Florida widow, 84, says she visited a skincare shop to get a $25 facial — but was pressured into dropping more than $26,000 on products. Here’s how shady salespeople try to target seniors

Kathryn Taylor, an 84-year-old widow who had been aggressively convinced to spend thousands of dollars, was too embarrassed to tell anyone what happened to her — even though she is on Social Security and can’t afford the hefty bill.

Her daughter, Jackie Gattoni, only recently found out about the credit card charge.

“It’s a lot of money for anybody… she was devastated. She didn’t want to tell anybody,” Gattoni says.

So how did a simple facial turn into a $26,000 mistake?

How a $26,000 mistake could happen

Taylor says that when she went into Bee and Co in Fernandina Beach, she was thrown into a hectic sales pitch and ended up buying three expensive skincare products called Genesis Z, Sapphire X and a Phyto Thermal Collection. The products collectively cost $26,000, First Coast News reported, and Taylor says she had no idea what was going on.

“Well, I was being shifted around and I didn’t realize, you know, what was happening.”

Gattoni speculates the store moves employees around rapidly to keep making new, aggressive sales.

“When you go into the store it’s always a different person… so I don’t know if they’re making a quick sale and quickly moving people around to other locations.”

Gattoni couldn’t get the products returned for her mother, even though they were sitting unopened in their boxes. The store refunded a partial $4,500 the next day but refused to refund the rest. “I have made repeated attempts to get her money back. I’ve made phone calls. I’ve gone into the store several times,” Gattoni says.

Gattoni eventually filed a police report. She later learned that several other Bee and Co customers — many of them seniors — were on the wrong end of aggressive sales pitches with the resulting thousands in charges. Some of them reported they were lured in with free samples and ended up spending $2,500. Another woman reported she was pushed into buying a facial wand and some skin creams totalling over $8,000.

Fernandina Beach Police Chief Jeff Tambasco says authorities had received “multiple complaints” about Bee and Co and that the store was being investigated.

A reporter from First Coast News went to the store in another attempt to get the rest of Taylor’s money refunded. The employee told the reporter that they believe Taylor had received a full refund, but that normal store policy was that all sales are final.

Gattoni says her mother remains ashamed over the ordeal: “I mean, she felt stupid. You’re not stupid,” Jackie told her mother.

Protecting your loved one from aggressive sales

Elderly customers have increasingly become targets for aggressive sales tactics and fraudulent charges. According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, seniors lose an estimated $3.4 billion annually to such exploitation, though the actual number may be higher because many incidents go unreported due to embarrassment.