else: wait, we’ll send it soon, we’re working on it. Access never arrived. Billin.net went from being a contracted service to yet another broken promise on a list that kept growing.

Support: institutionalised silence

The customer service pattern at Plinng was identical to Orbidi’s: hard to reach, slow to respond, and zero in terms of solutions. Issues disappeared into a void. When a response did arrive, it came without useful information or any follow-up. There is no exaggeration here: it is simply what happened, systematically and repeatedly.

For a self-employed person building a business, every week without a response has a real cost. Not being able to resolve an invoicing question, not knowing whether the SEO is active or broken, not having a valid point of contact on the other end of the phone or email — all of that consumes time and energy that should go into the business.

Cancellation: the real scandal

If the support was bad, the cancellation process was kafkaesque. I requested cancellation of the service on multiple occasions, through different channels. What I received was always some variation of the same thing: silence, evasion, or promises that “someone would be in touch.” Nobody got in touch. The cancellation was never processed. And the charges continued.

Blocking a bank charge is the last resort of someone who has exhausted every reasonable avenue. It is not a decision taken lightly. It means the company has failed across every prior channel: email, phone, web forms, customer service. Plinng pushed me to that point.

The connection that explains everything

Once I looked into it more carefully, the missing piece clicked into place: Plinng and Orbidi are the same company. G97 Tech Marketing S.L. operates both brands. The same business model, the same company culture, the same patterns of behaviour with customers. It is no coincidence that my experiences with both were almost identical in their dysfunction.

This raises an uncomfortable but necessary question: how many more brands does this group operate? How many freelancers and small businesses are right now living the same experience under different names, not knowing they are contracting with the same entity that has already failed them before?

I will update this article as the legal proceedings progress. If you have had a similar experience with Orbidi, Plinng or other brands of G97 Tech Marketing S.L., you can contact me through the website. Sharing information between those affected is the best defence against practices that keep repeating themselves.