3 Beauty Salons Admitted to ‘Hard Selling’ & Unfair Practices; Have Signed Voluntary Compliance Agreements with CASE

We all have stories to share about our experience at beauty salons.

Just when you are about to doze off from the soothing facial, the therapist jolts you awake by asking if you would like to try a new product at $1,254,878.

“This product is at a discounted rate, want to try? Previously, it was $2 million.”

From then on, sleep seems to be the least important thing as we think of ways to politely reject the therapist’s request.

It seems like some beauty salons have acknowledged their pressure selling tactics, and have agreed to stop such unfair practises.

Three Beauty Salons Have Signed Voluntary Compliance Agreements with CASE

Three beauty salons have admitted to committing unfair practices after customer complaints were lodged against them.

These salons have signed voluntary compliance agreements with The Consumers Association of Singapore (CASE), in a commitment to stop such unfair practises.

Such agreements are voluntary documents signed by businesses that admit to committing unfair practices under the Consumer Protection (Fair Trading) Act.

Under the Consumer Protection (Fair Trading) Act, it is an unfair practice for a supplier to make false or misleading claims and to exert undue pressure or influence on a customer to enter into a transaction. It is also an unfair practice to assert the right to payment for providing unsolicited goods or services.

A total of 90 complaints were filed against these four beauty salons between 1 January 2019 to 31 August this year.

Some of the complaints CASE received include the beauty salons making false or misleading claims, salons charging customers for additional treatments or packages without their consent, and customers subjected to various aggressive pressure sales tactics to buy treatment packages, among others.

The three beauty salons which signed the voluntary compliance agreements are Organic Salon, Spacio TCM Wellness and the Four Seasons Beauty Salon.

No, the one in Tampines that charged over $4.5K for facial treatment isn’t one of them.

Terms of Agreement

Under the terms of this agreement, the three salons have committed to stop their unfair practises. In addition, the salons have agreed to offer a five-day cooling-off period for consumers to cancel their contracts.

The salons will also compensate customers who are affected.

But what if one doesn’t sign the agreement?

One beauty salon, Natural Beauty Resources, was also referred to the Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore for investigation, and they failed to sign a voluntary compliance agreement with CASE.

And by the way, it’s still not the beauty salon in Tampines.

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