I had my first treatment this past april.So far so good on my full leg treatment.If I had any questions to give them a call.I’ve had no problem with ALC at all.I’m paying 3000 for my treatments which will be sent to my house for me to pay each month.As for the clinic itself,I found them to be well informed on the use of the laser.The clinic manager and her associates are very nice to me.They did con me(sort of speak)to hurry up and sign for treatments.They do have a written guarante(sp)That if any hair grows back,they will do it for free where the hair grows back.As I said if there were anything to ask them about your treatments you could of asked.Btw I’m getting it done here in Pittsburgh,Pa
I got a private message from someone who just started working at one of the locations of this chain in MA. Here’s what she said. Suggestions on how she should proceed are welcome:
“I recently accepted a job at American Laser Center in a MA location. I am a licensed aesthetician and have attended a laser workshop with Candela. I have worked extenxively with the Candela GentleLase, which I think is one of the best. However, American Laser Center does not use Candela lasers- this location uses the Aurora and Soprano. During my interview I insisted that I be fully trained on both lasers. As it turns out, I have not been given this training and have been asked to use the Soprano. I think whats happening at this location (and perhaps other ALCs) is unethical and unlawful. I tried to call an ALC hotline to report this matter and each time, it’s busy. I have only been employed here for just one week. I don’t know how to rectify this. I don’t know if all ALCs are a racket. The manager of this particular location is a pushy, money-hungary woman with no scruples. Attention needs to be brought to this center for a number of reasons. My question is, how to go about this? I am almost afraid that upper management won’t do anything because they run a corporation and are just in it for the money and they need to protect their name. It’s almost like once they sign a person up for an expensive package, they are done with them and on to their next victim.”
You are in a tough spot. You definitely should be trained on the Soprano and Aurora before you use them. The Soprano is similar to the Lightsheer. I have not been treated with the Gentlelase so I cannot comment from experience on the differences.
If you complain, which is the correct thing to do, you will probably be fired. All you can do is complain to corporate HQ and hope for the best. You will probably have to seek employment eslewhere, but your conscience will be clear. If your manager threatens terimination, you can threaten to contact the local news media.
RJC2001
A post on this chain’s West Palm Beach, FL location from another forum:
"Just figured I’d give some feedback on how my consultation went at the American Laser Center location in West Palm Beach, Florida. Let me preface this by noting that I had registered for their $1500 online give-away for laser hair removal. A couple days after I had done so, I received a call and an email from one of their representatives stating that I had won 3rd place and now had $300 dollars I could use on any laser hair removal. Awesome.
I’m not one to walk into something blindly though, and I’ve been doing my research. My plan is to get the front of my neck done. I have relatively fair skin with black thick hair. So I’ve been poking around and most of the quotes for neck packages for men are around 700-800 dollars. I’d also like to get my full torso done, but I would do the neck first to see what kind of results I got before shelling over thousands of dollars for a torso package.
I scheduled a consultation with their West Palm Beach office. The clinic manager was nice enough, although she was really pushing for me to sign up and start right away (which is her job, so I don’t hold that against her). So here’s the breakdown of the pricing I was shown. The 25% is a “special” they’re running this month.
Front of neck: full price - $1679 - 300 off award - .25% of special = $1035
“T-Shirt”: full price - $9000
my price because I’m only patchy - $6500 - 300 off - 25% = $4650
Arms: full price - $3400
my price because I’m only patchy - $2500 - 300 off - 25% = $1650
That’s $7335 if I want to get everything above. Keep in mind, that if i didn’t have my 300 award, that would be $8235. And if they weren’t running their 25% discount promotion, it would be $10,679
I did talk her down to $6235 for all 3, but that only applied if I signed up then. Their package is 6 sessions using the Aurora laser.
So, I tell her I’ll think about it. I was playing with the numbers at home, and the way she calculated the pricing, it came out to the highest possible amount. She should have taken the 25% discount first, and then applied my 300 dollars. That would have resulted in the following:
959 vs. 1035 - neck
4575 vs. 4650 - t-shirt
1575 vs. 1650 - arms
7110 vs. 7335 - all 3
6040 vs. 6235 - all 3 after I talked her down
Then, I get a call around 6pm that night, asking me if I had made up my mind, and was then told that my $300 award would only be honored until 8pm that night. That was the last straw for me, so I will not be using their services. Why would I pay higher prices for a lesser laser (IPL)? Anyhow, I hope this helps people with their decision/research. (honestly, I have a gut feeling that most people who did the online give-away thing probably got the “3rd price 300 off!” It just smells fishy to me."
And yes, everyone “wins” this so-called certificate.
