People often go to great lengths to achieve their desired physical appearance; more often than not, this happens with aging skin and bodily features, including the face, that tend to give away age.One such story is about an elderly woman in China, who spent over Rs.4 crore rupees on beauty treatments at a salon.But it seems it wasn’t all about beauty.
Chinese granny exhausts all her life savings worth over 4 crore at a beauty salon
A 75-year-old woman from Shanghai spent her entire three million yuan or ₹4,31,26,177 life savings on beauty treatments at a single salon, wiping out her retirement fund before her daughter finally caught on to what was happening.According to the South China Morning Post, the woman’s daughter approached a Shanghai television programme for help after realising her mother had drained all her savings on beauty services. The woman, identified only by her surname Yu, had been visiting a branch of Yongqi Beauty and Hairdressing Company, along with a medical beauty clinic linked to it, since as far back as 2016.Yu told the outlet that the treatments she paid for included skin tightening, thread lifting, and meridian massage. Billing records her daughter later obtained from both businesses showed that Yu had also gone through eyebrow and lip tattooing procedures at the salon.
The salon had conned the granny
The 75-year-old’s daughter found out that the charges were “10 to 20 times higher than the market rates.” As an example, a multi-procedure lip tattooing session alone cost 39,800 yuan, or about Rs. 568613. The bills also showed Yu had repeated the exact same tattooing procedure several times, even though there was no real reason to redo it once done.Yu explained to SCMP, “she did not pay attention to the costs because she believed she was affluent”. Her savings had come from selling her home, and by the time her daughter uncovered what was going on, Yu could no longer even afford rent and had resorted to selling her jewellery to get by.
How did the truth unfold
The situation escalated further when staff at Yongqi referred Yu to another clinic called Rouyi, which charged her 300,000 yuan or Rs.428603, for an “intimate care” procedure. Yu paid for it but never actually went through with it; the clinic instead swapped it out for other skincare treatments.Strangely, Rouyi’s invoices listed items such as “happiness chair” and “space capsule,” neither of which Yu could explain. Yu’s daughter later found that the Rouyi charges had actually been billed through Yongqi’s own account.For its part, a staff member at Yongqi denied the claims, insisting that it was Yu herself who kept requesting the frequent procedures because of her “appearance anxiety.” The staff member also maintained that “all prices were clearly marked,” and that by paying, Yu had accepted their pricing.
