Tattoo removal giant LaserAway faces class action over alleged consumer deception

A national tattoo removal company has been hit with a putative class action of potentially thousands of members, accused by ex-employees of "gaslighting" customers into buying overpriced treatment packages with false promises of results, knowing full removal would require more sessions than sold.

Attorney for the plaintiffs, Will Horowitz at Qureshi Law, said the former employees of LaserAway accused it of deceiving customers by using different machines with lower strengths to remove tattoos making the process longer.

"We talked a lot of people from inside the company who are willing to go on record saying explicitly that the company was deceiving consumers," Horowitz said in a phone interview Tuesday. "They were using different kinds of machines of vastly different efficacy and not telling people.

"I think there's a lot of money at stake, for the average consumer spending $2,000 is a pretty big deal and it's a highly personal product."

Horowitz said the putative class was currently California based but the number of complaints they had seen and the national presence of LaserAway meant they might expand it to a national lawsuit and a "quite large" class size.

The complaint stated the proposed class contains "at least hundreds if not thousands of consumers who are ascertainable by reviewing sales records maintained by LaserAway," and that LaserAway operates in more than 100 locations across the country.

Meegan Brooks, of San Francisco based law firm Benesch, is attorney for the defendant was contacted by phone but did not respond to a request for comment in time for press.

LaserAway did not respond to an email request for comment.

The tattoo removal industry has seen a sharp increase in demand in recent years as technology improves, with an expected industry value of $4 billion globally by 2035, according to Allied Market Research report from May 2024.

The complaint filed at San Francico Superior Court states that stronger lasers more effective at removing tattoos. Dennis Shiraev v. LaserAway LLC, et al.,CGC-25-625617 (S. F. Super. Ct. filed May 23, 2025).

The location and ink color of a tattoo also affects how long it will take to be removed, and it takes between eight and 20 sessions to remove if machines of normal efficacy are employed, the complaint claimed.

LaserAway "aggressively markets" a package of eight to ten tattoo removal sessions for approximately $5,000 a 50%, according to the complaint, and former employees of the company admitted sales staff were "routinely wrong" about the number of sessions required for a tattoo to be removed.

According to the complaint, one of the former employees said that LaserAway would routinely "gaslight" and "lie to" patients by employing "manipulative and dishonest" sales tactics. Another stated that she only received 15 minutes of training on laser tattoo removal.

"Tattoo removal is a sort of quasi-medical procedure that can hurt people," Horowitz said. "So, if you misrepresent what's going on, people that end up getting burned, getting disfigured, getting hurt. I think it should be taking a little more seriously [than standard alleged misrepresentation lawsuits]. There's also a highly personal nature to people getting tattoos, it can be a highly expressive act and I think removing it, it's the same thing."

The plaintiff is seeking damages, restitution, and injunctive relief on behalf of all California consumers who purchased similar treatment packages in the last four years.

The complaint accuses LaserAway of negligent misrepresentation, false advertising, and violations of California's Consumer Legal Remedies Act and Unfair Competition Law and demands a jury trial.