Missed hairdressers appointment

[Gettingbysomehow]

Can anyone advice please.
I missed a hairdressers appointment because I had to go into work.
Pretty rubbish of me I know but i did say at the time I can't book now because I don't know what my shifts are but they insisted and said I can always change it.
Now they want the full amount for the missed appointment.
I've looked on the consumer advice pages and it says they have to have informed me of the charge for missed appointments at the time we made the appointment in order to do this. They did no such thng and it was not brought to my attention so I don't see why I should pay if they didn't do this.
Am I right (not morally obviously but legally).

No idea what the legal rights and wrongs of it are but you could try offering them half of what they're asking for and see if they accept it. If not you can either pay the full amount or not pay and see if they take you to the small claims court.

It seems to be standard practice of many businesses to have a no show payment policy. I was charged for a doctor appointment even though I gave appropriate notice. Since they had my card details they deducted it. I want going to get caught up in arguments. But when they tried to get my business again by calling me a few weeks later and asking if I want to book more appointments, I told them (nicely) not to call me ever again and take me off their client list.

Since you are in a flap with feeling there is no legal advice here (and there is great advice actually!), go get a lawyer to figure this out if you. And even lawyers argue endlessly lol - might be easier to split the atom 😂

How difficult would it have been to let them know you couldn't make the appointment? They lost money because you didn't show. Just pay, and maybe learn a lesson from this.

How much money have you lost them?

That's the problem.

Whatever their policy, they lose.

This is why I hate being self employed. This level of self entitlement. The fact that anyone thinks it is justified to book the time of a professional (regardless of how rubbish you think they are, that's on you, you rebooked), and then be affronted and genuinely believe that they shouldn't have to pay.

I can't pay my mortgage with the apologies from clients who don't turn up because they either aren't organised enough to cancel in advance, or clearly think I do my job as a hobby and think that their time is more important than mine.

The reality is that no, we are unlikely to take anyone to small claims court over a loss of earnings, because it would probably not be cost effective to do so. Lucky you. We basically have to rely on people being decent, doing the right thing, and not treating us like we don't matter.

Please don't use small businesses in the future. One week in January, I had FIVE people not turn up. That was a loss of nearly £300. Guess what, I still had to pay my mortgage, the rent on my business premises, feed my family, pay for my children's dance classes etc etc. Can you afford to just lose £300 earnings in one week? You are one person, but you are not in isolation. If you can't respect small businesses and the work they do, then please, don't use and abuse us.

Don’t they have a system in place where they send a reminder text the day or so before your appointment? My salon does that. If they’re going to charge for missed appointments they should at least do that first to try and avoid no shows.

The legal position is they need to have brought this to your attention when you booked.
However, I am amazed if you didn't know that if you don't cancel 24 hours in advance you have to pay. This is surely common knowledge. After all, you not showing and the stylist is out of pocket - there's no way to make it up. Why didn't you call, even just for common courtesy? You say you don't want judgement, but you deserve to be judged as entitled. Would you be happy to be docked an hours pay?

In practice they’ll have to sue you to get the money. They won’t. But up won’t be able to go there again

Everything in this post is wrong. Top work.

@Gettingbysomehow if consumer law states you have to have been made aware they have a chargeable cancellation policy then yes, technically you can say ‘I didn’t realise and you didn’t tell me so I’m not going to pay’. Or you could pay a small amount. However, morally as you say, it’s not very fair because they could probably have filled the appointment had they known earlier and not being able to means they lost out financially. I have a friend who runs a small business and some people really abused the cancellation policy so bookings now have to be prepaid.

On the other hand, in all my years of booking hairdressers I never had one insist I have to book my next appointment, although they ask. My favourite hairdresser does get booked up months ahead and if I don’t book when leaving, I may not get the appointment slot I want. However, that’s up to me. So I wouldn’t go back there, even if I decided to pay or part pay the cancellation this time.

@Gettingbysomehow
Actually, unless they notified you at the time of making the booking that you will be charged in full for no-show, they can’t make you pay. They’d need to have a telephone recording to prove it. So in terms of your legal rights, the salon cannot enforce payment as they did not actually have a contract with you. [Technically there must be an offer, acceptance, intention to enter legal relations and ‘consideration’ given - in the form of a deposit/prepayment for example. Booking an appointment where you’ve stated you are unsure if you can make it, and have not paid a deposit to secure the booking means there is no contract.]

