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Cosmetics company targets “silly old chooks”

A New Zealand woman in her 80s, bullied into buying anti wrinkle cream, says she “felt like a silly old chook” to have spent nearly $5000 on cosmetic products.

On the first occasion, Dead Sea Spa staff kept the 82-year-old pensioner at the booth after the Auckland shopping centre had closed, making three separate sales amounting to nearly $3000, taking partial EFTPOS payments, and then accompanying her to ATMs to pay the balance in cash, according to reports in TV3.

On the second occasion, they convinced her to empty her bank account of its entire savings, so much so that she could not afford the groceries she had gone out for.

Ms T, who doesn’t want to reveal her identity, says she is embarrassed.

“I feel as if I’m a silly old chook,” says Ms T. “Honestly, at my age spending all that money on that product is ridiculous.”

Dead Sea Spa, a small kiosk business across shopping centres in New Zealand, have highly trained staff to charm customers with “a tiresome, never-ending hard-sell for expensive beauty products”.

Ms T was at her local Lynnmall shopping centre on Sunday afternoon when she was approached by Dead Sea sellers.

“I had just come from the car park and he just approached me, talking to me, you know, and then it got beyond that,” Ms T said.

“He had me sitting on the chair, showing me what I could do with my face – a lot of uplift, get rid of my wrinkles.”

“Quite a few of the same sort of thing – he would say you know, ‘You’re such a lovely lady. I’ll give you this for free, extra,'” she said.

Her son, Roger, told TV3 he was appalled that a vulnerable woman had been targeted.

“I’m sure they can spot people a mile off. They know if they keep talking and using their sales patter on the right sort of people they can wear them down and keep selling to them until the well is dry.”

The booth was today evicted by the shopping centre, which says all money will be refunded to the woman.

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