A beauty salon at Tampines Bus Interchanges allegedly overcharged an 87-year-old elderly man S$4,445 for a facial treatment which was advertised as S$38.
The incident revealed by a Facebook user, who goes by Jessie Kang on Monday (21 September) noted that the beauty salon engaged in “dishonest practices” that target senior citizens, while asking the members of public to get the word out to prevent the elderly from being deceived.
Ms Kang described that the signage as advertising S$38 for a one-time facial, however after the facial treatment, the shop charged its customer S$4,445.
“S$4,445 for a one-time facial, yes you didn’t hear wrong, it is S$4,445 for a one-time facial. At Tampines bus interchange, 01-17, next to the Value Max pawn shop,” she wrote.
In her post, Ms Kang shared a photo of a shop named “E.ZONE” which believed to be the beauty salon that involved in this controversy.
The other photos she shared also showed that several police officers present at the scene, seemingly conducting an investigation.
Other than this, in a about 4-minute video that Ms Kang posted, it can be heard that a woman – who’s presumed to be the staff of E.ZONE – trying to explain the situation and stop the people from filming her without her permission.
A man can also be heard saying they wanted to call the reporters while asking the staff to call police too as he claimed he know Singapore’s law.
When being confronted by the parties who seemed to the family of the alleged victim, the staff explained, “When my colleagues put these things [table] outside of the shop, you father approach us by himself and we did not pull him in.”
She also asserted that their colleagues will definitely have informed him of the price whenever they did anything to him.
“We would not do it if they didn’t not inform the price,” she added.
Then, both parties can be heard arguing with each other, as the family requested the staff to present a receipt while the staff asking them to give her the name, phone number and signature of the elderly man.
The post has since garnered 6.4k shares with over 800 comments.
The alleged victim of the case
As reported by STOMP, the alleged victim of this case, was an 87-year-old elderly man who had visited E.Zone on Thursday morning (17 September) for a facial treatment.
“My grandfather saw a signage advertising the facial for $38 and went in,” the 87-year-old’s grandson, identified as Ho told STOMP.
In the middle of the facial treatment, Ho said his grandfather was being told by the staff of beauty salon that each oil bumps costs S$20 to remove.
“As an old person, my grandpa’s understanding was that the total amount would be less than $100. However, after the whole treatment, he was billed $4,445!” he said, noting that the staff did not even give an invoice or receipt to his grandfather.
Without wanting to create problems, Ho’s grandfather paid S$2,000 to the salon via NETS, but he had to go to the bank to withdraw money for the remaining balance after he had reached the NETS limit of S$2,000.
According to Ho, the salon staff followed his grandfather to the bank, where the bank teller alerted his grandfather to the possible scam after noticing the $2,000 transaction that he had made earlier.
Following the failure of multiple attempts to ask for a receipt, Ho has decided to visit the salon on Sunday (20 September), reported by Shin Min Daily News.
E.ZONE clarifies about the overcharging incident
According to Shin Min Daily News, the salon’s owner Ms Huang claimed that the elderly man started the treatment after he had understood and agreed to the price.
“The CCTV footage has clearly captured the staff specifically telling the man that each oil bumps costs S$20 to remove,” Ms Huang said, adding that the staff also counted the oil bumps one by one for him during the treatment.
The salon staff also mentioned that the elderly man had 220 oil bumps removed and his $158 facial, which brought to the total bill of $4,558.
Denying that her staff had followed the elderly man to the bank, Ms Huang said the man had instead returned to confront her staff after he went to the bank by himself, and later left angrily without paying the remaining balance.
However, the staff claimed that during the treatment, the elderly man had asked whether the salon provided “special services” .
To this, the elderly man told Shin Min that he did not ask such question and it was his first time hearing about this.
“My grandpa is already 87 years old, it is hard to believe that he would make such a request,” his grandson added.
Earlier, it was reported that a beauty salon at Suntec City has allegedly pressured a 63-year-old office cleaner into spending S$13,180 on the beauty products and equipment.
After knowing about the incident, the family of the elderly cleaner has lodged a police report and reported to the Consumers Association of Singapore (CASE).
Consequently, the money was refunded to the elderly cleaner by the said beauty salon while the staff involved have been ordered to a disciplinary hearing and actions will be taken if any misconduct was found.
Netizens urge the authorities to step in to prevent such cases
Penning their comments on the Facebook page of Mothership.sg, many netizens condemned the “unethical practices” of the beauty saloon while calling it as “daylight robbery”. They felt that the authorities should step in to prevent such cases and protect the elderly and innocent people whom these spa and facial shops usually targeted at.
