If you love to spruce and pamper yourself, and frequently look out for spa or beauty packages with the best value-for-money in Singapore, this is a PSA for you.
Since 2015, EZ-Link, together with the Consumers Association of Singapore (CASE), has had a TRUST Programme that protects consumers’ spa package prepayments.
Basically, the programme ensures you’ll be refunded the unused value in your prepaid packages bought from beauty salons, in the event that the salon shuts down before you fully redeem it.
How it works is that EZ-Link manages the funds as a custodian, and gives payouts to the salons each time a session is redeemed. If a salon goes bust, EZ-Link returns the unused funds to its customers.
But why does TRUST target such a specific purpose?
Beauty salons frequently adopt aggressive sales tactics and get customers to sign up for prepaid packages. They may provide significant savings compared to when you purchase services separately, but usually still come up to a pretty high one-time cost.
With this, the beauty industry is a huge source of complaints made to CASE, and about half the complaints are related to customers losing their prepayment when a salon suddenly closes its business.
In 2018, CASE received 1,829 customer complaints about beauty services—topping the list among all industries.
After TRUST was set up, it has assured customers across more than 48 spa and wellness operators.
On 26 March 2019, EZ-Link announced that the TRUST programme is going digital, for consumers and merchants to easily access through an app.
Consumers will no longer have to sign up for a physical TRUST card and present it at spas and salons each time they want to redeem their treatments, as they’ve had to do up till now.
With the app for customers, users can store their contact details, track their transaction history, view their packages, and see what balance they have left unredeemed.
The merchant app, which is also supported by a web-based Merchant Administration Portal, helps business owners manage their products and catalogues, register new customers, and manage purchases, redemptions and refunds.
TRUST’s new apps are immediately available to download on Android devices—but Apple users will have to wait till mid April.
Get your beauty packages protected by TRUST, and pamper yourself without fear!
Featured Image Credit: Alan Caishan, Unsplash