Client Demands Her Nail Technician Give Her Money Back Because She Decided She Doesn't Like The Color Of Her Nails
Her complaints only started after her nails were completely done.
Ihor Bulyhin | Shutterstock Being a nail technician not only requires attention to detail and hard work but also dealing with multiple customers on a daily basis. This, as it turns out, can be more difficult than people realize.
As any employee in the service industry will tell you, the customer is not always right. A nail tech's recent encounter with a horrible client proves this.
A nail technician dealt with a difficult customer who insisted that she return her money because she was unhappy with the color she chose.
J. Renee, a TikToker and nail technician from Columbus, Ohio, had the foresight to discreetly film an interaction she had with a client because she felt the client “was acting weird.”
With her phone down on the table and only Renee visible, she caught her and her client talking about mundane things like using oil every day for dry skin. Then things took a turn.
“To be honest, I don’t really feel like I like this color,” the client said. “I feel like it does not look good on my skin.”
“What do you mean?” Renee asked. “I feel like it’s cute.”
“It is,” the woman conceded, “but I feel like not on me. You think you could maybe do the darker one? Do you have time?”
The nail technician informed the client that she could not redo her entire manicure because she had other appointments.
Renee informed her that she, in fact, did not have time for that. She had another client waiting.
“She can wait. Just so you can drill it off?” the woman suggested.
Renee wanted to know why this client had waited so long to inform her of how she really felt about the color.
“Well, I was kind of waiting to see after, like, the whole product,” she stated. “But I feel like my skin just looks too light for these. I think the darker one would be better.”
Renee obligingly offered to squeeze the woman into an appointment slot the next day so she could fix the supposed color faux pas, but the woman claimed not to be available.
It was at that point that the conversation turned to money.
Up until this point, the client was simply asking for Renee to change her nail color. When Renee made it clear that couldn’t be done, at least not immediately, the client steered the conversation in another direction.
“I mean, I did already pay you,” she said.
Photo By: Kaboompics.com | Pexels
Renee attempted to regain control of the situation, pointing out that it was the client’s responsibility to let her know much sooner if she didn’t like the color.
“I was looking at the one hand when you were, when you finished that, and I was trying to debate,” the client attempted to explain. “But now that I see it on, and I don’t know, I just don’t like it.”
The client brought up money again, saying, “I just feel like I paid for these, and I don’t even like them … Well, can you at least send me my money back?”
“I mean, I just spent, like, an hour and a half doing these,” Renee argued. “I could give you, like, a discount, but I don’t … think that’s fair for me then.”
After going back and forth on what to do for several minutes, Renee came to the conclusion that she would send back the tip money that the woman had given her but not the cost of the service. The client was not happy and said she would not return in the future.
Trying to get a manicure for free by complaining about the color is not uncommon.
Young Nails, a nail supply manufacturing company, talked about the possibility of running into a “con artist” as a nail technician.
“This ‘unhappy’ client never had any intention of paying for their nails,” they said.
cottonbro studio | Pexels
Instead, this type of customer will attempt to manipulate their technician into believing they are not happy with their nails and simply refuse to pay.
While we can’t be sure of the client’s intentions, what she did certainly sounds similar to this kind of “con artist” behavior. Regardless, losing her business does not seem like a real loss for Renee.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.