NPR Investigation: Mall Skincare Stores Systematically Targeted Older Adults and People With Disabilities

A year-long NPR investigation published Oct. 14 has found that mall-based skincare stores across the United States systematically pressured older adults and people with disabilities into buying expensive products and services they did not want, could not afford, or tried to refuse — a nationwide pattern that traces back to a single California-based supplier.

The report describes a business model that federal agents dubbed a “credit card overcharge scheme” more than a decade ago and that, according to NPR, remains active today in malls and shopping districts from Honolulu to Annapolis, Maryland.

A Pattern of Pressure

NPR reviewed hundreds of online reviews and nearly 500 consumer complaints obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, examined state and federal lawsuits, interviewed more than 50 people affected, and visited stores in Virginia, Maryland and California as well as the supplier’s headquarters.

The complaints describe strikingly similar encounters. A young salesperson outside a store or mall kiosk offers a free sample. If a shopper stops, the salesperson escorts — and in some accounts physically pulls — them inside, then launches a barrage of sales pitches. Customers report being kept in stores for an hour or more, sometimes isolated in a back room, while salespeople refuse to take no for an answer.

Products carry no price tags, freeing salespeople to negotiate “special sales” and add “free gifts.” Shoppers told authorities the amount charged at the register was often far higher than the agreed-upon price — one reported that a salesperson added a zero, increasing a sum tenfold from $1,300 to $13,000. Some also reported being signed up for “payment plans” that were actually high-interest loans, or pressured into buying devices such as red-light therapy panels, whose advertised benefits remain a subject of scientific debate. At the bottom of the bag, many said, was a receipt reading: “All sales final. No refunds. No exchanges.”

Charges ranged from several hundred dollars to more than $100,000 in a single case.

Documented Victims

In Michigan, an elderly man with dementia was charged $42,000; his family only learned of it when his credit score dropped. In New Mexico, a woman was charged two totals of $44,280 after being told her card was declined; she later recovered $27,000 through a dispute but remained responsible for $17,280. In Hawaii, a disabled woman was shown to a back room for a “free” facial, where a salesperson took her walker and refused to let her leave for hours until she spent $2,600.

In Manhattan Beach, California, 82-year-old retired teacher Mary Ellen Eckhert — who uses a motorized wheelchair — stopped for a free sample outside a store called Mia’s by Voupre. Over the following year, employees charged her $53,500 across four credit cards, including $24,045 on a single visit. “What kind of a spa charges anyone $54,000?” said her son, Marc Eckhert, who discovered the charges after his mother’s bank account overdrew. She remains out more than $17,000.

The New Mexico attorney general, who sued a Santa Fe store called Santa Fe Spa Center by Voupre in 2024, described the tactics bluntly. “The scale of the price increases, the aggressive tactics, the repeated practice of misquoting prices and then elevating prices while refusing to return a product — we usually don’t see a business that is this brazen and this out in the open,” Raúl Torrez told NPR. The store’s owner closed the spa and settled in 2025, agreeing to pay $350,000 in restitution to customers.

The Family Behind the Brands

While the stores involved were independently owned and located thousands of miles apart, they all sold products from the same source: Mazal Group, a Chatsworth, California-based company owned by the Weingarten and Oded families, who are originally from Israel. The family holds more than 50 active trademarks for skin and hair care brands — including Voupre, Avinichi, Introstem, CbGäRDN, Venofye, Lionesse and Orogold Cosmetics — which sell a nearly identical line of products.

Mazal Group maintains that it is merely a distributor. “Mazal Group does not own or operate any retail locations that sell cosmetic products or any other products for that matter. Nor does Mazal Group manufacture any products,” attorney Brian Tilker told NPR.

But a 2022 class action filed in Hawaii — which settled in June 2026 for $950,000, with the company and family responsible for $650,000 — made public documents showing the group is deeply involved in store operations. The company requires branded stores to sell exclusively Mazal products, adopt a refund policy set by the group, and direct customer service inquiries to its headquarters. A research firm hired by the plaintiffs concluded that the owners and officers are “involved in every step of the process.”

A Pricing and Product Question

Internal order forms obtained by NPR show the brands set manufacturer-suggested retail prices at up to 130 times the wholesale price charged to stores. Voupre’s Cannabis Caviar Transforming Mask costs $23 wholesale with a suggested retail price of $3,000. Industry experts called the markups “highly unusual” and said they give salespeople wide latitude to negotiate — and to maximize commissions.

NPR also commissioned a lab test on a single unopened box of Voupre Anti-Aging Rescue Solution, which costs stores $19.50 and carries a suggested retail price of $1,300. The lab, Founders Science Group, could not detect any trace of vitamin A or vitamin E, both listed on the label. “If the manufacturer did not include the actives at production and Voupre listed them on the packaging,” CEO Robert Munroe said, “that would be misbranding.” Based on its analysis, he said the product is comparable to skincare retailing for under $10.

A Decade-Old Playbook

The aggressive mall sales model is not new. In 2010, the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv sent a cable to the Department of Homeland Security — published by WikiLeaks — warning of fraudulent activity linked to the “Dead Sea industry,” which had spread to 36 states and involved recruiting young Israelis to work illegally on tourist visas.

Those warnings produced federal prosecutions. Omer Gur, an Israeli national who owned a group of mall kiosk businesses, pleaded guilty in 2016 to visa fraud and money-laundering conspiracy involving more than 140 unauthorized workers and earnings exceeding $14 million. He was sentenced to 6.5 years. Shai Cohen, who operated kiosks selling Weingarten and Oded brands in the Washington, D.C., area, pleaded guilty in 2023 to money-laundering and immigration conspiracy charges.

NPR reports that more than a dozen people pleaded guilty in connection with such schemes, but that the government has not brought similar charges in a decade. Israel’s 2023 admission to the U.S. Visa Waiver Program has also removed a key barrier to entry for unauthorized workers, according to the investigation.

What to Watch

The Mazal Group terminated its California business license in September 2026, and the Weingartens have since founded a new company, Innovation Brands Inc. Complaints have not slowed the broader enterprise, one former employee told NPR: “They were still expanding, opening, expanding, opening, expanding, opening.”

NPR contacted the departments of Homeland Security, Labor and State, the IRS and the FBI to ask whether they continue to investigate Israeli-owned skincare stores. They would not say whether oversight or enforcement is ongoing.

For affected shoppers, the immediate recourse has been civil and state action. The Hawaii and New Mexico cases returned money to a set of affected customers, but the underlying sales practices remain the subject of ongoing complaints across the country.