Complaint Review: Sally Hershberger Hair Care Professional Salons - New York NY

Racist Horrible Treatment of Staff. Never Again. If you want to view a throw back in time to white people treating the "maids" as Sharon Dorram and Sally Hershberger like to refer to their employees as, Like rubbish, then welcome, you have arrived to the right salon under the appropriate racist owners.

My mouth is still agape by the foul language and treatment of other people. Why would anyone want to simply harass people that have to make them look good?

There are plenty of excellent hair salons out there and even better colorists. Sharon Dorram and Sally Hershberger do not deserve your hard earned or trust fund money. Rubbish

Biggest mistake in my life--horrible haircut from Sally--aggressive, s****.>

 Disaster will take months to grow with endless unflattering choppy layers.  She should have her license revoked for blatant negligence. 

Biggest mistake in my life--horrible haircut from Sally--aggressive, s****.>

Disaster will take months to grow with endless unflattering choppy layers.  She should have her license revoked for blatant negligence. She probably doesn't even have one to begin with.  

I bought my niece a nice graduation gift (grad school). Her mom had passed away and her dad is sick. I figured fancy highlights would brighten her up inside and out. She has medium brown hair, and brought in many photos of darker blonde highlights. She was sent to Nathan. This girl is quiet, not overly sensitive, and super polite.

She said he acted like he didn't want to be there, told her the pics she brought in we're not possible with her base color, and yet offered no other solutions. She sat there as he worked without a word to her for an hour. The result? $400.00 for some barely noticeable lighter brown streaks. She said he was rude with a nasty attitude.

I've never heard her complain that readily about someone performing a service before, she's a real easy going kid. Check yourself, Nathan. Stop bringing your problems to work.  I have never watched anyone, employee or owner walking around complaining so much and talking S*** about everyone.  Next client not excluded.  Never going back again.

No, just no. I was given a $400 gift card to this salon last year and decided to use it one year later. I noticed there was a expiration date on the card but I figured it had only been a year. My mentality was- this was a nice salon and the gift card was for a large amount so everything would be fine.

*Most importantly though, NYC has a law against this type of thing. Under the 2009 Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act you actually have 5 years to use a gift card. Yes, it's true. You can't take people's money and then give them short limited time conditions on when they can use it...basically banking on them not using it so they can keep your money (or in this case my friends money since is was a gift).

In any case, just before I was called for my appointment I showed the woman at the front desk the gift card to confirm with her that I could use it after my service. She took a  look at it and immediately handed it back to me while saying the card had expired. Since there were a lot of people listening and starting to stare I quietly told her that her that maybe she was unaware but NYC has a 5 year grace period law for all gift cards and that mine fell within these guidelines.

From there, she quite rudely and adamantly told me that they would not take the card and that it wasn't against the law. I didn't really know what to do. I tried one more time to explain and then the next thing I knew the manager was taking me aside to, what felt like, sort of shovel me out of the salon. I felt like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, everyone just staring at me like I was some sort of rodent invading their space.

She went on and on....everyone still staring...making me feel more and more uncomfortable. At this point I sort of shrugged my shoulders and said something like,"You know, this is a really expensive gift card that my friend spent $400 on, even if it isn't against the law (which it is) I feel like it's a really bad business practice to not honor the money someone entrusted you with...". She continued to disagree and it wasn't going anywhere so eventually I took note and awkwardly turned to leave.

As I walked to the subway, I thought about how maybe I should give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they really didn't know about NYC Gift Card law so I googled it and called them back up. Asked to speak with the same manager. To which I gave her the government website page detailing the law. She argued with me more asking why I didn't just use it within the time frame.

To which I finally responded with, "Mame I think you are uninformed but, no matter what, what you are doing is against the law. And also outright bad business ethics. Moving forward, I would like to settle this between you and I or even the owner. If we can't do that, I'm feeling compelled to report this." She told me she would speak with the owner and call me back in 2 days. Welp...2 weeks later I haven't heard a peep. 

I walked to the salon feeling so excited to get my hair done by these amazing hair stylists...and I left feeling horrible. There's nothing worse that going into a place of business and being made to feel small. Moral of the story: Maybe I'm the only person this has happened to. Maybe the manager was just having a bad day. Maybe waiting a year to use a gift card is abnormal. All I know is I like to invest in places that make me feel, at the very least good, when I leave and if there is a mistake it's acknowledged, even if after the fact. Not here.