Complaints Lodged Against Duval Street Cosmetics Shop
Two Key West visitors have lodged complaints against Francesca, a cosmetics shop at 119 Duval Street, Key West. The two reported being “ripped off” with deceptive sales pitches and then being taken advantage of during a visit to Key West April 26, 2016.
Judy Nye ,70, of South Bend Indiana and Barbara Kabzinski, 79, of Spring Hills Florida, filed complaints with the Key West City Code Office and the Key West Police Department. The State Attorney’s office has also been notified and asked to investigate.
Both women claim store employees applied cosmetics before disclosing the products prices in violation of city code.
Judy Nye claims the company charged her credit card for two purchases totaling $958.90, then failed to send her the products as promised. Her friend Barbara Kabzinski was unable to return unused products totaling $270.90 under the store’s stated return policy. The store failed to return her phone calls and disconnected their telephone line.
Both women want full refunds and are asking for charges to be brought against the business.
The store is at the same location of two previous cosmetics stores that were sited for city code violations.
The Key West Rip Off Rapid Response Team has been notified and is investigating.
“We are very familiar with this location and we doubt this is a coincidence,” said spokesman Bruce Mitchell. “We see a pattern with these cosmetic shops and this case appears to be deja vu all over again.”
Tevis Weirnicoff, also with The Rip Off Rapid Response Team said, ”Key West can`t afford to see visitors, especially seniors get ripped off over and over again.”
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Sales rep last name, Bono pulled the same scam on us during our rerouted cruise that happened to stop at Key West vs New Orleans due to Hurricane. I made a purchase of nearly $700.00 in which I returned 20 minute later. Instead, I purchased $200 in product. They ended up refunding the $700 only to charge that amount to my card again…Totaling $900 in charges when I have a receipt in hand with a purchase total of $215.00, Name of Sales Rep. However, Absolutely no contact info, address, or name of store. Luckily, we had rented a golf cart and I was able to make out a location from the cabby who dropped us off to make return…near the 200th block of Duval near the Irish Pub/Bar.
It’s sickening that these people are trying to screw tourist when tourism is the Industry of Key West. Especially, while Key West is just beginning to rebuild after the Hurricane… We were only the 3rd cruise ship to port there since. Everything else was AMAZING about Key West yet I still leaves a scorned feeling when I think about what happened to us there!! I will get over it because other businesses were so willing to help and genuinely showed compassion towards me when they found out what happened!! So Thank You and we had a BLAST there. The bank is taking care if everything since we reported it immediately upon returning home to Birmingham, Al