Woman Charged $279 To Get Her Nails Done After Staff Bullies Her Into Getting Gel — Cops Are Called When She Questions The Amount
She refused several times but they were not taking no for an answer.
Krasula / Shutterstock A woman walked into a nail salon expecting a fresh set of nails. Instead, she was confronted by the police.
The woman said that the salon staff deceived her into receiving a service she did not agree to and charged her an additional fee for services already included in her booking.
She claimed the staff took advantage of her because of her race and depicted her as the antagonist of the entire situation.
The woman was charged $279 to get her nails done after staff bullied her into getting gel.
In a TikTok video that has garnered nearly 2 million views, Kellie (@kelliekadriri) shared her nail salon horror story.
According to Kellie, she arrived at the Venetian Spa in Miami, Florida, to get a fresh set of acrylic nails on her toes and fingernails.
Even though she told staff that she only wanted acrylics, they pressured her into getting gel nails.
The staff assured Kellie that the gel would make her nails last longer, but Kellie suspected that they were convincing her to do gel so that they could spring an additional charge on her.
After refusing gel multiple times, her nail technician would not take no for an answer, telling her that he was going to give her gel instead of regular acrylic nails. Wanting to avoid any further arguments, Kellie reluctantly allowed the nail technician to do gel on her nails.
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“The entire nail experience was fine; you know it was normal,” Kellie said. “But I started to notice that maybe things were awry after he started asking me if I wanted to do certain things.”
The nail technician asked Kellie if she wanted her cuticles trimmed, which was odd considering that having your cuticles trimmed is part of the manicure experience and usually not an additional charge.
Kellie noted that her nail technician provided her with excellent service, and she planned on tipping him well.
When her nails were finished, and she went up to the counter to pay, she was bewildered to see that the grand total was a whopping $279.
The receipt revealed that the gel nails cost $55 and that cuticle trimming was an extra $10, both of which the salon staff failed to make her aware of beforehand.
When Kellie confronted the manager and pointed out that she was deceived into paying for extra services, the manager told her that she had two options: to pay the $279 she owed or they would call the police.
“At that point, I would rather deal with the cops because clearly you have no intention of being kind to me, nor are you understanding the complete miscommunication of this whole situation,” Kellie said.
The salon manager claimed that since Kellie’s nail technician did not speak English very well, he likely misunderstood her and assumed that she wanted gel nails.
However, Kellie argued that up until that point, the nail technician had been speaking English just fine and understood her requests throughout the entire process.
She added that her intention was not to get the nail technician in trouble but to be reimbursed for the money management tricked her into paying.
The police arrived shortly after the incident was reported, along with Kellie’s roommate, so that she wouldn’t have to deal with them alone.
Although the police said it would have been within Kellie’s rights to leave the salon after the manager refused to reimburse her, they still told her that she ultimately had to pay the $279.
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Thankfully, her roommate stepped in to pay for half of it.
Kellie said that the salon took advantage of the fact that she was a Black woman and assumed that they could trick her into paying more than what she owed and villainize her when she refused.
Although she continued to be respectful toward the salon staff and the police while the incident unfolded, the salon owner praised her white roommate for being “kind and respectful.”
“Where was that energy for me?” Kellie asked.
Many viewers assured Kellie that she was not alone, and they, too, had been deceived by nail salon staff.
“This is why I stopped getting my nails done. I secretly filmed each time I went to pay; I got the same EXACT thing and got charged differently each time,” one TikTok user commented.
“A lot of the nail salons here are ‘gel bullies.’ I stopped going for over a year because they would try to trick me into getting gel or other services,” another user wrote.
Others encouraged Kellie to get in touch with her bank or credit card company to dispute the charges.
Some even went so far as to leave negative reviews of the salon online regarding their poor service.
This prompted the salon manager to reach out to Kellie’s roommate, begging him to ask Kellie to take her TikTok videos down.
“We are good people who care about other people. We don’t want trouble,” the manager wrote in a text message.
When visiting a nail salon, it is 100% always within your rights to refuse services that you do not ask for.
Some salon staff might use high-pressure sales tactics to push add-ons or expensive products. They also might not fully disclose all the charges upfront, adding extra fees for various services or products without clear communication.
Before visiting a salon, it is important to ask questions, read reviews, and be vigilant about their costs and services to avoid falling victim to deceptive practices.
Megan Quinn is a writer at YourTango who covers entertainment and news, self, love, and relationships.