I wanted to plan a spa day with my best friend and my sister in law. Both my sister in law and I travelled from neighboring states to meet my friend who also had to drive an hour to meet us at the spa. I booked appointments for a 1 hour massage for my friend, a basic facial for me, and three standard pedicures for all of us. While my friend headed into her massage, I waited for about 25 minutes before I headed back to the desk to inquire why my facial wasn't starting though the aesthetist had been paged twice. Finally, another employee went back and got her; when she arrived at the front, I realized she had been at the front desk earlier and didn't even bother to get me to start the facial. Once back in the facial room, she explained what she'd be doing and asked if I wanted a "customized" facial or the "express" facial that didn't include arm and hand massage and if I had seen the price list. I said I wanted the "express" facial, especially because I had the pedicure appointment and didn't want to be late as we were about half an hour late to begin, and that I had seen the price list prior to making the appointments. I never got any arm or hand massages, but she actually ended up telling the owner to charge me for the "customized" facial. The facial didn't even last an hour. Anyway, we went onto get pedicures, and during our pedicures, my friend inquired about how they salon employees are paid and whether they are independent contractors. The pedicurists let us know that they received a percentage of what we paid and that they are all regular employees of the salon, not independent contractors. It sounded like an hourly job with commission from the pedicurists' explanation. After the pedicures, I wanted to double check with the desk to ensure that they used our $300 SpaFinder gift certificate to cover what I had planned on being a $292 charge for all of our services. The front desk attendant was concerned about receiving the gift certificate and went to consult the spa owner who came to the front desk and questioned the validity of the Spa Finder certificate even though I had expressly asked about using this before I made the service appointments. The owner stated that she was used to receiving gift cards but not the gift certificate that Spa Finder allows a recipient to print. The owner took my phone number and added up what the service providers had written on slips of paper and told me that we owed an additional $29 on top of the $300 that was covered by the gift certificate. The owner said that the pricelist I was provided only listed basic service prices and that every service provider charged what they thought they were worth, which is not what the pedicurists, who did charge us each differently, stated during the pedicure. I never signed any receipt as I disagree with the charges, but sure enough, the $29 was taken out of my account from Garbo's. I am disputing this $29 charge. I called Garbo's on Monday and was told that I need to speak with the owner if I have an issue with the charges, but that she wasn't available. I will never go back. This experience was far from relaxing.
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