Regarding CALIFORNIA SUN SPA in Toronto, ON

Hello everyone,

I know this blog is about my artwork and such, but I feel that I need to post this out there so other people can avoid what happened to me.

My birthday was last weekend (October 11th) and my wonderful husband decided quite some time before this that he wanted to get me a day at the spa since the last time (and my first spa day ever) I'd had one (the day before our wedding) I'd had a wonderful time. We talked about it, I did some research and decided on CALIFORNA SUN SPA, as it was in our general area, had fairly good prices and based on a few reviews I had found, sounded good.

Two weeks before my birthday I called to make the appointment. I asked to have "Package #2" which consisted of: manicure and pedicure, parrafin foot and had treatments, a body massage and a facial. When I called to make the appointment, I polietly asked if the facial could be removed from the overall package and be replaced with a longer massage. The lady I spoke with said she didn't think it would be a problem, but she needed to ask first just in case there was a price difference. She told me she'd get back to me the next day.

I never heard back from her.

Approx. a week and a half later (October 6th or 7th) I called the spa back to see about wether or not they could remove the facial. The women I spoke to seemed to have problems hearing me, even though our phone was working properly, and I was almost screaming into the reciever. I asked again, wether the facial could be taken off the package and she told me absolutely! and it wasn't a problem. That was great and I hung up excited for my relaxing day at the spa.

Needless to say, my nice, relaxing day at the spa turned out to be a nightmare. Below is a shortened list of everything that happened to me during my appointment:

- I felt extremely rushed through the whole day. Online the package said it lasted for 4.5 hours, and I was done in a little over 3.5 hours.
- During my maincure, my esthetician, Maria, cut one of my figers with her trimmers. I had been watching something on a tv when there was a sharp pain. I turned to look at her, and my ring finger on my right had had a small chunck missing near the top of my cuticle. She apologized, but this was the start of a string of bad things to happen.
- My pedicure was finished while I was lying on the massage table, waiting for the facial mask on my face to dry, with a pillow under my legs which left me extremly uncomfortable; not in the mani/pedi chair.
- After bringing me into the massage room (while my nails were still wet) Maria asked me to strip to my underwear and get under the sheet and that she would be back in a few minutes. After literally 2 minutes, there was a knock on the door and I said "Just a second please!" because I was not finished and was naked from the waist up, however, Maria proceeded to open the door and told me to hurry and get on the table. I was mortified because just outside the door were other customers waiting in the "lounge" and I'm fairly sure they saw me standing there mostly naked.
-Shortly thereafter, Maria proceeded to massage areas of my body that I found very inapropriate, such as my bottom and my breasts. Never once did she ask me if I was comfortable with this, even though I had mentioned earlier that this was only my second time at a spa. I'm fairly certain this is not standard procedure anywhere, and no one should be able to touch any person's private areas without first having that person giving consent.
-After my very awkward and uncomfortable massage, Maria proceeded to give me a facial. As stated above, I had requested TWICE that the facial be taken off my package. I had requested a longer massage, without the facial, but was given one anyway.
-Several times during the facial, Maria left the room, while my upper half was mostly exposed while again, there were people directly outside. I kept covering myself up only for her to uncover me as soon as she came back into the room - which again was very uncomfortable.
- The facial was quite painful. I understand that Maria was required to remove blackheads and blemishes, but needless to say, it was painful, and was something I had not wanted in the first place. I've also had a lot of breakouts on my face and neck area from the facial. I understand this is normal, but again - I didn't want the facial to begin with.
-After I got home, I started to see some redness and small cuts around the cuticles on some of my fingers and toes. Earlier on in the day Maria had mentioned that her tools needed to be sharpened. Obviously they were too blunt and had cut poorly.

During the whole ordeal, I did not say anything. After coming home and talking about everything with my husband, I quickly realized that I had been stupid to not say I was uncomfortable - but since everything was so unexpected and it was only my second time at a spa, I just panicked. I was so upset and nervous that I was fearful to say anything and just sat or lay there frozen. Again, it was stupid of my, but at the time I was so upset that I just shut down.

After talking to my husband some more and explaining how uncomfortable and violated I felt, I decided to call the spa on their next open day (Tuesday, October 13th) to make a formal complaint and try and get our money back. I talked to a woman Tuesday morning and told her the biggest problems I'd had (uncomfortable touching during the massage) and she assured me she's talk to her boss, and the manager, Renata, and get back to me before 1pm that afternoon. I waited and waited and waited, but no one called me back. Again I called the next morning, and again had to explain to another woman what had happened, and this time chronicled some of the other problems I'd had - including the facial. The woman informed me that she was the one I'd talked to just days before the appointment and that she was 100% certain I'd asked for a shorter facial and longer massage. I argued with her that I had NOT said that, but in the end she cut me off and told me someone would get back to me by the end of the day. I waited again, and finally around 5:30pm I got a voice mail on my cell phone.

In the voice mail, I was told that they could offer me a complimentary massage, and that I could call or come in to make an appointment. This was not what I had wanted, so we (my husband and I) went in to see what could be done. We requested nicely that we just wanted our money back, and we were told we'd have to talk to the manager, Renata, although she wasn't always in and when she was, she was almost always booked. We asked if we could reach her by e-mail, and were given an address.

I promptly went home and wrote a long, yet polite, e-mail detailing everything above that had happened, and again requesting that we have our money refunded as I was not happy with my day.

Renata called me almost an hour ago, and told me that they could not refund my money, and that they could only offer another massage with a different person. She explained that she did not understand why I hadn't said anything, and that my accusations against Maria were false. She told me that they did not offer massages in which a person's breasts were massaged, and why would Maria do such a thing? She had children and was with the company for many years - therfore my accusations were false and they could not believe anything I had said.

She informed me that had I said anything when my "accusations" were happening, they would have offered me an entire refund, but since I hadn't, and had contacted them after my appointment, that they couldn't understand why I would do it and would not issue a refund. They were a professional business and would never do anything that I had just said they did.

I ended up arguing with her over the phone, saying, "Why would I ever complain about stuff like this if it wasn't true?" and explained as I did earlier that I hadn't said anything because I was confused, upset and had panicked. She would not listen to anything I said, and I told her I would never go back to her establishment, and would let everyone I know know how terrible it was, and that their customer service was extremely lacking, especially since they considered themselves so "professional".

As of this moment, we have not had our money refunded to us (198$) and I am making this post to steer people away from this company. They are sneaky, rude, have no decency and obviously don't care about their customers - especially when those customers have been inappropriately touched and have made a legitimate complaint about it.

Please, please PLEASE! If you read this let other people know about it and steer them away from this spa - it's not worth your time, money or privacy.

If you have any other ideas or ways for us to get our money back, please let us know! I'd really like to get it back so we can spend it on a birthday present that I really want.

Thank you!