Lisa Casey is a manager at American Laser Centers in Torrance, CA. She is rude, sarcastic, and unprofessional. She will only be nice to you when you are a potential new customer and will not care about you once you sign up for a service. I was getting bikinni and underarm laser hair removal treatmetns. I've always got there early or on time. There were a couple of times where I had to wait for about 15 minutes. I understood that they were busy and did not complain. But I was late once about 7 minutes but a nurse there refused to give me a treatment because I was late and the nurse was really rude. I called Lisa to complain but she would not listen to me and was also very rude to me. On another occasion, I called her in advance to reschedule an appointment. I told her I am only available every other Friday. She said they are very busy so it's hard to reschedule and asked that if I am available late at night on some other days. I said no. Then she became sarcastic and said wow you work late. I got an impression that she didn't trust me. I don't have to explain to her as a customer why I can't make it late at night. Anyway, she said she will call me back when she finds a time and that was 2 months ago. She never called me back and I am sick and tired of dealing with her. I was planning to get facial, arm and leg laser removal but they lost a good customer.

Illinois Regional Manager Jennifer Iser, she is the person who has control over all refunds for the state of Illinois. She refuses to approve any, no matter how much the clinic managers beg her to. She has been with the company since the beginning and slept with the founder Rich Morgan to get her "position". Since the new company Code Hennesy tokk over things have not changed. If you need to reach her regarding your refund status call her cell number /phone number removed/.

American Laser's customer service is appalling. I paid $3200 for regular treatments for 3 years and am still nowhere close to being 'hair-free'. And nowhere close to receiving a refund, even though I've been battling it out with their company for a year.
Don't buy their product, don't pay money for their service, don't go there.
And I'm looking for a lawyer at this point, so if any are reading this, please respond to my complaint.

American Laser Centers is absolutely fraudulent.

- The original laser training was with a nurse for about 2 days. You barely get to handle the equipment. Your main training is supposed to be shadowing at your clinic.

- The company is trying to save money by not training new girls. Once trained your rate is $14 per hour. The new policy is the company offers formal training 3 times per year. If you are hired on, you will work regular hours and be in charge of treatments, but only make $10 an hour, because you are still in "training." So yes, those new girls probably had no official laser training. Some of them got in right before that rule.

- The new contracts state that you are entitled to a refund less a $300 administrative fee if you have not received treatment. However, the manager Gina Crespo will absolutely make sure you get a treatment that day, or at least a test patch. The test patch is documented as a treatment and will not allow your refund.

- Care credit and any other credit they offer will be completely unwilling to work with you.

- There was a hair removal client who bought a package of vela treatments last year in the summer (2008). She was double charged (accidentally) for the treatments. It took at least 6 months to get it straightened out. She had stated that because of the trouble, she not only wanted the overcharge taken off but the entire charge. Her family did not get Christmas last year. A new employee had used the credit machine and through error did not charge her the 12 months without interest, it was 3 months for complete payment. Because of this, she had to pay it to preserve her credit and pray for a refund.

- Many clients get burned on a regular basis. It is actually true that no matter how fair your skin, if you have been out in the sun it will affect the amount of heat in your skin. However, the lasers at ALC in Tucson were made in 2005. When the companies are called for service, they refuse to send new lasers and have no actual knowledge of how the product works.

- Lasers do absolutely work. ALC lasers DO NOT WORK. None of them. A small few have seen results. Some people are happy. Most are not. Its truly complaint after complaint.

- Gina Crespo has stated to her employees that she only cares about herself and money. She said she does not care about her employees or her customers. Get their money then get them out.

- If you have been unfortunate enough to receive a solicitation phone call after 7pm trying to be conned into a sale, know that the employees were crying and did not want to make the call. They all feel it is tremendously disrespectful and Gina Crespo will not let them go home to their families and small children until they reach a certain level of sales each day.

