James23

I've just seen this on the Complaints Board website... (http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/advanced-hair-studio-c579951.html) Advanced Hair Studio: Fraud Company ComplaintPosted: 2012-01-08 by agrover Rating: information: Advanced Hair Studio India advancedhairstudio.com I am sharing the summary of my painful experience with Advanced Hair Studio. After a series of hair loss incidences, I finally decided to visit this studio. On the day of consultation, the owner Mr. Sanket showed me such a glorious picture and insisted that I should start the treatment ASAP. After a hefty payment of Rs. 1, 84, 000, I started with my Laser Therapy. The procedure which was suggested for my hair maintaince has got me in the extreme stage of baldness. These people have played with my money, my time and caused mental agony. After being fed up of the baseless assurances by their in house doctor and good for nothing client relations people, I decided to rip off the flashy mask and show people the reality of this studio. I befriended few staff working with the studio and tried conversing with the other customers undergoing treatment who were equally unsatisfied. It has taken me a good amount of 3-4 months to collect the below mentioned information. If you are planning to visit them or starting your treatment, this is in your interest. 1. Consultation: All of you must have made several plans to visit AHS for a consultation appointment, many one who has already been for the appointment would agree with the information given by me. The moment you enter the studio you get amazed by the amazing interior of the studio. The well trained manager asks to wait for “some time” which usually goes up to anything from 60 to 80 minutes. In that while, the Front office people screens you from top to bottom about your watch, your mobile phone, brands of your clothes and most importantly the information of the car you drive (either the parking guy or the camera installed outside at the parking). i. The consultant is basically a sales consultant with monthly targets, they are not Doctors. Not even anywhere close to medical field. They are basically losers from various professions including insurance, retails, banks, house husbands’ etc. ii. They have crammed the sales pitch word to word. They don’t know anything beyond the pitch. No matter what you are, what your problem is all they know is to sell their product. iii. They have no standard pricing for the treatment. The same treatment you paid a fortune for would be offered to someone at the one third amounts. The promotional or discounted prices scheme is nothing but a sales trick. So kindly use your own mind. Beware don’t be lured by the fancy words they say, the celebrities they promote, the promises they give. Everything is a Trap 2. Advanced Laser Therapy: Ok after all the jargons about the various procedures you would be starting with the laser treatment putting your hard earned money into it. Honestly in past 3 years of operations in India AHS has not a single client who is happy about the results. Few if they arrange to gather are basically their own close knit people who are paid to give positive illusion. Few things you should be known before you get yourself into the Trap of AHS: i. Laser procedure has never been proved effective by the clinical and other health institutions. ii. Laser and its products are not FDA approved as claimed by the sales staff. It has been passed by FDA but on certain guidelines not maintained by AHS. iii. The minoxdryl and the serenoa capsules are given to all clients without even knowing the side effects. Kindly Google the side effects for your interest. iv. The laser products i.e. shampoo, serums, capsules, minoxdryl are not imported but manufactured locally in Gujarat. 3. Strand by Strand Surgical: This one is a complete disaster without any much change in the look. i. The much applauded Doctors are nothing but jerks that are mincing hefty money making fool of people. Please consult the celebrities whom they claim to have done hair transplant for. That’s nothing but the sales gimmick. The fact is the celebrities are given invitations to enjoy services without any money (still many don’t turn up). ii. Trust me for this if you have underwent a hair transplant from AHS, you will agree with me and must be feeling looted. One of my close friends working with the organization told me at NO POINT they transplant more than 1500 follicles!!! Now, even if you have paid around 5-7 lakhs you have made a fool of yourself. The same reason they don’t allow any relative to count the follicles. iii. If you have gone out of budget to pay for their doctors’ trust me the doctor does his job only till the anesthesia does its work. After that he gets busy in his “extra” activities. Rest of the work is done by semi trained doctors team. I was surprised when my friend’s stitches were removed by their office boy!! iv. It would be a blunder getting hair transplant done by AHS as the same doctors charge rock bottom prices when you get it done by their clinics. Harsha Bhogle Hair Transplant India Dr. Manoj Khanna Kolkata Delhi Mumbai Bangalore Dhaka Dubai(UAE) Kathmandu and Dr Amit Gupta- Plastic and cosmetic surgery consultant|cosmetic surgeon|Delhi|Gurgaon|Noida|Cosmetic clinic India you can test by yourself. 4. Strand by Strand Cosmetic: In short they are ordinary wigs bought from local market of Thailand and you can also buy higher quality wigs when you are there. There is no technology nothing is involoved. They are infamous abroad about these malpractices. http://www.hairrestorationnetwork.com/eve/145207-advanced-hair-studio.html many more can be searched online. 5. Flashpoints. Again very cheap versions are available in the market. You might find something with the better quality.

