Sadly all through history there have been people willing to take advantage of other people.
I agree with you that spending £200 on something like this is a waste of money, and I think if my wife did anything like this I would blow my top.
Paying this much for this sort of product does show a certain lack of confidence in the person, same as buying clothes with fancy "labels" on them, or men buying cars with loud exhausts, somehow it makes them feel better and more important.
It may be a good idea to look at the underlying problem of her lack of confidence, feeling the need to spend this much money on things to try to look good.
One problem is seeing all these "glamorous" models in magazines (which have been heavily altered with computer software), but I saw a great quote the other day to counteract this:
"Don't worry if you don't look like the model in the magazine, even the girl in the photo does not look like the model in the magazine"