Realself

I had the Biltmore Lift 6 months ago with Dr. Harley after finding him on RealSelf.com and seeing all the positive reviews.

The surgery itself went fine, but as early as 2 weeks after surgery I began to notice my jowls were returning. At 5 months my face was more gaunt and jowls more noticeable then before the surgery. In addition, I had post surgical complications which have required medical attention. The facelift was not only a failure but also caused large bags under my eyes which now require another surgery to fix.

Dr. Harley has never taken responsibility for the poor work nor assisted me in any way with either the medical issues or the cosmetic issued resulting from the surgery. How much have I lost so far? $6400 for the surgery, $2500 in travel expenses, $2500 in follow up medical care, and corrections.

$5000 pending for the surgical revision I have scheduled. Because of my experience I tried to update my review of the surgery online. Because it was negative, I was immediately attacked by other reviewers who were clearly friends or employees of the doctor's. Some, I found out were receiving free services.

Real Self responded by blocking my access to the site. When I asked what I had done specifically to be blocked from sharing or discussing my experience they would not tell me. I created a new profile and again attempted to post my real experience with the doctor and once it again my review was removed and I was blocked without explanation. Dr.

Harley's business is almost entirely all patients who have found him on RealSelf. I found out that 80% of the positive reviews are posted 1 week to 1.5 months after surgery before the skin laxity returns and the patient sees it did not work. Because the site removes all of the negative reviews, the public only sees positive reviews so they book their surgery and the cycle continues. Dr.

Harley and RealSelf are engaged in predatory marketing and fraud. There is an unusually high percentage of Dr. Harley's patients who end up with lip palsy from the surgery, but you will not see that posted in reviews, only in discussing the surgery privately with unhappy patients. The site should be taken down.

Plastic surgery should not be sold on "reviews" like a blender you are buying on Amazon. This is surgery - its risky, its permanent and there should be marketing regulations in place to keep predators like RealSelf and Dr. Harley from at best taking advantage of people and at worst, harming them. Please complain to the Washington Attorney General (RealSelf is based in Seattle) and to the FTC.

There are several pages out there that discuss the fraud being perpetuated by RealSelf and its doctors. I've already filed my complaints and am now seeking out journalists who may be interested in investigating it further.

I signed a contract with Real Self on advertising my of medical aesthetic services 5 months ago. Before signing the contract with them, they reassured me that I will be getting a great return from this advertising and I should not worry about getting a great response from potential patients.

I told them that I do not have time to do any work myself that hiring them to help me to boost my business. I told them that I expect them to do it themselves for the money I pay them and rather not start advertising if they expect me to do something before they take on the advertising task. One month passed, and nothing happened. The Real Self representative Melissa Wren, when I reached out to her, was reassuring me that I should wait to get the momentum.

I was patiently waiting for 4 months, but nothing happened. I received not a single call or request about my medical aesthetic services that I was offering. Meanwhile, The Real Self were really quick at collecting my money but did no advertising work at all whatsoever.

They did not show any proof that they created any ads at all.Providers of services, be aware of Real Self deceptive practices and stay away from them! Patient also be aware of this company false advertising if you see any...

Now when it comes to review sites I have always been aware that a fair amount of manipulation goes into some of the reviews, however it never really bothered me to much, however when your considering something as serious as cosmetic surgery transparency and honest reviews is vital in making an informed decision.

Realself sells itself as honest platform where patients can freely ask doctors about particular treatments, and freely post their own experiences and read about the experience of others a kind of transparent platform that helps consumers make informed decisions.

My experience of realself has been the opposite. It is nothing more then a wolf in sheeps clothing; a marketing platform for surgeons and cosmetic products.

When making a decision about a cosmetic treatment and whom to go to most of us have to rely on reviews and the reviews on realself are extremely deceptive even more so then many other review sites I've visited.

Negative reviews are never shown on the first page of doctors reviews even if it is the most recent review, furthermore many negative reviews are removed or hidden by realself under the guise that they breach the realself community standards which I believe doctors pay the site to do. Some users are blocked by the site for posting negative reviews effectively silencing their voice and their opinion and not allowing other consumers to see it. On the other hand glowing reviews are never questioned, at least by realself, many post once and never again do not leave photos leading me to know many of them are written by the doctor themselves or someone they pay to write them to give the illusion of a good practice. There is no process at all to see if they are real, no way to complain and suggest reviews are manipulated, no suggesting to patients to write several months after a treatment to ensure that they are left with final results (many people are initially happy but once they heal problems appear but they post to early contributing to the problem).

There is also a part of the website that reviews the overall satisfaction rate with a particular procedure which is incredibly deceptive from the get go.

For example Rhinoplasty may have a overall rating of 'Worth it' 91% leading people to believe that a huge majority of people are satisfied with their results however if you delve into it that is not the case the ''not sure'' results are included in the worth it percentage. How deceptive is that!

So how are you supposed to make an informed decision if you can not be sure the reviews are real, reviews are hidden or taken down, and deceptive techniques are used to manipulate what you see?

