Who is the CF, me or the beauty salon?

[superdelooper]

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.

You're being the CF. What you've paid is basically a deposit....it's non refundable and most places do this, including for hair to protect businesses from so many peopoe just not turning up for appointments.
Your mum made a mistake but it's her own mistake. Why on earth would she even come off blood thinners which she will be on for a serious reason just to have eyebrows done ....think she should re think her priorities anyway.

It’s not her mums’ mistake if the salon have failed due diligence. It’s an industry standard to offer a pre treatment consultation, which includes asking about any health problems or medications which may preclude the treatment. The salon didn’t do this. In fact they sent WhatsApp messages advising that the treatment would be fine and then deleted them when they realised they were wrong. Doesn’t exactly scream competence. They should refund the deposit because they failed in their duty of care.

take screen shots of the booking process without making the final payment. Screen shot T&C
does it say non-refundable.
unless their T&C have been reviewed and signed off by a lawyer then they don’t actually mean anything.
check home or car insurance as it’s well worth ticking the box for legal cover on one of them as you can ask them anything.

you can also take them to small claims. Seems a stretch but that’s what it’s there for

Declining request to cancel within one hour is ridiculous. Leave a Google review about the salon describing the situation. It is most likely they will change their mind and offer a refund in exchange for recall of the negative review.

I think if cancelled with over 72hrs notice a refund should be offered, if less then no. If they insist on it being non refundable and over 72hrs notice is given then it should be able to be moved to a not suitable date

That is reaching out!

She didn't want to cancel, she wanted to postpone.

Yes but the objection is to saying ‘reaching out’ when you could say ‘telephoned’ or ‘contacted’ as that sounds more factual.

This lol 🤷🏻‍♀️

Doesn't matter how you think its sounds. They mean the same thing.

YABU. They would have let you reschedule which is the right thing to do. You just don’t want to because your mum isn’t going to stop taking her anticoagulation. Also it’s probably still fine to have it done whilst on something like apixaban/edoxaban. Patients in hospital still have blood tests when they’re on those medications.

Apixaban and Edoxaban are the newer anticoagulants and generally don’t need blood tests. My mum was taken off warfarin a couple of years ago and put on Apixaban, specifically because that drug meant she didn’t need the weekly INR testing. And it was mentioned upthread that the salon didn’t offer a pre treatment consultation, which is an industry standard. They should have enquired about any health problems or medication which would have precluded the treatment. The fact that they sent two messages saying the treatment would be fine, and then deleted them suggests they know they’ve dropped the ball.