Salon ordered to refund customer

Shanghai No.2 Intermediate People's Court has ordered a beauty salon to refund the 42,000 yuan ($6,758) that one of its customers paid in advance for a body slimming treatment she never used, the court said Thursday.

The customer, surnamed Tan, sued the salon after it refused to refund the money in 2010 after she had surgery for cancer and her doctor advised her not to go through with the slimming treatment, according to a press release from the court.

Tan has established an account with the salon, depositing 78,000 yuan in total between March and April 2010. Every time she received a treatment, she signed a bill as proof that she approved the payment. In May, she deposited another 40,000 yuan after she was informed that there was only 2,000 yuan left in her account.

Because of her surgery, Tan never used any of the money. After the salon refused to give her a refund, she filed a lawsuit against it in September 2012, demanding 42,000 yuan in compensation. In court, the salon argued that it never signed a service contract with Tan and the 40,000 yuan she paid was actually spent on beauty products.

Looking at Tan's credit card transactions, the court found that she paid the spa in installments ranging from 10,000 yuan to 30,000 yuan, according to the press release. Because of the size of the transactions, the court decided that they couldn't have been to pay for any one service at any one time. It also pointed out that prepaying for services is a common practice in the beauty salon industry.