Top doctors on the site can pay for the privilege of being recognized as so or become a top doctor by simply answering a bunch of questions. This again is deceptive as top doctor suggests that they are a competent surgeon which sways many people in their direction which is exactly what realself knows and what the doctors pay for. It really is reprehensible.

Furthermore realself monitors your private correspondence, I messaged a user who had surgery with a doctor I was considering.

I wanted to ask for some advice and about their experience. Almost immediately after a realself community member wrote to me on the same private message thread with the suggestion I book a consultation and address my questions to the doctor! For me the saving grace about realself is you can connect directly with other real users and start a correspondence, exchanging photos of results and numbers to help each other out, yet even that is policed. I would go so far as to say certain doctors pay to have a mention of their name flagged so realself can monitor what is said, perhaps even contribute to the writing of fake reviews.

Many people may not care about people who have fallen victim to the cosmetic industry, but this review is not for those people this review is for people who are seeking cosmetic treatment.

I want them to be aware that sites like realself are extremely deceptive and to be careful trusting it!

As for realself I believe they have a moral and legal obligation to either be transparent of what their business model is and what their site is all about or make some drastic changes. They are in a large part responsible for patients making decisions which can effect them in a negative way for the rest of their lifves, thanks to realself I am now left with eyelid problems and in the need for revision so I know that this is the case.

Please be careful out there and don't fall for the deception of realself

I wrote a review on a product that I had a bad experiences with and my review sparked a lot of conversation and was quite popular. There were also people harassing and bullying me due to my experience which they, in their denial, did not want to agree with.

Every time I would report someone who was harassing me those people would never be blocked, every so often their comments might have been removed if I was lucky. Keep in mind RealSelf do not condone you defending yourself in any way, shape or form, even if you are extremely kind to your abuser they will see it as abusive. So some of my own comments were being removed all of a sudden. Then one day I woke up to my account being blocked.

Not only was my account blocked but the account of somebody else who I was in regular contact with via the private inbox feature. This person only used the inbox feature and didn’t not post publicly. Shortly before we had been blocked, we were having a private inbox discussion in regards to someone who was going out of their way to harass and discredit me, and how much of a nutter this person was because of how often they were posting things to discredit me. Again, this was a PRIVATE conversation and none of this was said in the public forum.

This is the only reason this other person could have been blocked. This is a MASSIVE breach of privacy and absolutely illegal practice. I also agree with others here about RealSelfs standards of what is right and wrong, it’s very odd and dodgy. They also kept my personal review up on their website and gave me no way to access it!

That is MY story and they have absolutely no right to use my material on their website!

I’m absolutely disgusted with it and quite frankly think people need to steer clear of it. They will breach your privacy and then block you for breaching their terms and conditions even when you’ve done nothing wrong!

I signed up for real self a few months ago while researching a surgeon for a rhinoplasty. I ended up going through with it and am loving by results, so I made a review for my doctor with regular weekly updates.

Lots of people seemed to appreciate the review, information, and pictures and I felt well supported by the other community members. I 'd also sometimes interact with other members in the forum discussions and in their review comments. About 2 weeks into using the site, I started to get weird emails that a comment I made was removed due to violating the Terms of Service with a link to those (very vague) terms. However, it never specified which comment and how it was in violation.

I conduct myself in a pretty civil manner online and in person. I certainly did not get into any spats or make any comments that a reasonable person would find to be bullying or objectionable. I finally found one comment they deleted and it was me agreeing with another person that it was weird that a certain doctor never had pictures attached to his "bad" reviews. The comment was not about any particular reviewer, just a general question about why a person would not share a picture if the surgeon truly "ruined their face.".

I responded to that person's comment by saying "I agree. There are so many ways to remain anonymous and share a picture like covering the eyes or cropping it." THAT comment is what got deleted. Then a few weeks later another comment where I shared a news article about a particular doctor was deleted. It was nothing controversial or graphic.

It was a news write up about a patient who had left a Real Self review (?). So anyway, they eventually banned me for some other unidentified violating comment. I can't see what because I can no longer log in. If I had to guess, I would say that it is because I agree with several reviewers that a person who hated her outcome actually looked pretty good in our opinion.

I saw a few times that they do NOT like for you to say anything that disagrees with the original poster. If they say the look horrible. You must agree and sympathize. So I *think* that was the 3rd and final "violation." Who knows and at this point, I don't care.

The moderators have very strange standards for how people are allowed to communicate. Apparently, the rules are to be positive (always), never question anything, and never share a link to any site other than real self. I am perfectly fine with being suspended as I now think the platform is run by complete weirdos. What I am NOT fine with is that my review and pictures are still visible.

If they've deemed me unfit to communicate on the platform, then I don't think they have any right to continue to share the content I provided. I am perfectly happy leaving a review for my surgeon someone else as he certainly deserves the praise. I emailed them to ask that they remove my review, pictures, and all comments from me.

No response after several days. It is very sketchy that they want to have access to our stories but don't want us to be able to communicate with each other freely.