realself.com realself, real self, ask a doctor Beware! Phony review site Realself.com Internet

Everything you said about RealSelf is TRUE and is continuing.  I was a victim of choosing a plastic surgeon named David Harley who is a paid advertiser on RealSelf and therefore only had hundreds of glowing reviews. I booked my surgery and had the procedure last year and am still dealing with post surgery complications.  The procedure did nothing for me and left me with noticable scars - it was a total waste of almost $10,000 in surgery plus travel expenses. I decided to write a negative review and experienced exactly what you described with having comments dissapear and ultimately having my account blocked by RealSelf for not "adhering to community guidelines" even though Real Self openly supports and allows any user who supports the doctor to harrass and bully an individual trying to post a complaint.  I started looking closely at the reviews for my doctor and realized nearly ALL of them were written within a week or so of the patient having surgery and almost none were updated later when the patients became aware that the surgery results were not good.   A few people tried to post reviews and/or comments expressing dissatisfaction but they were bombarded with attacks from the doctor "plants" on the board, silenced by Real Self and eventually blocked from the site.  One woman told me in an email to my personal gmail account that she removed most of her comments off the board because the doctor threatened her legally if she wouldn't remove the bad review!!! I wrote a complaint to the Washington Attorney General (RealSelf is based in Seattle) and shortly after Real Self granted me access back into the site, but then blocked me again about a month later for "violating" policies again because I was commenting about the doctor and Real Self. 

Make no mistake, this is internet fraud.  The site is being scrubbed, people are being blocked and content is controlled at all costs to make doctors look good - even when the doctors they promoting are actually leaving people botched. Their algorhythms push new users to look at the reviews for the doctors who pay for ads, the new user sees all of the positive reviews and NO negative reviews and therefore chooses the paying surgeon - and the cycle continues.  Real Self was sued in connection with the Lifestyle Lift debaucle because they were allowing Lifestyle Lift to post bogus reviews on their site to promote the surgery even though actual patients were dissatisfied, they kept posting positive reviews and removing the negative ones.  They are still actively controlling site content to twist the facts to benefit their paying doctors and defraud the consumer by steering the consumers' decision making. 

I am sending a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission now - because of my personal experience and what I continue to find about the number of people who have been either injured or taken advantage of through use of the Real Self site.  If you are reading this please, file a complaint with the Washington Attorney General and with the Federal Trade Commission against Real Self Fraud. 

Thank you for this report on RS. You used mostly my exact words but I don't mind because as long as the word gets spread around I am glad. It is hard for the general public to really understand what is going on here with RS and people need to get that the business model is based on PROFIT for RS (and subsequently the 'doctors' who participate on the site). The profit motive gets in the way of trusting any advice or procedure. Of course doctors will make a living off their work; it's the excess profit they make by performing bad procedures and not really having the ability to do so in the first place. RS facilitates this in a most onerous way. If you dig a little into how it functions you will see that the 'members' of the site are maniuplated to behave a certain way (a way that promotes plastic surgery and cosmetic procedures regardless of the bad outcomes many face and complain about on the site). In fact RS instituted a 'Real Friend' program where certain members who behave in the correct way are given a 'badge' on the site as well as free beauty samples etc. The Real Friends then insert themselves into conversations about procedures offering inane, 'polly-anna,'  non-medical commentary to those who may have quesitons, concerns or post-procedure issues, problems or disasters. 

Because of the way this is done (behind the scenes and under the guise of 'providing a service' to the consumer) many do not understand why RS is so harmful. In fact if one does a Google search for any procedure, chances are the first page of entries will lead right to the RS website. Once on the website, a person can find a trove of Q&A with doctors, patient stories, phony "Real Friends,' non-medical advice and so on. This leads to a confirmation bias (one finds what one wants to find) and not a real source of unbiased information which is necessary in order to make any good medical type decision. The atomosphere is one of cosmetics and not medicine and surgery. The problem is, it IS medicine and surgery. Liposuction is a procedure widely promoted on the site yet it is one of the most lethal of all cosmetic surgeries.

Doctors answering questions about it do not have any training in metabolics in humans (or lab animals for that matter), weight loss, or even fat distribution. They just parrot 'talking points' as if they were Republican presidential candidates on the campaign trail. This is because they do not KNOW. It takes a little effort to uncover the truth about these things, but most people want to trust a doctor. But remember surgeons are not the same as other types of doctors. Especially cosmetic surgeons. They do not know the effects of their proecdures on the inner body of the individual. And if something bad happens, well...too bad! Most likely an individual will have no recompense at all. Even if there is major disfigurement, the laws and unavailability of legal representation work against the individual and for the cosmetic surgeon profession. 

People will say (if you have a problem) well...caveat emptor (Buyer Beware). It's hard to be-ware if one has always trusted doctors and the law. And this is how doctors get away with bad treatments ~ the victim is very often, if not always the one blamed for any problem. Imagine if you drove on a bridge that was built wrong, and it collapsed and you were injured. And imagine if people said: well you should have known this could happen; it is your fault that you drove on that bridge. This is what people deal with when they have bad outcomes due to cosmetic procedures/surgery. 

Director of Marketing - RealSelf.com (Seattle) As Director of Marketing, you will be responsible for the development, execution and optimization of strategic initiatives to acquire and retain doctor clients and industry partners. This career-defining role has responsibility over B2B marketing programs that directly impact company profitability and market share. Importantly, you will have the mandate to drive acquisition, loyalty marketing, social media and trade conference planning and tactics within well-established B2B sales channels. Key Responsibilities: ● Drive strategy and execution for online and offline client acquisition, engagement and retention marketing programs to achieve Doctor Community and Business Development goals, including growing revenue and new customer relationships ● Create, execute and optimize campaigns and content marketing initiatives to increase thought leadership, brand awareness, client demand and conversion for the company's B2B marketing platform. ● Gather, analyze and leverage client, industry and web usage data to identify market trends and opportunities which support sales and content marketing strategies ● Leverage product development pipeline and lead lifecycle to enhance RealSelf positioning and generate interest with content, email, conferences and site visits. ● Work directly with sales and business development teams on campaign training and communication efforts for consistency in messaging and branding ● Work with internal and external cross-functional teams, product, designers, content curators, database management, legal and more ● Develop and maintain budgets, including monthly financial reconciliations Qualifications and Qualities: ● Proven track record in developing and executing strategic marketing campaigns across multi-media platforms (including but not limited to display advertising, social, SEO, TV, mobile, video, referral programs, affiliate programs and landing page/registration page optimization) preferably in the small business space ● Believes that content marketing as well as mobile and native advertising are trends for SMBs to follow to garner consumer attention and influence their decisions ● Ability to innovate and apply new consumer/industry trends in a scalable marketing plan ● Strong time and project management skills, and proven track record of driving hands-on results in a small, dynamic environment ● Excellent verbal, written and presentation skills; ability to influence and communicate clearly and effectively at a senior level and to large groups ● Passion for marketing and today's rapidly evolving social media world ● 7+ years marketing leadership experience with focus on B2B sales ● Bachelor's degree required, MBA preferred To apply for this position, please use the following link: realself.theresumator.com/apply/ahsR5k/Director-Of-Marketing-B2B.html?source=CRAG

All they want is MONEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!