Last week my DM was talking about getting powder ombre brows done. My friend had them done, and they are lovely, so asked friend for the salon details so I could contact them for DM.
I reached out to the salon via WhatsApp on Friday (there is no online booking or website) and someone responded immediately with details and an appointment time for this week (Thursday).
All good, fairly reasonable pricing and DM was happy to go ahead and get me to book. There was a £50 booking fee, which I paid, with the balance to be paid at the appointment.
Within an hour of making the booking DM realised she had forgotten about the blood thinners she takes and after a bit of google searching, we realised she needed at least a week off the thinners before she could safely have her eyebrows done. I reached out to the salon again and they assured me she would be fine to continue with the booking, even while still taking the thinners. DM is in her 70's and we didn't want to risk it and requested to cancel the booking. Salon again said it would be fine (these messages have since been deleted by salon) but I insisted we cancelled and apologised. Fine, booking cancelled. I then asked for the booking fee to be refunded. Salon refused stating this booking fee was 'non refundable'.
When we made the initial booking she sent a message with bank details and a note about things to do/not do prior to the appointment. It also stated there was a £50 'booking fee', no mention of this being non refundable.
Who is in the wrong here? We tried asking politely for the fee to be refunded as it seems like a lot to be charged for an appointment we booked and cancelled within an hour, DM would have been happy to pay a small admin fee but £50 is a quarter of what the eyebrows would have cost to have done.