BeLa Med Center Fraudulent Misrepresentation of 'Ultrasound' Fat Reduction / Skin Tightening "Medical" Treatment San Francisco California

This is a so-called 'medical spa' that is abusing the scope of its California Medical Board issued license (number 289449), and willfully misleading customers into buying expensive and ineffectual body contouring treatments.

Specifically, BeLa Med Center is agressively selling treatments with the Danycare Medical Beauty device (an out-dated model similar to Danycare BeautyTek, whose distributor is currently being investigated for fraud).

These body contouring serivices are advertised as being medically supervised, but no doctor ever reviewed my paperwork or provided any supervision of the consultation or treatment or aftercare.

Lastly, the representative said that their device will deliver "the best" results of any non-invasive fat removal device after only 1 treatment. In fact, this device failed to delivery ANY visible results after only 1 treatment. When I requested a refund for failure to perform, I was denied.

BeLa Med Center is among a growing number of medical spas in California and elsewhere that should be investigated and AVOIDED by customers.

Here are more details:

1) They are using their 'Medical Spa' liscence to market what are in fact un-supervised treatments, and use reputable sites like Groupon.com, Yelp.com, Mytime.com, Facebook.com, Dealyte.com to drive customers to call their reception desk where they are told to bypass the coupon and come in person for an equivalent deal (but the customer unknowing loses the added consumer protection of review mechanism on Groupon, for example)

2) After they lure customers to come in-person to their location, they use agressive, verbal sales tactics that misrepresent the body contouring services that are offered.

3) They promise that their device and treatment will be "more effective" than any other medical grade body contouring treatment -- they compare their device to  FDA approved devices like Liposonix, Ultherapy, Velashape, Exilis and Thermage -- and saying that it is more effective and lower cost.

4) They are providing what they say are medical services that are not supervised or reviewed by the designated physicians, a practice that is dangerous, deceptive and illegal.

5) They ask customers to sign a document while rushing them and saying, 'this is just a formality' when they are in fact signing a document that is intented to limit any recourse to refund money or any guarantee of safe treatement by a supervising physician.

6) The owner does not publish his name on the website but instead goes by the name of "KC" and is only available a few hours a week

7) The listed supervising physicians, Dr. Minal Moharir and Dr. Melinda Phan, were no where to be seen and did not sign-off on any paperwork prior to my procedure.

8) BeLa Med Center overcharged me for the services, and blamed me for the error. Specifically, I was told they would honor a Groupon deal of $350 for 50 minutes. I used 20 minutes of service. When I asked for a refund, I was told I could only get $150 back, and I would have to sign a document and forfeit any claim to the remainder.

9)They are also offering microneedle treatments called 'Dermapen' that penetrate the epidermis and beyond that are medically unsupervised and performed by an esthetician rather than an MD or RN.

10) When asked to provide documentation of this case immediately, they failed to do so.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of my complaints. There were other issues as well. 

If they were to refund my money and provide better physician oversight, I would be very pleased and consider this resolved.