To Take Hairdresser To Small Claims Court

[JediJim]

So this may seem like I’m being uber petty but here goes;
A few months ago DW went to a hairdresser salon for the second time and booked an expensive hair style a few months in advance. The price was about £200 ,maybe a bit more. So the salon wanted a deposit of £50. Fair enough, so she paid it. She wrote in her diary the appointment time and date, the 13th September ( next Friday).
Anyway last Thursday, she received a text from the salon confirming her appointment for the next day ( Friday 6th September). So bit confused, she immediately rang the salon and told them she believed her appointment was the following week and that she couldn’t go on the 6th September as she was picking DD up from school ( her first week at school). The salon told DW that she would lose her deposit and if she wanted the appointment on the 13th she would have to pay another deposit. Either way she has lost the initial £50. DW had a lot on that particular time so just let it go and wanted to forget about it. The salon said that they have a 24 hour penalty notice for cancelling appointments.
Now in my opinion this is unfair. She rang the salon after receiving the text and stated that she thought her appointment was the following week. And even with the 24 hour notice for the cancellation policy, she fulfilled this because she rang them the day before.
I know it’s a relatively small amount and they are a business but £50 is a lot to us and we could do with not losing it. DW now stating that maybe she got it wrong and maybe her appointment actually was booked for the 6th. So not sure who is in the wrong. But she did tell them 24 hours before,as I’ve said.
Anyway DW doesn’t want the embarrassment or confrontation of going in to explain and wants to let it go. I on the other hand have a good mind to pop into the salon and explain what happened and ask for a refund. If not, can I tell them I’m going to take them to the small claims court? Would it sway them at all?
I’ve checked the salon website. There isn’t an email address that I can send an email to and there is nothing on there about any cancellation policy. Anyone had a similar experience?

I think one of you should speak to the salon as someone made a mistake when booking and it wasn’t necessarily your wife. Also was it more than 24 hours between the reminder and the appointment time on 6th? The reminder should really give time to cancel so I’d perhaps complain about this too.
I honestly think you’re getting a hard time on this thread because you’re a bloke and on mn asking on behalf of your wife!! Some people on aibu fund any excuse to be vile!
I’d be cross too in this situation and I think going in to speak to the manager is a good idea.

*find

I was having an expensive treatment and the night before DC and I came down with a D&V virus. I’d paid a deposit but I was very sick. They rescheduled me for a week later with no issue or penalty despite having an official 24 hr cancellation policy.

Any business that values its customers would allow your wife to rebook and not pay the deposit again.

Forget SCC, you don't need it.

1. Email the salon and request a copy of their terms and conditions for the deposit. Also ask for the contact details of the owner or manager. Often this will set bells ringing at the salon and things can be resolved.

1. Write a letter setting out why you are unhappy and what you want them to do (reschedule or refund). Explain that you are feeling very unhappy about this but want to try to work things out before doing anything else.

1. If no joy, leave a review. Keep leaving reviews every day or so.

In my experience, this is an effective way of getting a resolution. Don't threaten anything, just set out why you are unhappy and use the reviews to calmly explain what happened.

Keeping a deposit in this situation is unreasonable. I've made an error with my beauticians before and they have the same policy and they didn't charge it. It's not good business to lose a client for £50.

Crusader for justice.

I can't get over anyone spending upwards of £200 on a haircut, then saying that £50 is a lot to lose. If I were paying that for a haircut (in Cloud Cuckoo Land), I'd make sure I they wrote the appointment on a little card for me just so I was a thousand percent certain when it was.

As any salon asking for a deposit (thats is not for hair extentions - shade has to be bought in) don't go there! No professional salon should ask for a deposit.

That's not true. Some salons just cant afford for £200 appointments to just not show up because they didn't write down the correct date and so they take a deposit to cover at least some of the lost earnings.

I know my regular hair and beauty salon asks for a 25% deposit at the time of booking for any treatment that takes a block of 2 or more hours or is at peak times (eg Prom week/run up to Christmas etc) This is because they are a small salon and they were getting clients who were "no call, no shows" on the day of appointments, leaving the stylists/therapists with unused appointments and losing £100+ when they could have filled those appointments two or three times over if they had received a bit of notice.

If you are upset then write a negative review.

whereas they have her appointment in their system

Which is easily changed with no record of that change whatsoever or is easily mis-entered. It's not some magical set-in-stone book of truth.

Regardless, the OP says his wife gave the required 24 hours notice.

Don't understand some of the unnecessarily harsh responses here. Firstly, I have never known a reputable salon take deposits and secondly, she let them know more than 24h in advance so I don't understand why they object to refunding the deposit.

If money is so tight why is DW spending over £200 on a trip to the hairdressers?
This

I'm surprised none has pointed out that it's not up to you to swoop in and save the day. Why don't you leave your dw to deal with this? You're her husband not her father?

The salons calendar is going to be a computer booking system (if it sends out automated reminder texts is a decent one) so it’s incredibly unlikely they made the mistake when booking the appointment as 1, they do it repeatedly on a daily basis and 2, they would have double checked the time and date when confirming the booking as it’s standard practice.

It’s also incredibly easy to go back and see when certain information was added to a computer system, so they would likely be easily able to provide proof of the date and time the booking was made, so yes they can prove when your wife booked the appointment for.

