Customers left with unused credits worth over S$1,850 after JCube nail salon closes abruptly

The nail salon owner said he had already sold off his JCube outlet in June 2022.

Matthias Ang | March 14, 2023, 06:37 PM

Two customers of a nail salon at JCube have filed police reports after the salon closed abruptly, leaving them with unfulfilled packages which they had bought for between S$500 and S$2,000.

They have also filed claims with the Small Claims Tribunal.

Speaking to Mothership, one of the customers, Juvina, said the salon was under a brand known as Beauty Nails Spa (BNS), which operates a second outlet at Far East Plaza.

Juvina added that she had been a long-time patron of the shop from around six to seven years ago and was familiar with the owner, a Vietnamese woman by the name of Nguyen Thi Ngoc Giau.

Bought a S$540 package just before the salon closed

According to Juvina, she had bought an "additional" package from a manicurist at Beauty Nails Spa's JCube outlet on Jan. 31.

It cost her S$540, bringing the total amount of her package to S$850.

Clients of the spa used the packages on a "credit basis", Juvina said, which means the cost was paid upfront.

On Mar. 1, she attempted to call the salon to book her next appointment, but was unable to reach anybody despite repeated attempts.

Juvina said she then went to their website to look for the details of the Far East Plaza outlet.

Instead, she saw that the addresses of both the JCube and Far East Plaza outlets had been replaced with a new address listed at Eastpoint Mall.

Juvina further claimed that when she called the Eastpoint Mall outlet, she found out from the manager there that the owner had already sold the business about six to seven months ago.

In addition, she was also told by the Eastpoint Mall outlet manager that her package with BNS would not be honoured.

Juvina then filed a police report.

Salon gave no notice of closure

Juvina was not alone in her encounter.

Another long-time customer, Jane, told Mothership that she recently bought a new package worth S$540 from the salon's JCube outlet on Jan. 10.

Jane last visited the JCube outlet in February for an appointment, but was not told anything about the salon's impending closure.

On Feb. 28, she called the salon to book another appointment but was unable to get through.

Jane then claimed that when she went down to the salon on Mar. 3, she found that it had closed.

She was also supposedly told by the salon's next-door tenants that BNS had already been closed for a few days.

Jane also alleged," (The) customer service of JCube mentioned that the owner (had) said they were short of manpower and so the shop was closed. However, when we tried to call them (the salon) again, the line had been terminated."

Jane said she then called BNS's Far East Plaza outlet, where a staff member allegedly told her that the Far East Plaza branch had detached from the JCube outlet in 2022, and will not honour any package that had been signed there.

This resulted in her filing a police report.

In total, Jane has over $1,000 worth credits that have yet to be utilised.

ACRA and ROM records show that the owners of the JCube and Far East Plaza branch are married to one another

Both Jane and Juvina told Mothership that they proceeded to search the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority's (ACRA) records after filing the police reports.

A total of three ACRA records were found in relation to BNS.

Two of the records, which listed the name of the business as Beauty Nails Spa and BNS Grupo Private Limited, showed Giau as the owner.

A third ACRA record, which showed BNS Shop as the name of the business, listed a man, Alan Tan Xin Qiang as the owner.

All three records also listed the Far East Plaza outlet as the principal place of business.

Sleuthing further in the Registry of Marriages' Marriage Records, Jane found that both Giau and Tan were married to each other.

Eastpoint outlet manager: We only bought one outlet

When Mothership went down to the Eastpoint Mall outlet on Mar. 10, it found that the salon was under the name Wonder Nails.

Source: Photo by Matthias Ang

In response to Mothership's queries, the manager of Wonder Nails, Ken, said that BNS had three outlets in total at JCube, Far East Plaza and Eastpoint Mall; Wonder Nails only bought over the third outlet.

Ken also clarified that when he bought over the outlet, the previous owner, whom he addressed as Alan, had passed him the packages of over 200 customers.

Ken added that his salon would serve these customers who had purchased their packages from the Eastpoint Mall outlet while it was still under BNS.

He explained that Wonder Nails had acceded to a request by Alan to buy over the packages of all of BNS's Eastpoint Mall outlet patrons.

As for customers who had bought their packages from JCube, Ken said that this did not concern him as the JCube outlet had been sold by Alan to another owner, who was also handed the packages of the JCube customers.

JCube nail salon boarded up

When Mothership went down to JCube on Mar. 14, it found that the nail salon had been boarded up.

Source: Photo by Mothership

Staff of neighbouring shops told Mothership that the nail salon had closed about one to two weeks ago, sometime in the first week of March.

They added that the salon was then sealed up very recently.

Alan: No link between Far East Plaza and JCube branches, nobody knows what happened

In response to Mothership's queries, Alan said that Far East Plaza remains the only outlet for BNS and there has been no link between it and the JCube outlet when it was sold off in June 2022.

Alan also claimed that the buyer did not change BNS's logo when they took over the salon, for reasons he did not know.

He also voiced his hope for JCube to provide an explanation on the matter as the issue is supposedly affecting his Far East Plaza branch.

When Mothership requested Alan to provide the name of the new owner, he directed us to JCube's management.

Alan also declined to provide proof of sale of the JCube outlet:

"If you require any sales proof, kindly obtain a letter of authorization from the relevant department so that we may provide the information to you."

Responding to our query, a JCube spokesperson replied:

"BNS (unit #02-08) has ceased operations without giving prior notice since 1 March 2023.

BNS customers who have been affected by its closure are advised to seek assistance from BNS. We understand that BNS customers with queries about their packages have managed to contact BNS from Mar. 13, 2023.

By way of background, the lease for the unit #02-08 changed hands in May 2022, at the request of the previous tenant (Alan Tan Xin Qiang) who secured the new tenant to take over the lease. Then, the previous tenant did not raise objections on the use of the name “BNS Shop” by the new tenant.

CASE President Melvin Yong also responded to our query, saying:

"From Mar. 1 to Mar. 13, 2023, CASE received 17 consumer complaints against Beauty Nails Spa and BNS Shop. In general, consumers complained that they were unable to use their prepaid manicure and pedicure packages at the business’ premises at JCube due to sudden closure. The amount of unutilised packages ranged between S$200 to S$3,700.

As the business is no longer operating, CASE has advised affected consumers to lodge a claim at the Small Claims Tribunals."

Top collage left photo via JCube/Facebook, right photo by Matthias Ang