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SINGAPORE: A beauty and wellness chain has agreed to provide up to S$1 million (US$775,000) in refunds to affected customers after an investigation found that some of its employees had used high-pressure sales tactics to induce customers into making purchases they did not intend to make.<\/p>\n
DNA Brands, which operates beauty and wellness outlets including The Mineral Boutique, Beautique, SAE-REN, Jingran, Harmonix, Allura and Comfeet, was investigated for unfair sales practices, the Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore (CCS) said on Thursday (Jul 30).\u00a0<\/p>\n
Among the “coordinated set” of pressure tactics used by one of the chain’s area managers and some employees was the practice of applying facial masks on customers even after their treatments had ended. This kept them “trapped” inside treatment rooms while staff continued sales pitches until they agreed to make purchases.<\/p>\n
About 53 complaints against DNA Brands were made to the Consumer Association of Singapore (CASE) between August 2024 and October 2025, CASE president Melvin Yong said in a Facebook post.<\/p>\n
The complaints involved more than S$980,000 in disputed transactions.<\/p>\n
CASE previously said that <\/span>about half<\/span> of the complaints it received involved consumers who had spent more than S$10,000 on packages and products, while at least 40 per cent of the complainants were 60 years old and above.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Complaints against the Beautique brand involved its outlets in Ang Mo Kio, Orchard Plaza, The Centrepoint and Toa Payoh while those against The Mineral Boutique brand involved its outlets in NEX, Jewel and Wheelock Place.<\/span><\/p>\n The matter was referred to CCS for investigation under the Consumer Protection (Fair Trading) Act.<\/span><\/p>\n Calling the pressure tactics “deliberate and calculated”, the competition and consumer watchdog said investigations found that DNA Brands employees would also ask customers how many credit cards they had, framing it as a check for promotions.<\/p>\n “In reality, they were assessing how much each consumer could spend,” said CCS.<\/p>\n These tactics were cranked up for elderly customers, with DNA Brands employees performing checks on their Central Provident Fund (CPF) balances.<\/p>\n “In at least one case, a consumer was pressured into using their CPF savings to pay for beauty packages and products,” said CCS.<\/p>\n “Some staff even helped consumers change their CPF withdrawal limits and directed them to nearby bank branches or ATMs to withdraw cash.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n SINGAPORE: A beauty and wellness chain has agreed to provide up to S$1 million (US$775,000) in refunds to affected customers after an investigation found that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":72852,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dam.mediacorp.sg\/image\/upload\/s--c-9z7373--\/c_crop,h_382,w_680,x_0,y_7\/c_fill,g_auto,h_676,w_1200\/f_auto,q_auto\/v1\/mediacorp\/cna\/image\/2025\/10\/15\/af1qipnpwizk9zek835bbzb4f9z_pq9n.jpg?itok=pL8odp2b","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[16864,1869,27420,4100,787,14556,3146,11113,2785,3804],"class_list":["post-72851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-news-sg-global","tag-agrees","tag-beauty","tag-ccs","tag-chain","tag-million","tag-pressure","tag-probe","tag-refund","tag-scheme","tag-tactics","wpcat-2-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=72851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/72852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=72851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=72851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=72851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}CUSTOMERS’ CPF BALANCES WERE CHECKED<\/h2>\n
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