FUE HLC Ankara not refunding my deposit

[NuzzerWaters]

I do not know if this post is allowed here, I made an account just to post this. Please remove if not allowed. 

I wanted to let anyone know who is considering choosing FUE HLC Ankara as their clinic of choice to reconsider as they've been nothing but unprofessional toward me. Around late last year, I decided to choose HLC as my clinic of choice and wired them the 1000 deposit required to book my appointment. Due to some personal circumstances I decided that I didn't want to have a hair transplant at this time and asked them for my money back. Per their policy they will refund you the full deposit if you cancel 2 weeks before your actual appointment, which I did. I canceled back in April and have been in constant contact with them via email about receiving my refund. They kept assuring me that I would receive it about a week. Then they changed it to two weeks. They repeated this for several months and now they've stopped responding to my emails all together. I never thought a reputable clinic like this would treat their clientele like this. I'm making this post to inform people and also to ask if anybody else has experienced anything like this. Thanks.

[duchaine]

As an Italian lawyer, I can say that it is virtually impossible to act a legal action in turkey. 
hope that the bad publicity that they are receiving will convince them to give you your money back.

[HappyMan2021]

@NuzzerWaters was this a wire transfer?

I had an issue last year with a European doctor where I wired the deposit, but then asked to cancel, many many months before the surgery date. 

The fact that it was a wire transfer - an international one at that - for some reason it took weeks and weeks and weeks of high stress and anxiety to get it back. 

Always do a deposit on a credit card whenever possible. Credit cards are the easiest to dispute and simply get your money back. 

It can be very anxiety-ridden to send a lot of cold hard cash halfway across the world, to a country you have no legal recourse in. 

Only do cash deposits if that is the only option and you are 110% certain you either A) will proceed with surgery or B) you won't need this money for anything else anytime soon, because the refund process can take much much much longer than you might think. 

[gillenator]

On average I hear from various patients 3-4 times a year and as often as every couple of months regarding refunds on surgery deposits not being honored…and there are a variety of reasons as to why the cancellations are being requested and why the clinics won’t refund…most clinics will want the individual to choose another date “and” put up additional funds to secure the entire total amount.

[Legend007]

With a credit card or bank account u could. Then u have a 3rd company getting the money back for u, n the provider can just write it off..i deal with assisting people get refunds at my work since i habdle grievamces. But u wires the money, u on ur own to get it back.. its going to take convincing for the office to manually write a check of their own cash to send it to u., u have to speak to the office manager n convince them but dont be unpleasant to deal with. Goodluck 

[Melvin- Admin]

If you're posting this to voice your dissatisfaction, that's allowed. But if you're posting this to elicit a refund from the clinic, that goes against the terms and conditions of the forum. 

[HappyMan2021]

I wouldn't be surprised if doctors use surgery deposit money to collect interest or invest in the stock market. For what reason would they sit on a pile of cash and not do anything with it? The very popular clinics must be sitting on hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of deposit money....in all honesty it would be foolish for a clinic to not put that into a savings account or other investment vehicle. 

This could be the reason it is so hard sometimes to get money back. The doctors may already have the deposit money parked somewhere else. 

I am absolutely not saying that any clinics do this - I have no evidence of it. But in general there is no reason for a for-profit business to sit on cash and have it collect dust. 

[AliJ.]

This is really strange! What do they gain by not returning your deposit ? I just can't understand it. They might deduct a certain amount, but taking the whole deposit is ridiculous! From what I know, many people work for over a month in Turkey for that amount.

[HappyMan2021]

58 minutes ago, AliJ. said:

What do they gain by not returning your deposit ?

what does your question mean? they gain the deposit amount and then can do whatever they want with the money. 

[AliJ.]

5 minutes ago, HappyMan2021 said:

what does your question mean? they gain the deposit amount and then can do whatever they want with the money. 

What I mean is they really don’t need to do this, or they should give you all the info upfront before taking the deposit.

[Al - Moderator]

Deposits are necessary or else anyone thinking about getting a hair transplant would set a date with several clinics and then decide which one they want to go to.... if they even decide to actually get a hair transplant at all. They wouldn't have to call to cancel any of them because they have no money involved. That would be such a nightmare and unworkable for hair transplant clinics. However I do think if they are able to get another person from their waiting list to take the date then they should refund the original persons deposit.  If the cancellation is close to the actual date and they are unable to get another patient to fill that day then I can understand them keeping the deposit because you've cost them that day.

 

 

[Legend007]

Ask them if one of us can take ur place of the appointment. Its ur money, if they dont want to give it back to u at least let u donate it to one of us baldies.. u get to go to heaven n they still get a patient to actually work on n earn their money

[HappyMan2021]

17 hours ago, Legend007 said:

Ask them if one of us can take ur place of the appointment

I really do wish consensual/voluntary 'line-cutting' was actually a thing. It really would work out for all parties.  Or maybe the more you pay for your surgery, the less the waiting time is. 

It would really help out with alot of these ridiculous wait times. Something is broken with the industry when people are waiting until 2026 for surgery 🤣

Edited August 20 by HappyMan2021

[wpwd]

On 7/30/2024 at 8:36 PM, duchaine said:

As an Italian lawyer, I can say that it is virtually impossible to act a legal action in turkey. 
hope that the bad publicity that they are receiving will convince them to give you your money back.

Youre a lawyer in italy so italian law has no bearing on Turkish law since its a different country with different laws

[wpwd]

On 7/30/2024 at 7:30 PM, NuzzerWaters said:

 I decided that I didn't want to have a hair transplant at this time and asked them for my money back.  They repeated this for several months and now they've stopped responding to my emails all together.

This is why I tell folks to stay very clear of turkish clinics. There are so many horror stories coming from these flunky clinics it aint funny. Theres always going to be a big risk with turkey in one form or another.

You mentioned theyre "reputable" which after this event shouldnt be the adjective to describe them. If this is their version of reputable imagine how "reputable" their surgeries are.

The silver lining to all this is that at least they took your money (which isn't much) instead of providing a bad transplant which wouldve turned out worse than the deposit amount they stole. At least it cost you $1k to learn this vital lesson although this isn't what you want to hear.

Go for real reputable clinics everyone here raves about instead of risking your confidence, esteem, money and future to a couintry known to swindle decent folks out of their money. Remember, turkey is a nation that doesnt like USA, Europe or Israel.

[Melvin- Admin]

I’ve had to clean up the comments, please refrain from insulting each other. 

[NARMAK]

Personally I agree with the poster who said to try pay on a Credit Card where possible. The company get the money back significantly quicker as they're in direct contact to the banks etc. to organise the return of essentially their own money which is why they act so fast.

Unfortunately hair transplants or any other form of medical tourism is fraught with these pit falls and bad experience even amongst those with a higher reputation they can still happen.

I'm dealing with something of a nightmare refund situation myself with a supposedly global and reputable company with car hire, so it's not like these companies are all glowing beacons of upstanding conduct. They're sometimes worse to deal with than mom and pop shops giving you money back.

[shiba1985]

HLC is a reputable company. If you are truly playing by the rules and they have not refunded you then it seems like there is an error on their side and you need to escalate this to the owner or the person in charge. Clinics like these are not going to ruin their reputation for one or two measly deposits.

 

Now if there is more to the story then only you know, and we are only hearing one side of the story.