Please ignore all postings from Ms Duhy and any other AHS spokespersons. My lasting impressions of AHS are (a) I was dealing with dishonest people (b) their products were greatly overpriced and © these products were frequently unfit for their purpose (wrong colour, density etc) (d) the client relations department (which in the UK consists of Ms Duhy) did nothing at all but fend off clients until they give up I am not an "ex-employee or competitor" of AHS (see Ms Duhy's post above) but if ex-employees or competitors were to post on this site I would be very interested to hear what they have to say. I thoroughly recommend trying to contact manufacturers/suppliers directly in China/India, and when I personally find a reliable supplier in one of these countries I will post their details here. At the moment my retail supplier is so cheap compared with AHS that I haven't researched overseas manufacturers/suppliers, but I firmly intend to

There are some good websites/forums dealing with hair loss treatments. Advanced Hair Studios are regularly exposed as incompetent and hugely expensive on these forums. Two good ones are: www.hairrestorationnetwork.com and www.hairlosshelp.com Search these for Advanced Hair Studio.......

See this other excellent thread on AHS on this website: http://www.hairrestorationnetwork.com/eve/145207-advanced-hair-studio-19.html The feeling is: avoid them like the plague.

I've just read this on Hair loss help in the thread: is Advanced Hair Studios really a fake? I was a client (of AHS) for many years here in Australia, from the early 80s, because in those days that was one of the only options around. There were no online vendors and very few local companies, and they were all highly priced. AHS had a big advertising program claiming they had beat baldness. For the young, impressionable, desperate twenty something hair loser it was tempting. And remember back then long hair was still the norm and shaving one's head was unheard of. They at first offered only synthetic pieces ($2000 please in 1983) which they tied to my head by pulling my own hair up through it. This hurt like hell when sleeping for the first few nights. And it was thick, so thick. They claimed it cost so much because it was custom hand made in the US by highly skilled technicians using a process exclusive to AHS. The knots used to break regularly and had to be redone. Every 6 weeks I went back for a retension and wash'n cut - at $60 to $80 a time plus tape and Carl Howell's exclusive branded - and priced - maintenance products After a few years they switched to human hair held on by a string of beads, which often broke, then glue. To be fair the service was quite good, the girl stylists were friendly but often seemed a bit sheepish about their role and employer. But the managers, who came and when with staggering rapidity, were very, very pushy and would always try to upsell when you were in the salon with your unit removed for cleaning and presumably most vulnerable. They used hard glues applied to a track cut into your own hair which held on ok but as the hair grew the unit became loose and flopped around on top of your head. And all the while the units were all so thick. After the first fitting I used to go home and spend an hour in front the mirror plucking out handfuls of hair just to get the density down. The synthetic units got frizzy in the sun and turned pink, while the human units faded and shed from their thick mono bases. If you wanted skin or lace - AHS used fancy names for these - it cost thousands more. I even had one manager ring me at work to tell me he had seen me out at a club the night before and my hair looked crap so I should definitely buy a new one (another $2,500 by now please). On average I went through one unit per 18 months, although the hair used to shed so you'd need intervening re-venting - at $90 per hour or something. After I left and started buying online they tried to get me back with offers of free hair and service for a year. But by then the bird had flown to greener, less pricey, pastures. What he describes is similar to what happened to me at AHS. Plus I had some even more horrible experiences.

I have just received this private message from AHS: Hi james I have read your posting and feel very sad that the London head office did not resolvce your complaint, It is true that when a client contacts the customer service department we do have to notify the studio manager where the client is to resolve the complaint, if the complaint has not been resolved by the manager, then please e-mail me full details and I will ask the overall Director to get involved for you. Kind regards Maeve Duhy maeveduhy@advancedhairstudio.com Several points here: 1. Ms Duhy did nothing at all when I complained to her after one particularly spectacularly bad new unit except to pass me to her boss in London who passed me back to her, and so on for some weeks (until her boss stopped taking my calls). 2. I have the feeling that they chose to put AHS' UK Customer Service hundreds of miles from London for a reason. 3. My feelings are now that her task is to find out who posts negative (but truthful) comments about AHS by asking for posters' "full details" so that she can "help". 4. I feel that once AHS has your "full details" this would most likely lead to threats of legal action against the poster of the comments unless he or she deleted the posts. 5. I feel that if you have already tried gaining redress from AHS and failed (like me and others who have posted), and have related your bad experiences on this site, you would be unwise to now give Ms Duhy your "full details". 6. At no time during the several years that I used AHS did I feel that I was dealing with honest people.