You also seem very hooked on the fact that their website doesn’t have any terms and conditions or cancellation policy.
websites for bricks and mortar businesses are useful but are not essential or always accurate, almost all B&M businesses I have worked with have terms and conditions and cancellation policy either visible close to the booking/reception area or have them readily available. The cancellation policy would have been explained to your wife when the took her deposit. The fact that there is no evidence of it online is irrelevant.

I know loosing the deposit is annoying and it would have been nice if they had rescheduled the appointment but look at it this way, if you wife had to book the appointment months in advance chances are they are busy and with less than 24 hours notice it’s highly unlikely they would have been able to fill that appointment, the deposit is to cover that missed appointment.

The cancellation policy is likely up to 24 hours before, so if you cancel any time up to the day before the appointment, cancelling the day before is not inside the 24 hour window.

This has happened to me before, the salon wrote the wrong appointment time in their book and I had paid a £10 deposit (luckily they were fine with me rescheduling and carrying the deposit over). It doesn’t seem worth taking legal action over £50.

I don’t think the salon should keep the deposit as your wife abided by their terms and conditions but this could probably be resolved by your wife going in (if she wants to) to talk calmly to the manager rather than making a scene.

However if your wife wants to take no further action you should respect that.

In future ask for text/email confirmation on the day of booking or use another salon.

Why don't you leave your dw to deal with this?

If you read all his posts you would know.

They are bu.

It was a mix up of dates. No one can prove who is at fault.

Did your dw give more than 24hrs notice or just the day before? E.g.appt at 3pm, informed them at up to 3pm would be correct, after 3pm would not. Though I still don't think it's her fault. She let them know as soon as she realised the problem. They should have acknowledged the error and offered to reschedule.

If they want more notice they should set their appt reminders up to be a couple of days before.

I don't think it's unreasonable to have another word and failing that leave bad reviews on fb, TripAdvisor, Google etc.
If they're acting this way based on a miscommunication they deserve it.

cancelling the day before is not inside the 24 hour window.

Cancelling at 10am for an 11am appointment the next day is.

Small claims court would be U for this though.

You did need to clarify what time you cancelled and the appointment time.
You keep specifying the day before, but that could leave less than 24hrs.
I have had a very expensive hair appointment before, several hours going from brunette to blonde, it required a deposit as it was a 5 hour booking (my hair looked like shit and not blonde afterwards but that's another thread).
I think PPs are being a bit mean about the £200 haircut etc, while I'm not sure it's something you can pursue in this case as your DW isn't sure, I'm pretty certain most people wouldn't want to spend £50 on what feels like nothing. But that £50 was used to book and reserve an appointment, that's what its paid for. But again you haven't clarified cancellation/appointment times.

Which is easily changed with no record of that change whatsoever or is easily mis-entered. It's not some magical set-in-stone book of truth.

Pretty much every computerised booking system (which the salon must have as it sends out appointment reminders) will have a way to show when an appointment was booked and input in the system and when it was last modified.

And why would they do that? What salon is going to change an appointment so they can lose £200? Of the two options - that the OPs wife wrote down the wrong date in her diary, or the salon imputted an appointment (which they took a deposit for) into the wrong date - I would say it is more likely the OPs wife made a mistake.

It's easily done - I've done it when I've been flicking between a couple of weeks in the salon to find a free time for an appointment and then it's only later when I've gone to get the details from my appointment card to put on the family calendar I've realised I made an appointment for Wednesday 10am of week X but in my diary I've written it in Wednesday 10am of week Y.

Salon are bonkers! They've lost £150 over an admin error - if they are so sure of their appointments system why don't they send a confirmation text at time of booking as then there really is no wriggle room?

If you got the text at 9am and appointment was 11am next day and you called immediately then that is more than 24 hours notice.

Either way they've lost business. Bonkers.

I am surprised the salon didn't give her a card with the date on, or have it on the receipt for £50 , especially if it is an appointment booked weeks in advance.,It's very unusual or bad practice not to . As all the appointments are booked on a computer nowadays you wouldn't know if there was an error unless you have some kind of confirmation.

”Stupid business practice from that salon! She was quite happy to go in for her £200 appointment but between them they'd got the dates muddled up. Why didn't they just agree to move it back a week? Silly people.”

A £200 appointment is likely to be at least a couple of hours with a senior stylist or salon owner. OP’s wife booked it months ahead, and I imagine it will be weeks or months before the same appointment is available again.

I reckon your wife ballsed up, she knows she ballsed up but has only told you half of the truth because she’s feeling a bit defensive/embarrassed.

Just a theory 🤷🏻‍♀️

It's not good business to lose a client for £50.

The hairdressers have lost £150 and that would be a loss of £200 if they repaid the deposit.

For £200, that sounds a long appointment, and if they couldn't fill it with other people, that's a lot of money for the sylist to lose.

If they want more notice they should set their appt reminders up to be a couple of days before.

The sooner the reminder, the more likelihood of people forgetting.

In my business, we send reminders for people to pay their tax and submit returns. When we sent out reminders a couple of weeks ahead of the deadline, most clients forgot about it. We kept tweaking the system and ended up with most success being the day before so that people acted as soon as they got the reminder because in their mind, it was then due. I saw some statistics from reminder systems at GP surgeries which said the same - for maximum impact, the reminder has to be as close to the event as possible, hence why our GP send their text reminders at 8am on the day of the appointment.