Being charged £150 for changing my mind about a procedure

[AbsolutelyGutted1]

I have a small amount of filler and I wanted to have it dissolved so I made an appointment to see an aesthetician I've seen before and paid a £50 deposit. Her social media contains what i felt was a reasonable amount of info about the product used to dissolve, hyaluronidase. I clearly didn't do enough research.

The appointment was for tomorrow.

Unfortunately (or fortunately - depending on how you look at it) I was reading up about it today to prepare myself and came across some disturbing accounts of what hyaluronidase can do to you when it goes wrong, and I decided I didn't want to take the risk for such a small amount that will probably be undetectable to the eye after a year or so.

I sent her a message today and told her I'd had second thoughts about the dissolving and why, but said I'd keep the appointment and just get something else (a facial or something)

She can't/won't do that and now wants me to pay the full £150 charge for the original procedure I booked for and I'm absolutely gutted. I don't have a lot of money and had saved up for this especially.

Do you think it's fair or unreasonable? I didn't expect to see the deposit again, obviously, but the whole cost?

I've NC.

Especially when you have to buy those products over the black market from dodgy dealers.

Glad it all worked out well in the end

Right.
Who are you suggesting is committing the offence?
Have I missed something (been away from thread since I made that comment)?

Thanks for updating OP. That was a very expensive facial, but safer than the alternative.

The aesthetician would have been by administering prescription only medication.

@Sloejelly she almost certainly has a prescriber who does the prescrbing for her. Its absolutely not ideal (to say the least) but very common. Botox is the sane loads of non medics inject it after having it prescribed for the client by a medic.
But it doesn't mean she is buying shady stuff or using unprescribed products.
The prescriber should be present but I believe people send photos and medical history and the prescriber uses that.

Seems the materials cost about £15.

https://skinlabmedical.com/products/liporase-hyaluronidase-1-vial

I think she should at least let you off the price of the product, even if its too late to use her time for something else.

That is not sufficient.

Good outcome. Glad to here everything went well.

I can't see this succeeding in a small claims court - you have to mitigate your loss - which using the slot for a different procedure would do.

Or giving the slot to someone else.

Anyway I'm glad the OP had the facial - much more sensible outcome.

I'm glad it went well for you but honestly, her policy is badly written and she isn't giving you full and concise information on the procedure which is known to have serious side effects! She 100% sounds like one to dodge!

Sounds more than reasonable to say, okay I'll just have a facial with the time I bought for the appointment and pay £150. Because you'd think she'd also want to keep you as a regular client.

But who knows if she had all facial stuff to hand and ready last minute?

However the whole idea of a deposit is to make sure the beauty provider is not out of pocket. If you cancel, you know you're going to lose that deposit. Because appointments get cancelled for so many reasons.

I'd stick your ground. Lose the deposit and find a new beauty consultant.

Ok, legally speaking, there's a diff between cancelling and choosing an alternative. I think you should push it with her and if she won't budge I'd leave a less than complementary review about her inflexibility...

I know this is going to sound like I’m going way off topic, but to all those on here speaking up so eloquently about how unfair and unsustainable it is for self employed people to lose out due to cancellations, please do join the debate (if you don’t already) next time the working lives of criminal barristers is in the spotlight, because getting paid not a penny when cases come out of the list at the last minute is exactly what happens to them. And there are no deposits. And you have to wait months and sometimes years to get paid at all. People have no idea…

As much as I sympathise with the plight of the self employed (see above), I do think it’s asking a bit much to insist on the full fee when OP is offering to have an alternative procedure. OP could have booked a cheaper procedure in the first place and the beautician would obviously have accepted that. I’m guessing she doesn’t have a minimum price of £150.

Just seen it’s resolved now.

I think the above would be fair.

Why should they expect to charge the full cost?

I think it should be the full cost minus the price of the product used - which is still going to get used on another patient.

Why isn't she letting you have other treatments up to the value of £150? or were you wanting treatments for the £50 paid as the deposit only?
If she's expecting you to pay the full £150 then she should agree to other treatments worth that much. She'd not be loosing out then & you're still receiving something for the money you're spending.
If she's not willing to do other treatments then she can't expect full payment so you'd NBU to not pay the remaining outstanding amount.

Perhaps she doesn't offer any other treatments costing £150. It's irrelevant anyway; she shouldn't have to miss out on a £150 booking she thought she was going to have that day because the OP changed her mind about a specific treatment at the last minute.

I would expect to lose the deposit. But not the full amount.

If your paying £150 I'd be wanting her to give me that amounts worth of treatment. Even if it wasn't the dissolver. I can't see why she wouldn't do a facial, massage or something to fill the slot?
I get she can't fill it again at short notice, but she could still treat you with something else?

She did. Read the updates, she had a facial instead.

That the value wasn't the same was probably down to the cost of the products the beautician had to buy in for the particular treatment that the OP changed her mind about, which of course she should still have to pay for since she cancelled it at the last minute.

Not a chance would I be allowing this, I’d block my card and order a new one. I get filler, Botox etc regularly and have many friends who do it and I’ve never known anyone be so rigid. The hyallaise costs next to nothing to get in and she can use it for someone else easily (they’re always supposed to carry in anyway). I have been numerous times and will just change last minute what I want, sometimes having more, sometimes having less. She’s being a CF about it. Also I’ll just say dissolving comes with very minimal risk and filler last a lot longer than the companies say (I’m talking years) so you may still want to get it dissolved, just don’t use this money grabber to do it.