Shopping Mall Makeover Contests: Shame on you. blog discussion

Former_MSE_Lawrence

This is the discussion to link on the back of Martin's blog. Please read the blog first, as this discussion follows it.

Read Martin's 'Trafford Centre ‘Makeover Contests’. Shame on you!' Blog.

Click reply to discuss below.

dancingfairy

A harsh lesson to learn but hopefully one which will stand her in good stead for the rest of her life- to not automatically trust these companies and check for small print.
Hope you are able to get this across to her. It's not fair though they are targetting teenagers like this.

andertoonz

yep... it is the same company that took my details at a wedding fayre... i went with a friend but knew what would happen at the end... we went purely for fun and i managed to sneak a few decent snaps of my mate on my camera phone but we always knew we had no intention of buying the snaps. I told the woman this on the phone, who said that was fine and still enticed me by saying our make-up would be done by professionals who had done make-up for OK! (they hadn't!) and would give us tips and that.

I looked like a drag queen and was planely embarassed to have so much crap on my face. At the end, an 'older' lady came from the depths, called our names and took us down these narrow stairs into a basement then a small dark room and SHUT the door :-S

Out comes the hard sell... as well as telling us how beautiful we were and trying to falsely be interested in our life history (whilst clearly not being bothered about our answers)

I, being not easily intimidated managed to get us out of there by telling her clearly i was told i had 'won' and would not be obliged to buy. She tried everything... fair play, quite a decent saleswoman. Don't go in if you are weak willed!

She was at it " you can have one photo for £60, blah blah, and this album is just £750"
JUST!

errrrrr. no ta!

Edinburghlass_2

As a treat get your sister to take the girls to the Number 7 counter at Boots and they will do a beautiful make up, suited to their age, for the girls and no obligation to buy any of the products used. They will write down the products they did use along with recommendations for skin care again suited to their age group and their individual skin types.

Then of course your sister will need to take the girls out for something to eat while they are looking their best

Shebasmum_2

This happened to my daughter - unfortunately, she went along to the "salon" with two of her friends, quite unbeknownst to me, and had the photoshoot. She is 14 for heaven's sake! She was in tears when she was told she would have to pay £60 each for the pictures and obviously could not afford them. I refused to pay for this con and it's about time the rules governing real games of chance covered these scams. The Trafford Centre are just as culpable for allowing these crooks to operate there.

Trajet

Once you have had the makerover and leave can't you take photo's then?

Stuartli

To be fair, BBC's local news TV programme, Look North, highlighted the company involved at least twice and also interviewed owners of reputable model agencies, who provided sound advice on what to do and what not to do if you are interested in such a career.

clairefun

When I left college, I worked in a photographic makeover studio for a year or so. We did this *all* the time - the favourite was to leave 'prize draw entries' on a desk in a shopping centre - you then of course call up every number you get to tell them they've won a free makeover. *sigh*. Our print prices started at £25 so not quite as bad as bad (and they were excellently printed, if I say so myself) but yeah, my boss was always excited by the under 18s coming in (that sounds wrong!) as they would be more likely to be able to pester parents into spending money. I expect every photo-makeover company do it, to be honest - the prints are where the profit comes from. As the woman who printed the pictures I'm not sure one picture that would take me about 3 minutes to make perfect would be worth £25 let alone more...

Jersey_Outlets

There are a lot of companies which are doing like this.They first try to get the credit card information.Once they get that after the free trial they start charging the card. SO it is always safe to use virtual card number over the internet.