Update: Received My Free Manicure Voucher, What a Joke

Remember how excited I was about getting a free manicure from TLC Marketing/Herbal Essences?

Well, I think I just wasted $6 and a stamp!

A couple of weeks ago, the voucher arrived with the address of the “top secret” website with a list of participating beauty salons. I visited the website, and it instructed me to enter my voucher code to view salon listings in my area.

I eagerly typed my code in, only to get a message telling me to call an 800-number for a "venue location" in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area.

I called right away because I was dying to get my free manicure. The person I talked with said she’d need my name, address and telephone number, and somebody would call me back in 3 business days with the name of a participating salon.

Me: Uh, somebody is going to call me back? I thought the whole point of getting the voucher was so I could get the address of the top secret website and find out what salons are participating. Now, somebody has to call me to tell me where I can go to get the free manicure?

Representative: That’s right, ma’am. There aren’t any participating salons in your area so somebody needs to find one and get back to you.

Me: Well, OK, but you hadn’t better be selling my name and phone number to anybody because this sure seems like a lot of busy work just to get people to buy two bottles of shampoo! What are you getting out of all this?

Representative: Nobody's selling your information, ma'am. We just need your telephone number so somebody can let you know where to go for your free manicure.

Me: (skeptical) Fine...

Three business days passed, and I didn't hear one peep from anyone at TLC Marketing.

I waited five more days, in case the representative was mistaken about someone calling back in three days. Nope. Nobody called.

So last Friday, I called again and talked to a different representative. She looked up my information and said the reason nobody called me back was because they didn’t have my telephone number. Apparently, the representative I talked to forgot to hit “save” after she entered my telephone number in the system.

I said I didn't feel comfortable giving them my telephone number again so could she just tell me the name of the salon the person had allegedly found for me in my area. She said she couldn't do that and that somebody had to get back to me so they would need my information. She said I could give an email address instead of a telephone number so I gave her one of my Yahoo email addresses. I asked her to read it back to me, and she had spelled "Yahoo" wrong. (Cripes.) After she swore up and down she had fixed the spelling, she promised someone would contact me within three days by email.

Well, either the "yahoo" I spoke with really didn’t fix the spelling error, or the whole free manicure thing is nothing more than a marketing SCAM because I never received an email.

I’m tempted to call again, but I’m sure it will more of the same old-same old. This time somebody will probably tell me the representative forgot to save my email address. What a waste of my time! (And a stamp!)

Free manicure and pedicure. HA!