Overweight and Want a Manicure? Pay a Fat Surcharge!

August 24th, 2010. By LucyC

What would you do if you were charged, without advance notice, an additional fee for wear and tear of equipment related to a service you were purchasing, simply because you are overweight?

For example, if you went into a nail bar for a pedicure, for an advertised price, and were subsequently charged an additional $5 more at the end of your session because you were deemed to be over 200 lbs? Yup, you read that correctly. The five dollars would be a kind of tax, fine, levy…actually, I don’t know what category, besides discrimination, that charge would fit under.

Neither does the person who was charged the $5, as it turns out. Oh, it’s a true story. Short version, Michelle Fonville from Georgia, was charged an additional $5 by Kim Tran, the salon manager of Natural Nails in DeKalb County, as a surcharge to the salon for chairs broken by overweight customers, MSNBC.com is reporting.

It’s only my opinion, but I find that a bit of a cheek, for a variety of reasons, not the least being that all sorts of people use the chairs all day long—presumably—so how could wear and tear be solely the fault of people over 200 lbs? And, how could Ms. Tran have known the client’s weight? Did she ask? In advance? If she had, it’s likely the $5 charge would not have come as a surprise to Michelle Fonville. And let’s not even get into the reason or reasons Ms. Fonville is overweight. The underlying question—whether or not obesity is a disability protected by the law—is it a health issue or not—is the proverbial $65 million question, and something the airlines have been struggling with for several years now.

But not, apparently, Ms. Tran. She didn’t see the grey area here—in fact she was quite clear about the reason for the ‘surcharge’—it was based entirely on the math. She reportedly told WSB-TV that ‘she added the surcharge to compensate for chairs broken by overweight customers because her pedicure chairs have a weight limit of 200 pounds and cost $2,500 to fix.’

“Do you think that’s fair when we take $24 [for manicure and pedicure] and we have to pay $2,500? No,” she told WSB-TV.

What’s fair got to do with it? That’s the price of doing business. No?

But overweight people could be an easy target in an industry that is not as tightly regulated as say, the airlines. Marissa Porcaro, marketing and communications for the Professional Beauty Association told TODAYshow.com that they don’t condone Ms. Tran’s actions. “While hair and nail salons are generally free to price their products and services to fit their particular market, the Professional Beauty Association encourages salons to be customer and service focused,” she is quoted as saying.

“When considering implementing surcharges or special pricing, salons should really consider the long-term impact on business. A savvy business owner will balance the costs and benefits.” Which means they could just build the cost into the price of the product or service, and you’ll never be the wiser. But that likely goes on all the time in all sorts of businesses. On the face of it, it would appear that Ms. Tran’s actions were naive.

Ms. Tran did refund the surcharge, but apparently told Michelle Fonville to take her future business elsewhere. Not surprisingly, Ms. Fonville left the salon in tears, as any feeling human being likely would. “I was humiliated,” she said. “The word has to get out there that these people are discriminating against us because of our weight. You can’t do that.”

Ah, but apparently you can – the damage is already done.

Tags: Discrimination, Georgia, Nail Salon, Overweight surcharge

This was posted on Tuesday, August 24th, 2010 at 6:13 pm and is filed under Discrimination . Feel free to respond, or trackback. Read our comments policy.