Unscrupulous Employment Practices

Unscrupulous Employment Practices

ignorance or lack of ethics?

My Experiences of Toxic Employment with Dr. Lauren Saltzburg and Luminary Cosmetic

I Never Anticipated What Would Unfold

Becoming an employee for Luminary Cosmetic was never planned for me. While I had over 12 years of digital marketing experience by the time Luminary launched, I had no intention of being involved with the business. I had just left my position after serving as a senior digital strategist for several years with a national political campaign. Exhausted by the relentless negativity of the political world, I decided to start doing consulting work exclusively for small and medium businesses. 


Around that time, my sister Dr. Lauren Saltzburg and adoptive father, Dr. Michael Saltzburg, had opened the doors for Luminary Cosmetic. I was shocked when I saw their first website, as it was horribly low quality, not optimized at all for the search engines and thin on content. They had no business listing on Google and basically were not discoverable on the internet. I knew how hard my sister had worked to get all her training and here she was, finally starting out on her own. I offered to help and she agreed. 


I didn't have experience specifically with the cosmetic surgery industry, but I simply applied the same digital marketing and overall marketing principles I had successfully used again and again, with over 20 years of marketing experience.

 I was shocked when I saw the first Luminary website, as it was horribly low quality, not optimized at all for the search engines and thin on content. They were literally not discoverable online and had no online marketing plan. I decided to offer to help.

I Worked Hard to Help My Sister & Luminary Succeed

With my mom sadly gone, I saw helping with Lauren's and my dad's business as a way for us to all bond and work together. I genuinely wanted to see her succeed. I was also really concerned about her lack of knowledge around the improtance of digital marketing. 


They had been completely scammed, paying $5000 for a $200 website that wasn't even usable. Hosting, which should cost about $20 a month, was costing them $8000 a month. 


I Started Handling All of Luminary's Marketing, Online and Off and Quickly Got the Site Ranked #1 in Google for Their Services

She gave me the impression money was tight, so I told her she didn't have to pay me anything. I billed her for a few hundred dollars here and there, to cover my expenses. I worked this way for several months, doing a wide variety of marketing, including launching a new SEO-optimized website, all their Google Business Profile optimizations, organizing and directing commercial photo and video shoots, designing graphics, and sourcing new EMR software with integrated marketing features.


Finally after 6 months, with the business getting top rankings and plenty of leads, I told her and my dad I'd need to get paid a modest salary if I was going to continue helping. They agree to $4,000 a month. It wasn't much, but I knew I'd already helped the business grow substantially.


They said they wanted to open a second location in Philadelphia, which I knew would take substantially more time. I was ok with helping the business grow and become even more profitable and then gradually make more money. Looking back, it was dumb on my part, but I genuinely didn't believe my own sister would ever try to screw me over. It's shocking to know just how wrong I was.

While the Marketing & Business Were Booming, Dark Family Dynamics Started to Unfold

It's physically painful to write about what happened next; the nausea, headaches and physical revulsion are very real. In the wake of my mother's death, my younger half-siblings Mark and Lauren had already started battling over our parents' estate. It had all been settled before my mom ever died, so it was confusing and stressful as to why it was even an issue.


Unbeknownst to me and my older brother Chris, their personal warfare was just the precursor of much darker family dynamics that were just beginning to emerge. We were blind to the fact that we, along with our children, were actually the main targets. 

Over Time, My Sister Lauren Started Sabotaging My Marketing Work for Luminary

While our half sibings Mark and Lauren were warring over their future inheritances, I was just naively trying to focus on raising my children, helping her business and looking after my supposedly grieving father to the best of my ability. I was 100% a solo parent and the constant travel back and forth to visit my dad was exhausting.


Lauren recruited myself and Chris to be her allies in her efforts to protect her future inheritance. Chris and I reluctantly agreed as we didn't want their to be any future enmity or toxic lawsuits, etc. The whole situation was baffling and I wanted as little to do with it as possible. Our father had become increasingly irritable and distant with me and Chris, along with our children. Our younger brother Mark had demanded exclusive access to him and insisted only his child was a "real" Saltzburg grandchild.


Our once loving family was beginning to resemble a cross between an upper crust Jerry Springer show and a bad Lifetime movie. 


Meanwhile, Lauren became increasingly distant and evasive whenever I requested a meeting or approval for the next steps in the marketing plan. I was able to do a lot on my own, but the constant last minute canceling of meetings, ignoring my emails, etc. became disconcerting. She was evasive and distant. I had already sunk a ton of effort and time into getting the business launched and the "sunk cost" bias was all too real for me.

My sister Lauren became increasingly distant and evasive whenever I requested a meeting or approval for the next steps in the marketing plan...the last minute canceling of meetings, ignoring my emails, etc. became disconcerting.