Yeah, they were at a local street fair and had a Sweepstakes running. My wife was elated when she got third place. After going in, she was also pushed to sign immediately and smartly refused. A few days later I also got third place and $300 off and I said No Thank You. I imagine everyone gets third place.
I found a cool place to get my treatments after American Laser, major attitude whan i was asking question. My friend bought a package and she was very unsatisfied, they sucked, they are too pushy and got mad when i didnt purchase anything. DR. brandies in beverly hills, so cheap, pay as you go. 50 for underarms, 50 for 2 line bikini, 75 for 3 line bikini, 125 for brazillian, 400 for full legs, 258 for back and shoulders.they use the sonata diode or the coolglide ndyag and get this, the RN who i consulted with encouraged me not to do my arms because the hair was too fine and i wouldnt be satisfied .wow. nobody is ever that honest, every place i went swore that it would work on my arms. i am on my 2nd tx and my hair is lighter, she said i need about 6-8tx, the only draw back is that the wait is long on some days- up to 1 hour. So worth the wait, bring a book. The RN is really good. I have not had a doctors treatment yet, he does the treatments on specific days, i think nurses do a bettter job and take time , most doctors are too busy and need to finish. i will repost more after 3rd treatment.
pelona, i’m interested in knowing if you’re experiencing shedding of all hair after every treatment. i used that doctor once. he performed the treatment himself and i believe it was the LightSheer laser he used. personally, i wasn’t satisfied, it was my third treatment overall, but first with him, and it was the first time i saw barely 15-20% shedding as opposed to 80-95% with GentleLASE by another doctor in Beverly Hills here. I felt the problem was due to the doctor not using compression. It just didn’t feel as painful as my other treatments have been, although his prices ARE very good. Can you provide more details? I would be interested in finding out more. I went there around last Aug/Sept I believe, and they were in construction process at the office, which was a bit uncomfortable too.
I did shed about 15% after each treatment. The RN said that its a slow process and it only works on the root, my hair kept growing as normal for about 4 weeks and then i saw some shedding, on the 2nd tx it just took a while for it to grow out, i think thats when another hair cycle started growing, i know that since i exfoliate everyday in the shower it probally falls and i did not notice when it shedded the 2nd time,well its definetly not a spa setting for sure, the wait is long, the parking sucks, the receptionist are strange but the prices and the diode laser is awesome, the RN doing the treatments is so knowledgeable, and you wont feel it as much because they use the cooling system zimmer, you have to know that its a process and all the first treatments are done very low because they want to see how your body will absorb the lasers to make sure that it does not damage your skin.make you appointment with her,they use the sonata diode by orion who is now merged with another company that is now ALMA. i did research the laser on the orion sonata website site. good luck. i am very pleased so far.i think i just really appreciated the honesty. everywhere i went they tried to pressure me to buy packets and prepay, they also promised me that it would work, they really used heavy sales tactics, after all the places i went this is the only place the nurse discouraged me from doing some areas where the hair was to light and thin and it wouldnt take, she also told me to try a couple small areas at a time to make sure this is the lasers for me since not all laser work for everybody that way i could stretch my budget the right way, she also said that she couldnt promise me anything, she gave me a brief lecture on the stages of hair growth so i could understand it and told me all the negatives and positives that could happend, she also showed me her patchy legs since she is on her 3rd treatment herself and when i asked her if it woul hurt she said “yeah”. Everywhere else they swore it would be painless. It was refreshing after hearing all the BS from Amrican laser centers and lumity spa and nuvo international ECT. I will repost after my next treatment
They were nice and honest when I went as well, but I have to say you should realize that 15% shedding is not good. You should shed all hairs treated, no matter what stage of growth they are in. Like I said, I did all my other treatments at another doctor (just as or probably more honest and nice…you can’t really compare private clinics to the hard-sell chains you’ve visited; most private clinics are much nicer etc) and 80-95% shed EVERY time. Also, using low setting to start out is not the best idea because you can 1. stimulate more growth on some areas like the face and 2. only damage the follicle a bit, and not kill it, making the hair grow in finer, which in turn makes it then harder for laser to target on consequent treatments. A diode is a good laser for skin type I-IV, the alexandrite though is even a bit better if you’re a skin type I-III. Anyways, it’s up to you, but based on my experience, I would recommend you check out a few more non-chain places and compare, especially since you don’t have commitments here. You can try the doctor I’ve used. I’m sure you’ll see a huge difference like I did and his prices are pretty similar with no committments as well (and absolutely no wait more thna 5 mins and lovely receptionist <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> ). I ended up going back to him after 1 treatment by this clinic (this was my third treatment overall). Good luck and keep us posted.
