While it’s normal for spa and salon customers to cancel their appointments at the last minute due to unforeseen circumstances, one woman had to do more than simply make a phone call.
Recently, a woman scheduled an appointment with Thérapie TCM Spa in Raffles Place but later cancelled it as she felt unwell.
The spa then reportedly asked for a medical certificate (MC) as proof.
Finding this absurd, the lady refused to provide it, only to be told that the spa would charge her for future cancelled sessions.
Speaking to MS News, the woman, who requested to be identified as Chantelle, shared that she called Thérapie TCM Spa to cancel her appointment on 12 Oct as she had diarrhoea.
However, the staff asked her to produce an MC to prove that she was feeling unwell, as claimed. Chantelle was shocked as she was unaware that such a clause existed.
Image courtesy of Chantelle
When she pointed this out to the spa, they justified their actions by saying that their staff were paid according to the day rate.
Chantelle was still perturbed as she didn’t think she needed to show an MC to cancel an appointment. She eventually provided photos of her medicine as proof of her ailment.
In a written email, she stressed that they had no right to request the document from her since it wasn’t a stated clause on their website.
Image courtesy of Chantelle
The spa then answered that she had cancelled her appointment a day before the scheduled date. In the salon’s books, this was deemed a last-minute cancellation.
“For any last-minute cancellation or no-show, there will be a charge for the full session of your appointment,” they pointed out.
Image courtesy of Chantelle
The spa said they would have to see an MC to waive Chantelle’s cancellation fee. However, in light of her concerns, they waived her cancellation fee this time as a gesture of goodwill.
They told Chantelle that they’d continue to ask for an MC should there be future cases of last-minute cancellations.
Miffed, Chantelle proceeded to ask for a refund of her remaining package and to speak to the spa’s owners. She had spent S$2325.23 on the package and had 15 sessions left. Each session amounted to about S$106.
The spa noted her request, but replied by saying that they would proceed to charge by session for any last-minute cancellations. The email reads, “We will not be requesting any more MC from you.”
Image courtesy of Chantelle
Chantelle later contacted the spa’s customer service to complain about the bizarre nature of the MC request. “. . . I felt weird. Why do I need to supplement such information for you? I’m not your worker.”
Image courtesy of Chantelle
The spa then supposedly backtracked on this and said they would not need an MC unless her cancellations became frequent.
Image courtesy of Chantelle
Chantelle told MS News this wasn’t her first poor experience with the spa.
She said during a previous session, the spa assigned her a trichologist who was not her preferred therapist. To make things worse, the trichologist allegedly made several disparaging comments about her scalp, which frustrated her.
Image courtesy of Chantelle
The day after, she experienced some itchiness on her scalp but decided not to provide feedback just yet. In a separate session, another employee working on her treatment allegedly tried selling her a S$60 haircut.
When she gave feedback on both incidents, the spa attributed it to a system error and claimed that the first employee in charge of treating her scalp had her commission deducted.
However, Chantelle felt she had wasted the session as she received no compensation. Frustrated with their service, especially after the latest MC debacle, she repeatedly requested to cancel her whole package and asked for a refund, estimated to cost around S$1,590.
The spa then pointed out that they could not do so as she had already passed her five-day “cooling period”.
Image courtesy of Chantelle
They instead suggested that she reschedule her treatment with them or transfer it to a family member or friend.
To date, Chantelle said she has yet to receive a refund from the salon.
In response to MS News‘ queries, the TCM spa denied that they demanded an MC from the lady.
A spokesperson for the establishment said the customer made the cancellation within 24 hours of the appointment.
Following their stated policy, the spokesperson explained that they would typically charge for the amount of one session for last-minute cancelled appointments. But as they wanted to waive it off in Chantelle’s interest, they needed the documentation to prove she was unwell before doing so.
“Our customer service manager did not ask for a medical certificate,” they maintained, as Chantelle had suggested sending photographic evidence of the medicine.
The spa said they have been in touch with her and tried to communicate that they typically do not ask for MCs.
“This request is only on a case-by-case basis. In this case, our customer service manager was just trying to help her waive the cancellation of the session,” they pointed out.
The spokesperson expressed their regret regarding the incident. “We hope we can have a better discussion and work this out.”
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