Complaint Rating:

This is an update to what I wrote several months ago. After 19 hair removal treatments, I had no results. I started the refund claim (referred to as non respondent claim by American Laser) on December 5, 2007. Generally the non respondent claim review process is about 3 days. However, in reality that is not the case. After writing a letter to the Regnial Manager for the NYC center, Carina Rodriguez, to be submitted with my refund claim, I waited for a reply. After not getting a reply, I started calling Ms. Rodriguez and leaving voice messages for her each and every time. Then finally, I was informed a month later that, I needed to come into the center for more pictures. At this time, I realised that I was given the run around and decided to write a letter on January 4, 2008 to the CEO of American Laser (Gary Graves, 24555 Hallwood Court, Farmington Hills, MI 48335. Fax # 248-426-0129 Phone # 248-426-8250) This letter explained my entire history with American Laser and outlined what happend to me and who I spoke with (their names, telephone numbers and dates). I send this letter by certified mail with return receipt requested because if this did not work out, I was getting my paper work ready to file a small claims complaint in court. After faxing the letter, I called his office to confirm that they have received the fax and what the procedure was going to be. I also called every other day to follow up, but was trasnferred to voicemails of customer services and the legal department. i.e. Erica, Eva, and Robert Fessinger. Eva and Mr. Fessinger never returned my calls. Erica returned my call saying that she can't do anything and she doesn't know who can help. Carina Rodrigues returned my call on January 10, 2008 saying that she couldn't figure out what my name was and thus was unable to pull my file so she didn't call me earlier. My response to that was all she had to do is call me ONCE and ask me to spell my name, but appearently that was too much for her to comprehend. In this telephone conversation, I informed her that I wrote a letter to the CEO and Ms. Rodriguez became very upset and said "I should not have done that and that we are talking about people's livelyhood". To make this long conversation short, I summerized what happened and faxed her a copy of the letter to the CEO. Almost of the month past by where I kept calling to find out the status of my refund claim and was given more run around. Finally, on Feb. 19, 2008, I was told that my refund was approved and that I should get it soon. Because I paid thru Care Credit (GE Money), I would have to wait until Care Credit processed the refund claim. FYI - Care Credit takes 4-6 weeks to process a refund claim and they are even worse then American Laser about refunds. Finally I received my refund on March 25th 2008.

My advise is to keep following up with American Laser Center and make sure you keep a log of who you speak with and when you call and what happened during that conversation. They will give you a run around, but you have to keep at it. For me, December 5 thru Feb. 19th, were a living hell. It was very frustrating and extremely stressful. However, I kept calling to let them know that I was not giving up on my claim. I also wrote letters to outlining my dealings with American Laser. I finally that's what paid off.

Good Luck.