- Employees who are promised full time hours get reprimanded by losing hours and writing demoralizing letters to the corporate office apologizing and describing their failures if they don't make a sale each day.

THE BIG STUFF

- AN EMAIL WAS JUST SUBMITTED TO EMPLOYEES THAT THE LASER HEADS ARE NO LONGER TO BE SANITIZED!!! As it was, the actual laser, that is placed on your face, or some one else rectum, were only wiped off with medical sanitizing wipes. Some employees absolutely cleaned everything repeatedly to the best of their ability. However, there are cracks and crevices that gel must be scraped out of. There is nothing sanitary about ALC. They are now to use only baby wipes on the laser head.

- The treatment protocol states ice must used during the treatment. There was at least a month where manager Gina Crespo did not order ice. Or paper towels.

- Gina Crespo makes over 55k a year. She is in her early twenties and does not know what an irrigation system is. She does not know what "take five" means.

- Gina Crespo has consultation appointments from 9am on, but does not come to work until 11am or after. She asks her employees to lie and say she is currently with a client or is stuck in traffic if they accidentally said she was not there.

- Gina Crespo is completely illiterate.

- Gina Crespo text messages her employees late at night to discuss work or their schedules even though the employee handbook states official work is never to be through text.

- Gina Crespo does absolutely nothing all day. So when you are wondering why you call and call without return, its because she has already stated she will not return calls for at least 72 hours.

- Gina Crespo expects her employees to work at least 12 hr shifts without a lunch break or any other breaks. If her employees are caught stuffing a bite of food into their mouths, she insists they clock out until they are done chewing so she does not get in trouble for having no lunches.

- Because all of the main employees quit when Gina Crespo started working in Tucson, ALC is now completely understaffed. Because of this, they must cancel appointments every day. Sometimes, they can actually cover their appointments but Gina cancels them so she can punish an employee and take away their hours.

- The company will do anything they can to deny your refund. Everyone who has ever worked retail knows that their is a refund button on the credit card machine in every store.

- Please be careful and read all paperwork. No one wants to believe that they are being ripped off. The managers count on this. They hope you do not read your paper work.

- The vela treatment protocol states each area must be treated TWICE in week. ALC will not allow an area to have two treatments within 7 days.

- Vela treatments do work sometimes but they are extremely painful and must be done right. They are not permanent. Eat a piece of cake, gain it back. That is why they take measurements and weight. If you gain any weight, your claim will be denied.

- Tape measures usually have some sort of pull tab on the end, and several employees were so stupid that they would measure from that instead of the zero. This caused the written measurement to be about an inch less than it actually was.

- The cameras ALC uses to monitor your hair growth do not focus. Several employee complaints were made that they were inefficient and the company did nothing.

- ANYONE TREATED ON THE AMERILIGHT in the last 8 months. Both of those lasers were broken and causing burns. The manager was alerted, the corporate office was alerted and the laser company was alerted and nothing was done. "Be careful" was what was said.

- If you have proof, and not just your word, call KGUN 9 on your side. Go public. Put these jerks out of business.

- American Laser Centers specifically hires very young women without college degrees and waives a large amount of money in front of them to lure them into management. The competent managers never get to keep their jobs. Nor do they want to.

I'll have more info soon.

I started my treatment with these thieves like everyone else in 2006, with the promise that after 6 treatments my hair was going to disappear... In mid 2009 I decided to just stop going because the treatments began to be so painful I couldn't bear them (and believe me I can handle a lot of pain) And also I still had a lot of hair growing back. The area that bothers me the most is my face... hair grows back so fast and thick I feel extremely self conscious. i also did my bikini and extended areas which doesn't really seem to show any changes, even though it was extremely painful and uncomfortable.
Since I stopped going to the center, I haven't receives a single call from these people to ask if everything's ok with my treatment or to ask why I stopped going there.
Stay away from these thieves, they will rob you blind. And your hair will grow back, sorry to say...