Vigilante esthetician gets wrongfully fired and then shuts down her nefarious boss, prompting over $100,000 in losses and a criminal record: ‘[He was] impersonating a doctor!’

Author image for Jesse Kessenheimer
Jesse Kessenheimer • Writer and Editor
Aug 28, 2024 10:00 AM EDT

If you start a new job and they promise to pay you in a few weeks, that's a red flag. This became a new cardinal rule for the career of the newly licensed esthetician in this next story. 

Working for a new company can be tough. Like a startup, there are many expenses upfront, equipment costs, lease agreements, and 'company culture' to build, but for a brick-and-mortar spa, there are other costs to consider. Any healthcare provider must abide by a laundry list of safety measures to keep their doors open, but when shady, overwhelmed bosses deem those precautions unnecessary, it's not just the employees who are at risk. 

When this esthetician set her sights on becoming a skincare expert, she never thought she'd get wrapped up in a sketchy business plan that was so unhinged and unprofessional, it was arguably nefarious. But even after getting refused pay upfront for her first few weeks of training, she pressed on with the hopes of becoming a legitimate practitioner… that is, until she realized that her employer was far from honorable. 

Keep scrolling to read how she used their negligence against them after getting wrongfully fired, setting the hound dogs after their shady activities until she got their business closed permanently. 

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  • 01
    "Fire me for compliance? I'll get your business shut down❞
    via lithiumcloud - Getty Images via Canva
  • 02
    Fire me for compliance? I'll get your business shut down by be state. This happened in 2007/2008. I was a licensed esthetician and was about to start grad school.
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  • 03
    I find a job listing wanting estheticians for a new med spa to perform laser treatments. This was starting to be a booming industry and the hours were perfect for grad school and the hourly rate was generous. I got the job offer
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  • 04
    and they stated that the compensation for the training was getting our certification as a laser technician which cost $3500. They sent me this in an email. (This detail is important)
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    I felt that this was fair and the training was before the spa opened and I had a job at the time and the training didn't interfere. Training went well. The owner and his wife were a little weird and the wife told us
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  • 06
    time and again that we always had to call him "Dr. Steve" and to not forget. (No one had forgot) They were from a foreign country, so I shrugged it off as a cultural difference and I didn't want to judge.
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  • 07
    They mentioned that they were going to find brands of skincare and makeup to sell in the MedSpa (normal) and needed to find a line of chemical peels for services. I offered to reach
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  • 08
    out to contacts and got all of these for them. I wasn't being paid, but I didn't mind because I want to work with quality products and knew I'd benefit from it. They were beyond grateful. All seems well.
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  • 09
    Two weeks before the spa opened, we began our paid work. We were setting up the spa and the owner's wife (who claimed to be an esthetician) was going to teach us some of the massages for facials. All normal practice. The first week was set up and everything seemed normal.
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    They did mention that they had another partner, an American doctor, but we wouldn't see him a lot. His name was in our brochures. I thought it was weird that he was in the brochures for services, but I
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    was like, "who knows, maybe he invested a lot and has an ego." I brought one of the brochures home to show my roommate. It had Dr. Steve's business card stapled on it too. (Again this is an important detail.)
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    Week 2 is when things got weird. The owner's wife (I'll call her OW) started training us on the massages. The first seemed normal, but then some were clearly crossing the lines of our scope of practice. Like massaging glutes. Something
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    that is appropriate for a massage therapist. And I got some weird vibes when they said that they knew a lot of the male clients they had lined up would be requesting this. Now
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    some men go to medspas, but the majority of clients are women, so this was a red flag. the end of the day, I explained to OW that the massages that she was showing were not in the scope of practice and that I
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  • 15
    didn't feel comfortable performing them and that it could cost us our license if someone reported. She told me that I wasn't educated. (I have a college degree and went to beauty school and was
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  • 16
    starting my first week of my master's degree.) I told her I'd be happy to bring her the info the next day. Then, The same day, Dr. Steve got mad that my coworker asked him a
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    question, and he pushed her up against a wall (hard) and told her to "get the eff out." I was already like, "I'm going to look for a new job asap."
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    The next morning I come in and they tell me that I'm an "unintelligent troublemaker" and was being let go. I'm I off, because they are basically asking me to
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    massage men in their bathing suit areas which is something I didn't want to do and wasn't licensed to do. But I was starting grad school and figured that I could enjoy maybe a month or two of unemployment and focus on
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    my studies. I go home and think, "People in this industry know the scope of practice and owners should know this. I wonder if she's really an esthetician." Professional
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    licenses are public record. I go in and search. She's not. Then, a light goes off in my head: he's probably not a doctor. I check, and he's not. In this state, you HAVE to have a doctor in the building
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  • 22
    at all times when laser procedures are being done. I check for the 3rd doctor (who was in the pamphlet and we never saw and was never there) and he is a doctor.
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    They were using his name to perform the treatments. I shake my head and think that I dodged a bullet. I file right away for unemployment and it gets denied because they said I
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    only worked for 2 weeks. This state requires 6 weeks to file. I march into the unemployment office with all of the emails that I printed out. Including the one that said that our compensation
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    for training (that occurred over a 5 week period) was worth $3500. Win for me: they had to pay me unemployment.
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    Now is my pro revenge. I decide since they fired me for saying we were not abiding by the rules of the state so they wouldn't lose their license, that I would get them to lose their license. Now that I had
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    free time, I called the state and reported them for operating a medical spa with laser treatments without a doctor on site and fraud, because "Dr" Steve and OW
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  • 28
    claimed to have professional licenses that they didn't carry. They asked if I had any proof and I had both of their business cards plus the brochure. They told me to bring them in and I did. They
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  • 29
    asked about Dr. #3 and I said, "He's never there, you can check." So they called and asked for him (as a potential customer) and they said, "he's not here, you can talk to Dr. Steve."
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  • 30
    Their business was shut down. They had a very expensive lease in a big building on Michigan Ave. They had 3 laser machines that were each at the time a few hundred thousand dollars
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    each. They also had supplies, chairs, product that probably cost about $100,000. And their business was boarded up and one of the girls that I knew that was still working there (she was looking for
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  • 32
    something else, but couldn't afford to quit without something lined up) told me that when they came to shut the place down, the owner was screaming that he had lost everything and was ruined. They were also being
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  • 33
    charged with impersonating a doctor and practicing without a license. OW was yelling at him saying, "You said this was going to be easy and it wasn't a big deal and now we have nothing and will have criminal records." She had been calling
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    me and telling me that shady men were coming in for those weird massages and the owners were trying to encourage her to be "extra nice" and "go out with him if
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    he asks. My former coworker was now thrilled because she was able to get out of there early and was on the last round of job interviews and unemployment could carry
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  • 36
    her until that started and she didn't have to fend off creeps. I looked for jobs and found one, but enjoyed my first term of grad school with extra time to study and straight As. Play stupid (and illegal) games, win stupid prizes.
    via teambrendawalsh

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