Mall kiosk sells woman with Down Syndrome $1695 of face cream

A mall kiosk in St. Catharines was shut down Friday morning after a 27-year-old woman with Down Syndrome was sold over $1,600 worth of face cream.

Suzi Gordon, the woman’s caregiver, said she was “floored” when she eyed the receipts during a shopping excursion to the Pen Centre on Wednesday.

Gordon said she encouraged her to make the purchase on her own, but was appalled when she was “completely taken advantage of.”

“She found a makeup kiosk and I said, ‘Off you go,’ ” Gordon told CityNews. “She made a purchase and I said, ‘Way to go. Good job,’ because she took it upon herself.  I encourage independence and self-sufficiency.”

The glee over the purchase quickly soured when it dawned on Gordon what had occurred.

“She handed me the receipt and…I was stunned. I was shocked.”

The bills for the two Orogold high-end face creams came to a whopping $1,695.

“I said to her, ‘You were charged over $1,000 for that product!’ and her eyes got big.”

Gordon claims the salesperson didn’t make the prices clear, saying one was “five sixty-five,” and the other “eleven thirty.”

“She thought she got a good deal, five dollars and sixty-five cents. She didn’t grasp it. She didn’t get it and that’s where we feel she was completely taken advantage of.”

Another employee at the mall said she’s seen the same kiosk engage in questionable sales practices.

“There was an elderly lady last week, they had her in the chair so quickly and they were putting cream on her face and on her hands,” said Elizabeth Alguire. “I don’t know what she spent but she ended up going to get security to help her get her money back. It was terrible.”

Orogold’s head office in California told CityNews the Pen Centre kiosk wasn’t authorized to sell its products.

The vendor in charge of the kiosk, Forever Flawless, has transferred the employee and issued the woman a full refund.

Update: Orogold issued the following statement on its Facebook page later Friday:

“We would like to offer our sincere regrets to any hardship caused to a client with special needs that purchased Orogold products at The Pen Center in Ontario, Canada. The sale was made at a pirate location without authorization to use our brand name and without license to sell. We have taken immediate action to have the inventory be removed from that location and that all uses of our trademark be removed from the invoices. Only the landlord can shut down the kiosk entirely and we will contact The Pen Center directly so that we can work all work together to make sure this can never happen again.”