The skincare sample is free. What happens next can cost thousands

The products promise younger-looking skin. The salespeople promise special deals. But customers at skincare stores across the country say they've walked away with something else entirely: thousands of dollars in unexpected charges and purchases they can't return.

Over the past year, NPR investigated complaints from shopping malls in Michigan to hotel spas in Hawaii, where customers reported being pressured into spending thousands of dollars on skincare products they never wanted. The stores had different names and different owners, but shared a common connection.

NPR's Monika Evstatieva and Caley Fox Shannon interviewed more than 50 people, reviewed hundreds of consumer complaints and examined court records and internal documents. Their reporting led them to Mazal Group, a California-based company run by a family originally from Israel that controls dozens of skincare brands sold in independently operated stores around the world.

More than a decade ago, federal agents documented what they called a "credit card overcharge scheme" at stores selling some of the same brands. Their investigations also uncovered immigration and money-laundering crimes that led to more than a dozen guilty pleas.

Yet customers continue to report similar tactics at stores across the country. So NPR set out to trace the connections between the stores, the products and the family business behind them.