I assume they do not have an address, simply a name and phone number? In which case block them and find a new hairdresser.

However, I’d personally say that you ought a) not to have allowed yourself to be pressured into making the booking in the first place and/or b) should have cancelled pretty much immediately and rebooked when you knew your shift schedule - so you ought to feel a teensy bit of guilt for taking up a slot that another person could have used/the money they won’t now make.

Salons can protect themselves against this, however, by notifying clients of this policy at each booking and taking a non-refundable deposit - I never understand why they don’t do this.

This is very common, why didn’t you just cancel?

Why would they need a telephone recording, it is her words against theirs, of course they don’t need a telephone recording, how silly.

Yes, this. How would the OP feel if she turned up for work, and her employer told her she wasn't going to be paid that day?

Forgetting to cancel is bad, but probably something we have all done occasionally. Not bothering to cancel is absolute twunt behaviour.

And I don't believe for a moment that the hairdresser said that the OP could not come again if she did not re-book at the time of her last appointment. More likely she said that appointments were getting booked up, so it would be a good idea. And the OP claims that she didn't even rate the hairdresser, so why feel any pressure to re-book anyway? Sounds like a load of BS, to justify twattish behaviour.

How far in advance did you book, and did you ring to change the appointment when you got your work rota?

If you tried to cancel/change the appointment (more than 24 hours before it) I don't think they can charge you for it.

If you just didn't show up without telling them, I think they can charge you.

You booked an appointment, you knew you couldn’t make it at some point in time and decided not to let them know. You have stopped the hairdresser that would have been cutting your hair earning money from another customer. She may well rent a chair in the salon and you have significantly dented her wages.

swallow your pride and pay the money. You should have called to cancel and you didn’t. It wasn’t some last minute emergency that meant you couldn’t go, it was work that you would have known about in advance.

Not patronising of you, at all.

They’d need a telephone recording to prove that she was informed of the policy at the time of booking or on previous telephone bookings if they wanted to pursue her through the small claims court. Many companies DO record calls, but I appreciate that this was done in person on this occasion, so unless they also have CCTV in the premises, they have absolutely no evidence that OP was advised of this policy, either in previous telephone bookings or in person on the day.

So, yes, it is their word against hers - but the salient point from a legal perspective is that NO DEPOSIT was taken, so there is no contractual obligation.

Imagine if everyone had this attitude, to you it might just be 50 quid or whatever but if a few people did that every week it would be hundreds of pounds lost!! Legally I doubt it will be enforced that you pay but honestly I think it's shitty behavior to not even offer some, even 25 percent would be better than nothing.

I’m sorry but you booked an appointment not knowing if you could make it and then you didn’t bother to cancel it as soon as you had your shift. And decided instead that not turning up was the best option?
Sorry but this is shit behaviour and the reason why most places have a cancellation policy.

Before going all guns blazing re ‘not being told about the cancellation policy’, I wouldn’t be surprised of said policy is written on your appointment card and/or was on the wall at the hairdresser (for everyone to read and see).

If you booked a flight and failed to show up would you still have this attitude when they have taken your money? You failed to cancel the appointment which highlights that you feel your time is more valuable than your Hairdressers. You were not forced to rebook and were advised that you could change the appointment. This is on you, not your hairdresser. Your error and you should absolutely pay.

“She said at the time I could only go there again if I booked my next appointment there and then”

So she got this in before you realised you didn’t want to go there again because they were very mediocre and charged a fortune?

I am not a lawyer but firmly believe in caveat emptor , buyer beware. Sometimes you have to suck it up if you have seen the warning signs and ignored them.

'No shows' are an increasing issue in the hospitality world - so much so now, that some restaurants insist on taking either your credit card details when you book/before you go or in some cases taking an actual deposit. When we were on holiday recently we had booked a top-end restaurant for a special evening out, and we were charged $125 dollars at the time of the booking, which obviously then got deducted from the final bill - although would have not been so if we had failed to show.

I wouldn't be surprised to see places like hairdressers starting to do this as well, to be able to preserve their income.

Legally no they can't charge you if they haven't informed you they can only moan and stamp their feet.
Just don't go there again and make sure you cancel next time you get your shifts.

Surely they have a copy of their cancellation charges somewhere on their website/ social media/in the salon?