A beauty salon in central Henan province has been charged 500 thousand yuan, or about 70 thousand US dollars, by a market watchdog in the provincial capital for defrauding consumers by failing to publish its price tags.

Two girls paid over ten thousand yuan, or nearly 15 hundred US dollars, for their hair services at Paul's international. The case has been made public by the press and caused resentment among customers. In response, the local administration of prices and other market watchdogs took prompt steps to investigate the issue.

As a consequence, the hair salon was fined and closed.

With regard to the fall of the hair salon, the Beijing News carried a commentary saying that the market watchdogs should have discovered the violation of price rules and supervises it to bring down the high prices. However, they only passively made responses under the pressure of the public. Moreover, their measures have brought no real benefits to the victims of the high prices, as the salone has been operating for years.

The commentary concludes by stressing that relevant market watchdogs should make efforts to better regulate the market and protect the interests of consumers.