For more information on Advanced Hair Studios, see this other forum on this website: http://www.hairrestorationnetwork.com/eve/145207-advanced-hair-studio-19.html

I had surgery 20 years ago. This only works temporarily, as with the passing years the hair around the transplanted hair will go, there will eventually not be much hair left to transplant from, and the areas the transplanted hair was taken from will become bald revealing the many scars from the hair plugs removed. Hair units from a good supplier at a reasonable price and properly cut-in and maintained will (in my experience) be a much better solution for many people.

See this other thread on this website for recommendations: http://www.hairrestorationnetwork.com/eve/145207-advanced-hair-studio-19.html

For those who want to read more about AHS, go to this other thread on this site: http://www.hairrestorationnetwork.com/eve/145207-advanced-hair-studio-19.html

@Mark19800: When I was in UK, I went to Stag of London, in NW11. I'm now in New Zealand, and use Aussie Hair in Australia. Both are on the internet. Both are very reliable and run by good people. Aussie Hair supply most of their customers by post. If you want a supplier to supply you by post and then have the units cut-in locally, it's not difficult to find someone to cut them in. Easiest way is to search the Yellow Pages (or www.yell.com) under Hairpieces or Wigs. Or you can phone around the women's hairdressers in your area - they will know someone who is experienced in hair replacement hairdressing: women's hairdressers are the people to contact first as quite a few women wear wigs. Phone around until you find someone with the right experience. They will have private rooms. These hairdressers will cut in units that you bring along yourself. It would be helpful to others if when you find a good replacement-hair hairdresser you post their details on this forum. Once you've found the right person, you will find that they will have much information on correct washing, conditioning, drying, correct maintenance, counteracting fading, repairs*, correct density, colour matching, getting the most life out of a unit and so on. This advice will make a big difference to the appearance and longevity of the units. On this topic: I received a very small amount of advice - negligible really - on these topics from AHS. Their main advice was to buy a large number of different lotions and so on from their expensive proprietary range. I have since found that there was an awful lot of advice I should have been given by them, and that normal commercial hair products (chosen carefully) work just as well (or better) than those from AHS. On the subject of ordering units from a distant supplier: I send them an old unit so they can copy the dimensions, plus some samples of my own hair cut from various places (as the colour will vary). Alternatively they ask for detailed measurements of my head plus measurements of the bald area. This has worked well - I have not yet met one of my suppliers, but have had a very good service from him over the years. One time I received a unit from him which did not match my hair - it was replaced in a few weeks by one which did. (*Now that I can buy high quality units which are value for money, I don't have repairs to my units as it's more cost effective to buy new units).

Re: Advanced Hair Studios: I used their hair units for several years. Awful experiences. I was paying 4 or 5 times the price for their units that I pay now for the same quality from a different source. The units were sometimes faintly like my own hair in colour, texture and thickness - and sometimes wildly different. You have to pay in advance. The cutting-in of new units was done so amateurishly on two occasions that it was a (very expensive) joke. AHS made much of the need for the units to be expensively "bonded" (glued in place) by them each month. In fact, taping works just as well for all normal uses, and a taped unit can be removed and refitted whenever he wishes by the user. And waiting for a month while the bonded unit became itchier and itchier - crazy. However, the more serious problem with "bonding" is that if the unit is not placed in exactly the right position - only one positioning attempt is possible as the glue is like superglue and acts immediately - it will look strange for the next month until the hair under the bonded strip has grown enough for the unit to be cut off. If the unit has been placed too far foward, for example, you will emerge from the studio looking like a neanderthal. For a month. This happened to me once: difficult to express how humiliating this was. Actually, humiliation (after rage, frustration and despair) is one of the commonest reactions to dealing with AHS. Their repairs to units - the repairs are called "venting" - were so badly done that they were visible from several feet away. I felt strongly that this was deliberate, to impel the owner to buy new units more often. The colour of the units faded rapidly. There was no useful advice on care and maintenance of units. Their customer service/complaints department was a woman in Cardiff who passed the complainant back to her manager (an obnoxious male in the London office)....who passed the complainant back to her..and so on. Nothing was ever resolved, nor was likely to be. Avoid like the plague. Go anywhere else - there are much much better alternatives. I felt so strongly at the time that I was considering standing outside their London office and leafletting customers...