Plastic surgery reviews, platform by platform
Korean reviews of plastic surgery and skin treatments are distorted in a different way on each site. On cafes, the problem is accounts that post recommendation comments and push people to private messages. On apps, almost every rating is high and clinics pay the platform. If you know the tricks on each platform, you read the same review differently.
01Why reviews are hard to trust
Plastic surgery and skin treatments in Korea are among the best in the world. The reviews people read when they choose a clinic are not.
Most people looking for a clinic read online reviews. So reviews become the cheapest ad a clinic can get. Some people pretend to be customers and post recommendation comments. Some share a clinic's name only by private message. Some write posts that put down other clinics. People often call them "brokers". A broker is someone who sends patients to a clinic and gets paid for it.
Korea's Medical Service Act bans referring patients for money and using treatment experiences as ads. Still, these posts keep appearing. In 2017, the Korea Fair Trade Commission sanctioned 9 clinics. Their staff or ad agencies wrote posts, made them look like customer reviews, and put them on blogs and cafes.
In WikiDoc's count from October 2026, about 11% of comments that named a clinic on Yeouya, a Naver cafe, and on the Babitalk community showed signs of possible promotion. That is one in ten. It does not mean the other nine can all be trusted. Promotional posts written to leave no signs are not in this number.
02Each platform has its own tricks
How reviews get distorted follows how each site is built. On cafes, anyone can comment, so there are many accounts that post recommendation comments. On apps, a clinic has to pay to appear, and almost every rating is high.
- Yeouya: a large women's cafe on Naver. Recommendation accounts, pushing people to private messages, like macros.
- Sungyesa: a community for plastic surgery. Clinic names hidden in secret comments, subtle put-downs, broker blocking that exists only in words.
- Gangnam Unni: a clinic review app. A clinic's name shows only if it pays for ads, and almost every rating is high.
- Babitalk: a clinic review app. Clinics pay for each customer it connects. Its community also has many recommendation accounts.
- Naver cafe: members-only posts, private messages, and cafe posts that rank well in search.
- Yeoshin Ticket: an app for discount deals. Reviews lean toward price rather than the results of the treatment.
03How to read reviews on any site
- Look at the commenter's other comments. If they recommend the same clinic across many posts, it is likely promotion.
- Be extra careful with recommendation comments that appear within minutes of a question.
- Avoid people who will share a clinic's name only by private message or secret comment. It means they have a reason not to say it in public.
- Average ratings are almost useless. Read the low-score reviews and what they say on their own.
- Do not trust the number of likes. If a post has tens of times more likes than other posts on the same board, something is wrong.
- Check whether the review was written as a condition of a discount deal.
- See whether the same story comes up on several sites, not just one.
04What WikiDoc looks at differently
WikiDoc's Legit Review Score collects public reviews from several sites. It marks posts that show signs of promotion, such as recommendations bunched into a short time or the same account recommending again and again. This is the "signs of suspected promotional comments" field on a clinic page. The mark does not say the post is promotion. It is a signal that the post needs a second look.
05Where these numbers come from
WikiDoc looks only at public posts and comments. We do not look at account information or private message content that needs a login. For the writer, we change the ID that the site makes public and use it only for counting. We do not store it.
We look for five signs of promotion. One account recommended the same clinic in 3 or more different posts. One account recommended 3 or more clinics at least 2 times each. One account recommended the same clinic in 3 or more different posts within 30 minutes. One account posted recommendation comments within 10 minutes of a post going up, 3 or more times. A clinic name appeared together with phrases like "I sent you a message". The periods and targets are listed on each platform page.
06FAQ
Are all Korean plastic surgery reviews fake?
No. Far more reviews are honest accounts of real experiences. But promotional posts are mixed in, and they are hard to tell apart by how they look. The safest way is not to decide based on one site or one post.
Is it illegal for a clinic to get people to write reviews?
Korea's Medical Service Act bans getting patients through paid referrals or luring them, and bans using treatment experiences as ads. In 2017, the Korea Fair Trade Commission sanctioned 9 clinics that made posts written by staff look like customer reviews.
Which site is the most reliable?
