According to a statement from the Police Headquarters, four people in Elche have been arrested by the National Police. Two men and two women, aged 46 to 39, are accused of defrauding 358 people by selling them vouchers for aesthetic sessions at the clinic they managed, which were never completed or carried out. The total economic loss was 45,924 euros.
Three customers who had bought certificates for ten beauty treatments or laser hair removal sessions were the first to tell about the events. Depending on the situation, they either started or continued their treatments and then found the facility shuttered without warning. The victims said they had bought certificates worth between 340 and 350 euros for different therapies. Two of them had at least one session, while the third never started treatment because the clinic was closed when she arrived for her appointment.
After the Judicial Police officers at the Elche Police Station started the investigation, further victims were found, bringing the total number of people affected to 358.
The investigators found that the clinic had been running aggressive sales promotions all year long, giving discount coupons of 20% or 30% off, and around Christmas or Easter, discounts of up to 50%, all of which had no expiration date.
Problems with cash flow that led to the selling of the business
A businessman ran the clinic, but following the bond sale campaign, he started to have cash flow problems that made it hard for him to pay his employees.
Because of this, he decided to sell the clinic to a friend. The friend and her partner bought all the shares of the business, along with the money owed on the discount vouchers. The buyers later found out that the real amount owed was higher than what they had been told at the time of the sale.
So, it seems that the new management of the clinic told its workers not to deal with the vouchers that came from the old management. This meant that they had to come up with excuses like the machines breaking down or the worker in charge of the treatment being sick.
New bond campaign and end
But the new management started a fresh sales drive for long-term coupons, which are good for at least ten sessions and have an expiration date. They offered discounts of 20% to 40%. Customers paid cash for the coupons, but they didn’t get a receipt. The manager placed the names of people who asked for one into the computer system so that an invoice could be printed. After that, the information was erased from the system.
According to the police, the management sold these bonds on the same day the clinic closed without telling consumers that it was about to close. They say they did this to “amass a large amount of capital from users they had no intention of serving.”
The prior administrator acquired the clinic back a month after it closed. They sold both the old and new vouchers knowing that the company would close without paying. The investigation found that 358 people were harmed, but only 31 of them had submitted a complaint by the conclusion of it. The total amount of damages was €45,924.
The agents made the arrests because they thought the four people they were looking into were involved in a fraud crime. Three of them were firm managers, and one was an employee of the clinic. All of them were sent to the courts in Elche.
Author: Derek Appleton
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