Dubai: The mystery woman who conned a Karama salon last week allegedly cheated another salon in the same area and could be doing this as her modus operandi to get beauty treatments for free, salon owners warned.

Gulf News on Wednesday reported the complaint of Celine Crasto, co-owner of Anchor Beauty Salon, who said an Indian woman came to their shop to get a pampering package for three hours and fled the salon without paying her bill.

Nelly Tavares, apparently the first victim of the mystery woman, surfaced on Wednesday after reading the report.

“The story was exactly the same as what she did to us,” Tavares, owner of Ultimate Look Beauty Salon, also in Karama, told Gulf News. “But the difference is she stole my staff’s money in their bags that were kept in the rest room upstairs.”

The woman allegedly came to her salon around 3pm on October 8 last year and was there until they closed shop at 10pm. After getting her extensive beauty package, the woman also bought special shampoos, making her total bill Dh798. When it was time to pay, the woman’s credit card was allegedly declined. It was then that she said she would get money from home since she lived nearby. The salon staff accompanied the woman in a taxi and went to the building where she claimed she lived.

She went inside the building but never came out.

Tavares said she phoned police after a few days and they reviewed the surveillance cameras of that building where the woman was seen trying to escape through another exit. But Tavares did not push through with filing a police case.

“I said [myself] ‘forget it. I’ll just think that the Dh800 went to charity’. But with this new information I got, my fear is she could be doing it to other salons. Why should someone be a victim of a person like this?”

On Wednesday, Tavares immediately contacted Crasto and sent her the con woman’s picture to see if they could recognise her.

“My staff said it’s the same lady,” Crasto told Gulf News. “Her [Tavares] salon is a 10-minute walk from mine. The woman must be targeting all salons here.”

Both salon owners said they would report the matter to the police and file an official complaint to prevent it from happening again.

Tavares said what really upset her was the fact that the woman disrespected her staff. “She used them, and then misused them again by leaving them in the taxi without any money. I don’t want other salons to suffer,” Tavares said, urging other salons to be cautious.