You cannot trust just one. Cafes have promotional comments as a weak point, and apps have ratings that lean high. The best approach is to see whether the same story comes up evenly across several sites.
Edit
Topics6
- Reviews on the Yeouya cafe: what to watch out for
According to WikiDoc's research as of November 1, 2026, clinic recommendations in the comments on Yeouya, a large women's community cafe on Naver, should be read as promotion comments, not patient reviews. Three accounts split the day into 8-hour shifts to push Byul Plastic Surgery, and one account posted the same "a friend recommended it" comment on 339 posts with a link to a Brillyn Clinic sign-up form. Some comments copied someone else's "I had surgery here" comment and swapped only the clinic name. More than 900 accounts pushed the same clinic in more than 10 posts, and the clinic with the most such accounts was DA Plastic Surgery.
- Sungyesa reviews: why you should not trust them
According to WikiDoc's research on November 1, 2026, Sungyesa (short for a Korean phrase meaning "people getting prettier through plastic surgery") has promotional accounts that pretend to be patients and push clinics. For example, the nickname "Mamel**" commented on 17 different posts in 43 minutes and slipped in The Door Plastic Surgery and Top Tier Plastic Surgery. Sungyesa promotes a "patented broker blocking system", but after watching it for a long time, WikiDoc does not see that kind of management taking place.
- Gangnam Unni reviews: what to watch out for
According to WikiDoc's survey on November 1, 2026, an account that posted a question asking about clinics on Gangnam Unni replied under its own post with an AI's refusal, "I can't help with writing disguised promotional posts." Groups of dozens of accounts took consecutive comment numbers on a single post more than 300 times. Gangnam Unni community comments also came in more than 4 times as often on weekdays as on weekends. One account, Heulko**, pushed Woori Plastic Surgery under 414 different posts, and more than twenty accounts pasted the same sentence for DA Plastic Surgery, the clinic named most often. Different accounts also posted "I had it done here too" comments that match down to the letter. Recommendation comments on Gangnam Unni should be read as promotional comments, not patient reviews.
- Reviews on Babitalk: what to watch out for
According to WikiDoc's research on November 1, 2026, clinic recommendations in Babitalk community comments should be read as promotional comments, not patient reviews. In one post, the author and 8 accounts that left congratulating comments had member numbers in a row. 21 accounts wrote the same line, "I had revision surgery with Dr. Yeo Hyeon-dong at TS". Looking at more than a hundred thousand Babitalk comments from May to October 2026, we found 70 accounts that push the same 7 clinics, including Ucanb Plastic Surgery and Borndi Plastic Surgery. They wrote thousands of comments, all on weekday daytime, never on weekends or evenings. 75% of the comments that named these clinics came from these 70 accounts. Counting every clinic the same way, the clinic these groups of accounts pushed most was DA Plastic Surgery (134 accounts).
- Plastic surgery reviews on Naver cafes: what to watch out for
Naver cafes are one of the places in Korea where people ask about plastic surgery the most. Most posts can be read only by members, so they are hard to check from outside, and clinic names slip away into private messages. Cafe posts also show up in Naver search, so many people want to post promotional writing there.
- Reviews on Yeoshin Ticket: what to watch out for
Yeoshin Ticket is an app that sells discount deals for skin and beauty treatments. Clinics pay for ad exposure, and those that pay more are placed near the top of the screen. Because reviews are tied to deal purchases, they tend to lean toward price and friendliness rather than treatment results.
Sources
- WikiDoc review observation data · Compiled in October 2026. We looked only at public posts and comments, not at account information
- Report on Korea Fair Trade Commission sanctions, Kyunghyang Shinmun, 2017-09-17 ↗
- Medical Service Act, Article 27 (ban on luring or referring patients) · Article 56 (ban on ads using treatment experiences) ↗
History
Rev. 1 · show 1 entries
| Rev. | Time | Editor | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2026-10-28 18:30 | @translator | Translated from Korean rev. 1 |
Cite WikiDoc, 「Plastic surgery reviews, platform by platform」, wikidoc.app/en/guide/reviews/ (2026-10-28 retrieved)