Transdermal Scam

Hair Removal Methods Professional Electrolysis
#1

Most of you are aware of these scam artists that promote Transdermal hair removal as painless and permanent.

I myself fell victim to such a scam.
A woman gave me this wonderful story about how she would use her Transdermal procedure to remove my hair permanently. I gave her $900.

I discontinued the treatment after 3 sessions because it didn’t work. I researched some more, and found out from here that it was a total scam.

I took the woman to small-claims court. We spoke with a pre-trial mediator. The mediator pressured me into taking a $400 out-of-court settlement. I succumed.

The mediator told me if I did actually take the case to court, then I would get nothing. The woman claimed that there were no refunds, and I have no proof stating that she promised to remove all of my hair. She is only giving me $400 so that she can avoid the trouble of coming back to court.

The woman claimed that I paid her to do Transdermal electrolysis, and that if it didn’t work, I couldn’t get my money back. I have no proof that I was scamed. She still claims that the procedure works, but only that it didn’t work on me. She said it was because I used Retin-A, and that I didn’t drink enough water. But I did drink lots of water, and discontinued the Retin-A. Perhaps I should stand on my head each day for it to work.

The mediator told me that any technical documentation is never submittable in court. In order for me to have a case, I would have to get an expert witness into the courtroom to say that Transdermal Electrolysis is a fraud. Although her procedure isn’t approved by the FDA, I’m not sure if it is still illegal for her to use it.

The woman is still out there scamming people. Although she will pay me back $400 of the $900 that I paid her, I still lost out on $500 because of her scam.
Weather or not there is still a chance for me to get the rest of my money back, she needs to be stopped. I don’t know what to do anymore.

If anybody is interested, here is the topic that I had posted about a year ago when I wasn’t really sure if it was a scam:
http://www.hairtell.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=000085

[ March 10, 2004, 10:41 AM: Message edited by: hairman ]

#2

Dude,
I read all the drama and that sounds really painful, particularly since if I came close to falling for the transdermal thing myself.
I’m writing to say that if a judge has not passed a verdict on the case yet, maybe you should take it to Judge Joe Brown, the TV judge. I watch him every day and he’s a really awesome judge. He comes down super-hard on scam artists and I’m sure he’d have sympathy for this case. You might even be able to print out your earlier posts from this page from before you knew you were being scammed as evidence. Additionally, if you happened to get your case aired, it would help warn others about the practice.
Good Luck.

#3

OK. I applied on-line for Joe Brown. I’m real weary about TV judges because most of them come of to be quite rude and unprofessional. In effect, real life judges emulate them like children. I hope your idea works.

#4

I agree with you totally about most online judges. I’d never go to any of them except Joe Brown because I think that most of them seem rather arbitrary. But from Joe Brown’s show and from other interviews that I’ve seen with him, he’s won my approval because he’s very intelligent and on his show he seems to be able to be creative with the law in order to do what he thinks is fair. Since it’s small claims court he just has to decide that it’s more likely than not that you got ripped off…which I think you should be able to prove, since basically you paid to have your hair tweezed out, and I dont think that anyone would pay that much for that. Make sure you submit the online posts from when you first started treatment as evidence.
Hope this works. Good Luck!

#5

I just wanted to lend support to your opinion of Judge Brown versus other TV Judges. I have to say that I find Judge Judy to be the worst. She makes snap decisions on things she knows nothing about without a proper understanding of the situation and frequently gives the case to the wrong person.

I saw one show where she ruled against a lady who was charged with intentionally wrecking a car by setting it to run down a hill and into a garage. The lady explained that the car was a standard/manual transmission and that the plaintif had left his keys in the car with the radio on. He asked her to go to the car and get the keys. She was used to American cars, where if the radio is on, and the car is off, you turn the key forwards towards the windshield one position to pull the key out. This was a foriegn car, where the key position for the radio on and car off is one position away from the on positon, and two clicks from ignition. She leaned into the car, turned the key, and pulled. Nothing happened, so she turned the key one more position and the engine ignighted, and the car lurched forward, stalled, and rolled into the garage.

Whose fault is it? The car owner’s for leaving the car in gear, and not applying the emergency brake (to say nothing of being to lazy to go get his own keys). Judge Judy did not believe that it was possible for what the lady said happened, to have happened, and did not even call a machanic to verify, or discredit her testimony. A simple call to the dealership would have given the fact that the owner’s manual warns against this very situation.

And that is all I have to say about that.

#6

James, I agree. Judge Judy is a beast. She just seems to make up her own story in her head, regardless of what she’s told - or without even letting people tell her things. It’s creepy. She only seems to do well when the case involves an injured pet or child…if she thinks that someone is guilty of hurting a pet or kid, she crushes them. Even if I had a case involving a dog-kicking child abuser though, I dont think that I’d take it to her…I’d be too afraid that she wouldnt like my hair and therefore wouldnt give me a chance to speak.