Bully nail-boss trilogy: Mother’s dream shattered (Part 1)
Several women have fallen victim to verbal abuse and social media abuse to his bully-boy tactics
MBOMBELA – A well-known Lowveld businesswoman had her dreams of opening an exclusive business for her daughter shattered by the alleged bully-boy tactics of the franchiser. Now she lives in fear of disbarred Pretoria attorney, turned nail-salon owner, Mr Peet Viljoen.
The single mother, who asked not to be named, lost the R60 000 which she invested in exclusive Tammy Taylor Nails salons in Mbombela and White River. The franchise is a new brand of acrylic nail salons from the USA. It would have been an upmarket nail salon in the upgraded I’langa Mall, but all went wrong when she challenged the CEO of Tammy Taylor Nails, Viljoen, by questioning the poor after-sales service and low stock levels of the nail products.
She also questioned the exorbitant price increases of products already paid for. The woman, out of desperation, requested the mother company in the United States, to order from them directly. This created tension with Viljoen and his wife, Ms Melany Viljoen. In support of the Lowveld woman’s honest intentions, a former partner in Tammy Taylor SA, Ms Sonika van der Walt, wrote a letter to the US head office stating: “They made her out as this dodgy person that wants to go behind their back and buy stock through you directly and she is behaving this way because she wants to steal the exclusive rights. All she wanted was her products that she had paid for, and good service”.
The woman said she could not endure the abuse any longer and had no choice but to walk away from her dream. The exclusive rights were given to another Mbombela resident who opened her nail bar last Friday. The Viljoen couple attended. A Lowvelder investigation unovered that the alleged poor service delivery and alleged lack of proper people skills within the company, were not isolated cases. Clients from all over South Africa lost thousands of rand and had fallen prey to this alleged bad treatment.
Some of them lost all their hard-earned life savings and others now face financial ruin. One family is currently under debt counselling, but still hopes for a refund on the outstanding amount of their R100 000 investments. Viljoen refused to speak to Lowvelder and referred all written enquiries to his attorney, Mr Dirk Fourie, who said that all the accusations and allegations were totally untrue. “The information provided to you is false,” he stated.
Several other women, who paid money to be trained as Tammy Taylor acrylic-nail experts, and others, who bought franchises and also lost their money, confirmed to Lowvelder that they endured verbal and social-media abuse from Viljoen. His glamorous wife, referred to as the “Queen of Tammy Taylor”, who drives around in a flashy, white, branded Range Rover, was also involved in an alleged racial incident when she bad-mouthed one of her students in a conversation with a client.
“Mel told her that nails are not in my blood and that I should stick to what I am doing currently, as I am too stupid to do acrylic nails. “Both my models can testify her attitude towards me,” the student said in her statement. “I felt that this is racism in every form and felt very ashamed and uncomfortable in the course. I have never been treated this way,”
A woman from Boksburg managed to recover her investment in a franchise when her former husband, who loaned her part of the money, created an “Anti-Tammy Taylor” website. “There must be some kind of justice,” the website said.
The site was only deactivated towards the end of last month when the woman’s investment was eventually paid back to her.
