Saturday, December 13, 2008

So, a SCAM at a salon, going on in Calgary

You KNOW I made a facebook group about this:

This girl comes up to me at the mall the other day, telling me she's running a promotion to get more people to the Lather salon. The deal sounds great, a haircut, 2 shampoos/blowdries, a 25min microdermabrasion and one round of laser hair removal on the face for 55 bucks. AWESOME right? Well I thought so. So I bought two, one for me, one as a gift.

Right away I call the salon and they tell me something interesting, the company they hired to do the marketing, Heightened Marketing, is not supervising what their employees are saying or claiming and is not getting back to the salon AT ALL! Their employees are offering whatever they want, whether the salon approves or not, just to close the deal. For example, the girl I talked to, told me I had till June to use my packages, but I only had till April.

The salon is NOT gonna cover any "agreements" we make with a promotion girl, so read the back, there's a WHOLE lot of conditions on there, including that there are absolutely no refunds.

Now I tried to contact Heightened Marketing. The number on the back, the voicemail is what you get (there's not even a hold function, as if there's actual operators working) and the voicemail is full. I go on their website, the customer service number on there is a WRONG number. And no one picks up on their new client hotline.
Really proffesional right.

The worst thing is, on my way out of the mall I see another girl talking to a group, and I go up to her to ask her why Lather salon can't get in touch with them at all? What does she say to me? "Whatever", says to call customer service!

I was about to lose my mind, but the kicker, I call the salon to DEMAND my money back, and they say they may not even fulfill the offers anymore, cause these people are literally making them look bad (it's like, stop paying the company and see how quickly they call you!). So off course I booked my time right away, I figured I pay for it, theres no refunds, I'll damn well do it. If they DARE to turn me away when I get there I'll be pissed.

I wanted to let you all know, don't get robbed, don't give your money to these people. If you see one of those girls, throw 'em a finger and say it's from Elena!

Spread the word, invite everyone to this group.

Email this post to everyone you know, becase Heightened Marketing Solutions works worldwide, and I doubt that they're doing this just in Calgary.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would just like to clarify that this is by no fault of Lather Salon. I don't work there, but I am a client and they are great at what they do, prices are reasonable and they are very smart women who run the business.

Unknown said...

I used to work for Heightened Marketing Solutions. As a former employee, I, myself was confronted by one of the salon owners on Vancouver Island. The owner had no idea that I was even in town promoting for her. She said that she was losing tons of money by giving out all these packages.

I learned while working there, that the marketing company itself, contracts with the salon, and promises to bring in 500 NEW clients. GUARANTEED.

The catch is though, that Heightened Marketing Solutions takes ALL profit. They bind the contract with each salon/spa/gym with a one cent check. And what they do is make up 500 pamphlets with a package on it for $55! They are always $55!!

As an employee, I was only taking home $20 from each package that I sold. I quit that job, my boss was younger then me, she was only 20 years old, and was very unprofessional, arguing with me through text messages on more then one occasion.

It was never organized, it was always, "Which salon or part of the city do I want to work with today" I had police called on me, and was simply told to call my boss if and when that happens. I never knew what was said when the police were called but we were always cleared.


So you can't get mad at the Salon, I personally felt awful for each business that I was promoting. The salons do not, what-so-ever pay the marketing company, so your idea of, stop paying them and see how soon they call, wont work. They'd probably be happy if the Salon didn't call them.