Realself
Reviews and Complaints

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.

I submitted a review about this doctor and because I described how he botched my nose it never posted. I am, a real verifiable patient of his and there was no explanation from the real self team as to why my review wasn't allowed.

If this is a sampliing of how Real Self skews, manipulates reviews then my advise is to stay FAR AWAY from their site. The reviews are tampered with by REAL SELF!

Every word of my review was factual I explained how Dr. Constantian put rib grafts in my nose. They then warped and became calcified and the Dr offered no help in the end after promising to revise it.

Instead he suggested I get Restylane shots to make it look less crooked. This went against the original surgical plan which I signed which stated if I required a revision Dr Constantian would make it available to me for a reduced fee. He adnitted in subsequent visits the results were not cosmetically acceptable but kept putting me off. I file a complaint with his insurance company which was of course denied.

Dr C's behavior was reprehensible and he is a disgrace to the profession.

Real self supports Dr's like this who have complete protection for an undisclosed fee. This is completely immoral

They do not allow you to edit or delete your own reviews once you post them. I called to get my review deleted and they said that I had to reach out via email but that it would take 1-2 business days to delete the review.

This is a very frustrating policy! This isn't my case, but can you imagine if someone accidentally posted a review or picture with identifying information but couldn't get it deleted quickly?! Absolutely ridiculous.

I have never encountered an online review company (e.g., Yelp) that wouldn't let you edit or delete your own content. They should at least have an option that allows you to fast track the deleting of your review if you request it.

RealSelf is a paid advertising site and yes, negative reviews or comments against any surgeon who pays for advertising are removed and the user is blocked. Please do as I have and complain to the Washington Attorney General about the fraud being perpetuated by RealSelf.

(RealSelf is based in Seattle.

) RealSelf has admitted in the past they were unwittingly tied to the Lifestyle Lift fraud where the company was using the RealSelf platorm to post fake positive reviews about the procedure. If enough people file complaints with the attorney general Real Self will have to change what they are doing for profit.

Realself conceal reviews. a dr botched me really bad and i wrote a review.

i noticed that she still had 5 star ratings and mine was not among the reviews... nowhere to be seen. I wrote to them. in order to see the review i had to sort them differently ( from lowest) .

who does that? ppl assume all the reviews will be visible. Realself deceives its users. do not trust it!

Also many dr’s get multiple 5 star reviews from the same users. Realself makes money from Dr.’s. it is not on your side. i think the worst providers are on realself.

i never found a good dr. on realself. They just do not need to advertise on that bogus website. 50% of the good reviews are fake.

All the good Dr’s I found were no active on Realself. Find another way to get a provider bc Realself is not the answer!

I was on there website looking something up and noticed that they had a Doctor on there site that I personally know. I knew the Doctor never performed the procedures that Realself claimed they did.

So, I no longer believe anything on Realself.com.

In fact I will never go on it again. When people are looking for legitamate sites to research, we should be able to believe in the reviews we read.

But Realself must have sold out and just care about the money they get from the Doctors. It's Very disapointing that when you read a review you have to hope and pray its real.