Lauren Started Openly, Cruelly Mocking Our Disowned Older Brother Christopher, Making Me Question My Involvement With Her

My stepfather Michael had adopted me and Chris, but we weren't his biological children. We were both from our mother's first marriage and met Michael when I was one year old and Chris was five. Michael had always had some open contempt for my brother Chris, who still loved him and sought his approval. Yet when Chris found out Michael had secretly withheld Chris's inheritance from my mother and lied to the courts about it,  Chris was understandably upset - especially when he found out our brother Mark had been involved.


Chris emailed our dad about it, and then Michael cut him off from the family from that moment forward. Not a single email, conversation, phone call - nothing. The same week Michael wrote Chris out of the shared will my parents had drafted. The abrupt coldness was truly shocking. Chris lived just 15 minutes from Michael and had regularly helped him and visited him for years.


Rather than having any empathy, my sister Lauren joined with our father in cruelly mocking him and ridiculing him, both verbally and in text messages to me and to each other. I felt physically sick at what was happening.

My sister told me that the forensics accountant said my digital marketing was bringing in over $50,000 in new business every month. They also wanted to keep more profits, so they were cutting my salary (to $500 a week).

I Became a Target: With Zero Notice, Lauren Permanently Withheld Half My Luminary Pay

One day, as I sat in the parking lot of the DMV waiting to get my daughter's driver's license, I got a call from Lauren out of the blue. "We're cutting costs because we're not keeping enough profits. We hired a forensics accountant and they said the digital marketing is getting $50,000 a month in new business every month. But we're cutting your and Gina's pay. I have to go. I'll call you later."  


She never called me back. When I logged into my bank account two days later, I saw my paycheck had been cut into half - for work that I had already done. The pay was about $800 for two weeks of digital marketing work, including both the Luminary Linwood and Luminary Philadelphia locations. 

I'm pretty sure it's not legal to cut someone's salary in half for work they already did, without any warning. But it was my own sister, what was I supposed to do?

While They Cut My Salary to $500 a Week, Our Father Helped Lauren Buy a Million Dollar, Waterfront Home

I'm pretty sure it's not legal to cut someone's salary in half for work they already did, without any warning. But it was my own sister, what was I supposed to do? That same month, Lauren bought a waterfront, million dollar home with our father's help. It looked to me like they were just trying to trigger me with hurtful, insulting actions and behavior. That would give them an easy excuse to suddenly disown and disinherit me, just like they had done to my older brother Chris.


I've practiced meditation for over 30 years and just am not easily triggered, though of course I was incredibly hurt and shocked by what was happening. I decided to just bide my time, which I did for about 6 more months after that. Lauren and my dad became so rude to me and my children it was eventually unbearable to be around them anymore. It wasn't a safe environment for my children. My sister Lauren and my father made it clear they wanted us gone. Finally my father explicitly told me that in a conversation later that year.

The whole Luminary business was so shady and she wrapped the employees up right into it. 

Hiring Someone to Do Work That Is Illegal for Them to Do Is Also Inherently Toxic

The whole situation with Lauren employing Gina Osbeck, who was only a licensed esthetician and had zero medical credentials, to do close to 100% of all the cosmetic resurfacing is in itself a toxic workplace practice. NJ has banned estheticians - or anyone other than a physican - from doing that type of work. Lauren knew it was illegal and openly talked about it. The whole business was so shady and she wrapped the employees up right into it.


I've practiced meditation for over 30 years and just am not easily triggered, though of course I was incredibly hurt and shocked by what was happening. I decided to just bide my time, which I did for about 6 more months after that. Lauren and my dad became so rude to me and my children it was eventually unbearable to be around them anymore. They made it clear they wanted us gone, and finally my father told me that in a conversation later that year.

Hurt That Lasts a Lifetime

I don't know if anyone gets over the the betrayal from someone so close to you who you loved. I behaved truly as a loving and supportive sister to Lauren her entire life. As I was 12 years older than her, and fed her a baby bottle, changed her diapers, and helped care for her as a child. I truly only loved her. I was (wrongfully) proud of her and wished her well. I never realized how manipulative, money-hungry and dishonest she was.  Her treatment not only of me, but of my brother Chris, as well as my children, was shocking and repugnant to me. I also was incredibly disgusted at the way she systematically endangered patients' safety for profits' sake. 

Read More...

Read more about our tragic saga...My mother was a strong advocate for women and children. She would want the lies exposed so others can learn from her mistakes. It also is my hope that people can know the truth about Dr. Michael Saltzburg and Dr. Lauren Saltzburg so that, at least on some level, they are held accountable for their actions. Dark ethics deserve the light of truth.

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