Thanks for the info, which MD did you use? i am always looking to try a better place. Thats the best part about not having to prepay for package deals.I asked the Rn about why would they use a low setting to start since it might not be the best thing to get rid of the hair and that it might stimulate hair growth, she said that the low setting that was used was the lowest setting for my specific skin color (4) on the fitzpatrick scale, she said that the clinic would rather lose a patient to another clinic then to take the chance of leaving a permanent problem on my skin and that the research on true hair stimulation with laser is documented in the (Medical Laser Journals) that showed that the possibilities are very minimal and hard to prove, she did give me a article to read about it and it was way over my head. The only thing that stuck was that research is still in process. So far my hair is still thinner, lighter, softer and i have seen about a 90% reduction on ingrown hairs. I would love to try your clinic. Thanks
I used Dr Babapour in Beverly Hills. He uses GentleLASE, which is best for type I-III. Might be ok on type IV, but he would have to judge that. You can google him. Doesn’t hurt to set up a free consultation.
There is no such thing really as “the highest settings for type IV”. These “types” are very approximate and various people’s skin can take various settings, not always dependent on the type. The only TRUE way to know what the highest setting is is to test spot, which they didn’t do from what I understand. Either way, to judge effectiveness at all, you HAVE to see shedding of the treated hair. If it doesn’t shed, it wasn’t affected. It won’t magically go away from just applying the laser if it never falls out. It’ll just keep growing the way it was.
Story on a refund from Amer. Laser Center
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/lifestyle/columnists/orl-dawson2306jun23,0,3029995.column?coll=orl-lifestyle-col
Just thought I’d update about ALC. I had my second treatment for underarms and face last week. It went really fast and well. I really liked this technician. They are still using the LightSheer (?) diode laser and said they would probably move to the IPL laser for the last few treatments since the hair would be finer at that point. Is this recommended??
I am feeling a lot better about my decision to use ALC, but still a little disgruntled about the initial experience. I have friends that are going to Ideal Image and they have had basically the same experiences, maybe the staff is a little less pushy, but their prices seem to be higher.
I am now dating a dermatologist who was shocked at how much I am paying for my laser hair removal. He said I could have paid a lot less at a Dr.'s office. Just something to keep in mind…
prices don’t depend on whether it’s a doctor’s office or not, but one thing that’s clear is that Am. Laser charges at least average, but often even higher than the competition. just something to keep in mind.
i wouldn’t switch to IPL. if you want, try it for one treatment and see if there is a difference. i would think you would get better results on finer hair by raising the settings on the diode.
I was called last week about winning the 3rd place prize with ALC in Sacramento, Ca. Someone mentioned the dr. office. Would your dr. do hair removal? Would the insurance pay? I have been thinking about going to the dr. about it anyway to see if I can get a perscription for a topical cream that retards growth for the chin and upperlip. My dh doesn’t mind the hair on the “happy trail” (trail, more like a path and a blind man couldn’t get lost) 
Thanks for your info on laser hair removal. ALC also offers skin stuff. Would they be able to take off or get rid of a small vein on the face? And why would men want to get rid of their hair. Its fun to play with.
everyone “wins” this certificate. you didn’t win anything. it’s a marketing tactic and i would recommend to stay away from going to this place unless you can walk away from hard-sell sales pitch easily.
please read the FAQs to learn about hair removal. it’s not an easy quick fix solution ALC advertizes it to be and you would most likely regret it if you don’t do enough research before jumping into this. here’s the FAQ link for you, a good place to start. (btw, did you not read this thread with all the negative reviews?)
People seem to target ALC, and get the impression that these clinics are the only bad apples. There are many laser clinics giving people inneffective treatments, and trying to set them up in package deals.
I remember where I went, they had a guy in a back ‘boiler room’ telling him forcefully that he ‘needed to sign up for a package deal to have effective treatment.’ Now, what sense is that? Especially since only ten dollars is saved in a package deal per treatment.
That’s what the whole news expose’ that was aired was trying to say; that these clinics will treat anybody that will pay them, good candidate or not, working treatments or not, they just want to get money to pay off the price of the laser. They really should air that news special again. It should be hosted in Windows Media Format here on this site.
Mantaray
agreed. ALC is just most agressive in terms of their sales tactics. they can afford and DO advertise everywhere. so there are a lot more victims that come to them without doing ANY research at all and getting “sold”.
But you’re missing the premise; that it’s not just ALC. Other clinics not affiliated with ALC do this as well.
Mantaray
another tidbit about ALC. if you don’t stick to the 6 week schedule (to the day) your contract is void (you’ll only here this is you try and get money back). its also void if you dont buy their $30 bottle of moisturizer every treatment. ALC owners and workers deserve to be shot. or better yet zapped with their own crappy lasers.