Episode Transcript
[00:00:17] Speaker A: The Combing through the Crime with Lori and Ashley, where true crime meets the beauty industry.
[00:00:22] Speaker B: We're pulling back the salon cape to uncover the real stories of fraud, theft, scandal, and sometimes even worse, all happening behind the scenes of salons, spas and beauty businesses.
[00:00:35] Speaker A: These are true stories reported in public articles, news outlets, and police reports. We didn't make them up and they're definitely not our opinions.
[00:00:44] Speaker B: We're just here to share the facts, ask the questions, and reveal what really happens behind the chair.
[00:00:50] Speaker A: Now let's comb through the crime.
[00:01:07] Speaker B: Perfect.
All right.
[00:01:10] Speaker A: Okay. So the story that I have for.
[00:01:13] Speaker B: Us today, I can't wait.
[00:01:15] Speaker A: And Ashley. Ashley doesn't know the story yet, so it'll be new for her and new for everybody. But this is a story about Queen.
And I just think that this is happening probably more frequently than what is being shared in news articles or social media or whatnot. But I do hear about it periodically. And so I just wanted to talk about it. This one actually happened last year, but this situation happened in Miami, in Florida. And it was a woman who came into the salon and she had some extensions done. She came in and she had asked for extensions that were. So the salon gave her 80 pieces of extensions, 24 inch hair extensions. And it was about a $1200 service ticket, so.
Ticket it took about four hours for the service to be complete, which again is a lot of time, a lot of money on there.
So when she was done, she was a beautiful platinum blonde, long hair, beautiful extensions.
So she got to the checkout and when she did that, she told the salon owner that she only had a bank statement with a card number on it, but she didn't have an actual or have the actual physical card.
So red flag number one probably right.
[00:02:46] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:02:47] Speaker A: And then the salon owner said to her, just really, that's not good enough. We can't accept that for payment.
And then after some back and forth, it got physical. The salon man or salon owner actually tried to remove some of the extensions from this client.
The client then got physical back and just she had her dog with her, took the dog and like ran out of the salon.
So.
[00:03:14] Speaker B: Okay, I have so many questions. I know.
[00:03:18] Speaker A: So she then. It gets better. Not only that, but afterwards she left the salon. She ended up. They did call the police and make a report. It took the police department 54 days to find this woman and who she was. And part of that challenge finding her was because she had then dyed her own extension. So she was this beautiful blonde leaving the salon. She dyed her hair like super dark, so that she was unrecognizable.
So now she had really dark, long, 24 inch, beautiful extensions, which also took them a little harder. You know, it was a little bit harder for them to find her.
This person was charged. Okay. So once they found her, they did actually charge her. She had. These were her charges. She. She had grand theft in the third degree, battery for touching or striking a person, burglary and petty theft. And she did have a bail of $3,500. So this really is the story. As she came in, she got a service done, she walked out. And I think that's the piece that we probably see or hear about a little bit more often, but not quite as frequently. Like, you know, it's happening. There's police reports out for those things. But you know, what, what do we do? How do we prevent this? Because you don't typically go, like, you don't hear stories of going to your auto mechanic and just walking out and saying, no, thank you, I'm not paying. You know, and running away. You don't do that at a retail store or a restaurant maybe. Restaurant, I hear about that sometimes, but it's super uncommon. So how do we, you know, prevent this? What is going on?
[00:04:58] Speaker B: This is crazy.
Wow. Okay. The fact that she tried to take the owner tried to take her extensions back, I'm still stuck on that.
Good for you. But okay, that's a little odd.
I get it though. I get it. You work so hard and like everything in our industry costs so much and the overhead is just insane sometimes. So when you have these services in your salons, this is super important that they use. Receive the profit and you get the return from it. I mean, it's so devastating when something like this happens. My gosh, I can't even.
[00:05:38] Speaker A: First of all, they left out in this article.
Were they tape in? Were they.
[00:05:43] Speaker B: I was wondering, I was wondering how.
[00:05:45] Speaker A: Would she try to take them out?
[00:05:47] Speaker B: Because I would love to know that because that's, that's a whole other. Like.
[00:05:54] Speaker A: She got a few pieces out of her. Out of her head. So she did successfully get a few pieces out. So.
Ouch. First of all, for that client that will. Regardless of how they're installed. But she didn't get a couple out. But the woman left then dyed her hair.
So from the like, I don't know what people are thinking. Potentially it was a good credit card number. Like maybe she actually did have a good card number and it was actually would have worked. I'm not sure, you know what I.
[00:06:23] Speaker B: Think about like this is, I mean this has been a topic for a long time with taking part on file, with having deposits, you know, things like that. I personally do think that in cases where you are talking about $1200 services, something needs to happen. So at least, you know, paying for half up front is something that I would say just at least covers your cost of the products and everything that's necessary. I mean, you can go on and on and on about disputes. And I know people do put card on file and then let's say like it's a no show and they charge half for the, for the service anyway. Now you have a dispute on your hand and actually really they favor the client in a lot of credit card disputes, which is a shame. And again, it goes back to like, how are we protected, you know, like in this industry.
