Hong Kong’s Federation of Beauty Industry has said unscrupulous beauty salons are falsely using its name to coax customers into switching locations and spending more money through high-pressure sales tactics. “We have received a number of complaints from consumers over the past few months accusing us of recommending unreliable and dishonest salons to them,” federation chairman Nelson Ip Sai-hung said on Thursday. “We were very shocked to hear about it as well .
.. this has never happened before.
” Ip told a radio show that the number of cases in which customers were convinced to switch locations only to find out upon arrival that the new place was run by a completely different operator had been significantly rising. “Staff told them their old salon was no longer in operation and that the Federation of Beauty Industry had arranged for them to come here instead,” Ip said. “This is completely false .
.. we realised our name was being misappropriated out there.
” Victims said that once they arrived at the new locations, staff members used high-pressure sales tactics, telling them how horrible their old salons were and subsequently persuading them to pay tens of thousands of dollars more for superior treatments and products. Those who initially agreed on the “upgraded” services continued to face more badgering. “When they started refusing, the staff told them that they would get the ‘downgraded’ treatments instead, which made the customers very frustrated.
�.
