Beautician Shareen Ali says she has been left shame-faced and out of work by a slimming clinic which she claims owes her customers thousands of pounds in refunds.

The 24-year-old said she was taken on by Coventry-based Slimline Clinic as a therapist running a new Bradford branch after she responded to a Jobcentre advert.

Six months after the clinic opened at a unit at Carlisle Business Centre in Manningham, she said Slimline Clinic’s bosses suddenly shut it without explanation last month – telling her to go home, unless she wanted to take it on herself.

Mrs Ali, of Nab Wood, Shipley, turned down the offer and said Slimline Clinic still owes her £700 in unpaid wages and about £9,000 in refunds to customers who paid in advance for a course of the non-surgical liposuction treatments.

She said: “I’ve been ringing the head office but I'm not getting any reponse. When they closed the clinic they promised to post my wages and my P45 but nothing has come.

“They also told me to tell customers to contact them direct for refunds but from what the clients are telling me,they're not getting any response either – one woman is owed about £900.”

She added: “It makes me feel bad because I was the face of that business in my home city but I'm not to blame – the clinic was very busy and doing well, shutting it did not make sense."

Mrs Ali, who is now looking for another job, said she had spoken to a beautician in Sheffield whose clinic was also suddenly shut leaving disgruntled clients. Website posts report similar situations in Romford, Bristol and Coventry.

The company refused to comment about Mrs Ali’s complaints when the Telegraph & Argus contacted its headquarters in Coventry yesterday.

A West Yorkshire Trading Standards spokesman urged disgruntled customers to contact Slimline Clinic's head office in the first instance to ask for a refund and if they paid on credit cards, inform their card company.

Last year Slimline Clinic was also rapped by the Advertising Standards Authority for misleading claims about the success of its treatments It was ordered to stop claiming people could achieve a precise inch loss within a stated period, or that weight or fat could be lost from specific parts of the body. It was also told not to make inch loss or other slimming claims unless it held rigorous trials.