So even just having something like that policy wise, I think is crucial because, you know, at least you're not out 100 of the service calling the police.
Absolutely.
I mean, you're talking about theft of service.
That absolutely has to happen.
It's just a shame that it actually does happen.
[00:07:48] Speaker A: Yeah, you took the word straight out of my mouth. Like the card on file and the deposits are your protection. Right. That's your preventative measures that you're doing. So like at minimal, that's something you should have in place. Of course it looks like the salon did not have that in place.
But putting the card on file, you can also validate that card because you might have people put down like an older expired car, something that doesn't have any money on it, it's an empty credit card or whatnot. And you can, you can put that card number in and validate that and make sure that it actually has funds available before doing the service.
And then you're right with the deposit. I know people do this very differently in all types of salons, but when you're talking about a deposit, what I've seen for extensions specifically is like the deposit is the cost of the product. Right. So if you paid $500 for that hair for those extensions, that $500 is what you would have charged for the deposit as a retail item. Right, as retail. So that way if they do happen to walk out or they don't pay for the time of the service, at least you captured the retail piece of that and the product that you had to pay for.
But still it's like, you know.
[00:09:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I know. Like what are your thoughts on having something in place like this in particular? Not necessarily every service we're talking about like services that cost this amount of money. Like what if that client walks in, checks in and pays up front? Front. Like is that a scenario? Is that something that people would consider? I don't know, like, do you, how do you feel about that?
[00:09:41] Speaker A: I think that one is a good idea. For one. There are some questions around that idea because you think, well, what if I did some add ons or what if I did extra hair or what if I spent extra time or you know, if I charge for the hour, maybe it took an extra hour. So then if you charged up front, then at the end of the service you're charging again and then you think about that client experience. Is that the best client experience?
Does it matter at that point? Because you're just saving yourself from that chance. And of course. Right. Like let's give our clients the best, you know.
Right. Like this is not super frequently, but if that chance happens and it does, you're protecting yourself, you, you know, from that happening. So I don't, I don't hate the idea of charging for it up front because if you're doing a quote for it for the services or you have your prices listed on your website that are very clear and you're taking a deposit in addition, like you're just collecting the rest of that service that's anticipated for that time.
[00:10:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:43] Speaker A: And maybe that is saying to that client like, hey, if we do, you know, X, Y or Z or more, then it may, you know, it may cost additional. I don't. Have you seen salons, have you seen that happen where people are charging up front?
[00:10:57] Speaker B: So no, I never have. I actually have not. But the reason I say this is because when you're what? Only when you're dealing with something like this. So I feel like the expectation you have a consultation already, you've had that, you've had that person coming in, you bought, you, they bought the hair.
You know, now it's just installing day. Now it's just like the day that we're just going to get everything done. Why not just like get that out of the way?
And you're absolutely right. There's always something that could be added on.
Maybe I didn't need as much hair that day, you know, things like that. But the hair is your hair. So if I didn't use the, the rest of it or anything like that, then we'll just use it the next time. Or if we needed more then you know, that could just be like another add on service or something like that. Like at the End totally in the consultation. But my thought is why not just cover everything from the beginning. Know the expectation, you know you're coming in, spending this money. Like I just think, yeah, gotta collect it. Like I just, I feel so bad. Like it hurts my feelings when they hear something like that.
[00:12:19] Speaker A: You know what else too is, did this salon know who this client is? Like did they know who she was? Is that, was this a first time client? Is that happening more often with the first time client than with a person that's been in frequently.
And two things that come to mind is get to know your other salon businesses. Because most likely this is not the first time that this person has done something like this, right? You think about people who steal from the grocery store or something, right? Like they've probably done it, she's probably gotten away with it at some other business. So if this experience happens, you share that so that other businesses in your area can be on the lookout for whoever this person is.
And also this is a piece that I think we don't do as well as what we could. But it's capturing the client information, right? So like in the client profile, their name, their phone number, their email address, if you can get it, right? Like find out who that person is.
Again, there's that chance that if they plan ahead of time that they're going to walk out, that they might not give you the correct information.
But at least try, right? At least try to capture all that information ahead of time so that if they do walk away, you'll know who they are. And it's easier to make a police.
[00:13:35] Speaker B: Report if you need to.
[00:13:36] Speaker A: But what do you think about how the salon owner a like got physical and tried to like pull this out of her hair and then also would, would you have done anything different? Like essentially this lady kind of got physical, but she grabbed her dog and she just walked out like, and then they let her go and she's called the police.
[00:13:56] Speaker B: I mean, right. I don't know if there's anything you actually could have done differently other than not touch the client. I probably wouldn't not do that.
Although maybe she got physical with me first. I don't know, like, you know what, what happened in that situation. But we want to obviously be as professional as possible. You probably have other people in the salon at the same time. Can you imagine this chaotic scene going on and like being a client, maybe I'm a first time client to this location now we've got like people pulling extensions out of each other's hair.
That's probably not going to be great ever coming back again.
