According to the Chinese daily, a video showing sales staff at the People’s Park Complex forcing an elderly woman to receive services from a beauty salon has been circulating online.
The video shows employees of a beauty salon in the Chinatown mall distributing flyers to passers-by before “pulling” an elderly woman into the salon for a facial. After receiving the facial, a female staff allegedly escorted the elderly woman to a nearby ATM to withdraw money to pay for the salon’s services.
The man who was filming the incident, Mr Chen, revealed:Â “She wanted the auntie to withdraw $550. Fortunately, the auntie had an insufficient balance in her bank account and did not hand over her hard-earned money…Ladies, be careful of this shop.”
While many netizens expressed outrage that the senior citizen was treated in such a manner, others felt that Mr Chen should have intervened when he saw what was happening and that he should have called the authorities instead of filming the incident.
This is not the first time unsuspecting customers have been lured into stores and forced to pay up for services they never wanted.
Earlier this month, an 80-year-old retiree told the Chinese daily that the staff at a beauty salon near his home pulled him into the salon and pressured him into paying $3,510 for products and a VIP package.
The victim, Mr Zhang, revealed that he was lured by the persuasive sales staff who stopped him from walking by the salon and kept pestering him to enter the shop: “I’m already so old. Why would I need these service? I ignored her but she kept pestering me and refused to let me go my way. She even shoved product samples to me.”
Feeling that the sales staff was sincere, Mr Zhang obliged but quickly became swarmed by more staff who pressured him to purchase products: “They just kept pressurising me. To escape, I agreed to buy two products for $750. I hoped that they would just let me go.”
Mr Zhang’s plan did not work as the sales staff dragged him to another room and offered him “premium products” that normal customers wouldn’t be able to try.
All in all, the beauty salon employees earned a hefty $3,510 from the frazzled retiree. Mr Zhang lamented: “They told me that the fees include the products I bought, as well as a VIP treatment package. I had no idea what I was buying at all, and I never agreed to any VIP package either.”