But, you know, I think there really wasn't an other way other than not touching the client to proceed with that. But, I mean, calling the police. Got to do it.
[00:14:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
This salon did have cameras in there, so there was some footage of what was going on. So that was a great. That was great to see that they did actually have cameras. And I think that that is super smart for all salon owners to put cameras in there.
The cameras are not there to, like, babysit your team or to see who's leaving early. Your cameras are there to protect your business in case anybody breaks in, in case any situations like this happen that you have that proof of it. So they were able to help identify for a little bit more. So when you talk about chargebacks or going to their credit card company and fighting, disputing the charge as the business owner, you have proof of service at that point, right? Like, if you can see her getting her service done, you can see her getting up and walking out of the salon, your chances of disputing that are a little bit higher as the business owner.
[00:15:39] Speaker B: Actually, people have done that, and you're 100% right then.
And also, I will tell you, in our experience, we've had a situation where we knew that this happened. We confronted the person. This was talking. This is a product that was taken. Confronted the person, said, we have it on camera. Like, we. We do get. We.
We have it on camera. And that person was like, okay, you're right. Like, here's. Here's the product back. I'm sorry.
You know, and at that point, nothing happened. Like, just don't probably not come back here. But, like, you know, what is the.
[00:16:18] Speaker A: Product off the shelf? Did they steal right off the shelf into the purse?
[00:16:22] Speaker B: Yeah. So, I mean, when things like that happen, I don't know where people are in their lives. You know, everybody comes from different walks of life.
And to just squash it quietly sometimes it's easy. But to have the camera, like, visibly. We have cameras everywhere. I'm sure you've seen them in your salons that you attend to. Like, I mean, they are important. They're so important and for multiple reasons. Safety is. Is a number one key, too, for all of your employees and your clients.
[00:16:55] Speaker A: And I like that the cameras are visible. Right.
Like hitting cameras. You're not giving them the opportunity first steal from you or to walk out. Like, they know they are right there. And maybe there's a sign on your front door under surveillance or whatever it is, because you' you're telling them up front, like, don't do it right.
When they know that there's a chance that they get caught.
Oh, it's just hard. And extensions might. I. I don't think we're seeing this for haircuts. I don't think we're seeing this for pedicures. I think it's what we said, like those high ticket services, it's extensions, it's those smoothing treatments. You know, it's the things that are costing a lot of money. That's what people are walking away on and, and that's, you know, slummer. We rely on that income as well as the service providers because you can't pay out a commission to somebody who just spent four hours on a service when there was no money, there was no revenue. It's like a loss.
[00:17:54] Speaker B: And if, if I'm the salon owner, I probably would still pay whatever I needed to pay for that employee because it wasn't their fault. And. But at the end of the day, I didn't get anything right. So like, it's, it's just a shame. Like you, no one really understands how much goes into a salon business and it is not so cut and dry.
And then it's not that very. It's not easy to like navigate through it. So like, you know, and to keep. You want to keep your employees, you want to retain your people. I mean, all of this plays, it plays a part. So yeah, this was good. I love that story.
[00:18:32] Speaker A: I think finding these people, you know, who are. You're going to get caught and the industry can come together and stand with each other and make sure all this kind of behavior out and that we're saying that this is not okay. Like you can't walk into our types of business and take advantage of us, take advantage of our team, our people, our services and get away with it. So I was so happy to see that this person was charged and that did come to fruition and that person will likely never be back in that business. But then also, you know, surrounding businesses are now aware of this person and hopefully we'll keep their eye and, you know, do a little bit more due diligence on their clients or services or, you know, how they protect themselves a little bit more.
[00:19:16] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. I mean, there's a lot of community pages all over. So like, everyone should be on their community page. Everybody should be a part of the page because it's not just about this scenario, it's about anything that happens. Like, we all need to be in this together community page in your town, but also in the beauty space, too. I mean, probably have local beauty community pages, too, but then also as an industry, as a whole, we do, too.
[00:19:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:46] Speaker B: Like, I think that that's really important.
[00:19:48] Speaker A: Yeah. I.
I'm thinking about how if that was me, how I would feel, and she, you know, just let her walk away. Do you, like, retaliate? Do you grab more of her hair? Do you get that emotion? Because there's a lot of emotion happening inside.
[00:20:02] Speaker B: Her adrenaline was probably so high right out.
[00:20:07] Speaker A: So I give credit to her for being able to, like, keep calm and, like, not escalate the situation and not letting it get out of control. Because, you know, sometimes people are crazy and you don't ever know what people are capable of and if it could have been worse as an outcome. And luckily, it wasn't in this situation because she was able to maintain composure and call the police and turnover footage and get this person caught. So good for her. And the way that she was able to protect her team and potentially other clients that were in the salon. So glad to see it ended okay.
[00:20:45] Speaker B: Absolutely. And I couldn't agree with you more.
[00:20:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
Okay. Well, that was our story for the day.
[00:20:53] Speaker B: That was a good one. I'm going to just continue to think about it all day.
[00:20:57] Speaker A: I love it.
