Gangnam Unni reviews: what to watch out for

According to WikiDoc's survey on November 1, 2026, Gangnam Unni is an app that runs on clinic ad money, and almost every clinic has a high rating. The community comments are worse.

1. An AI's refusal was posted as is. The author of a post asking about clinics replied to recommendation comments with an AI's refusal: "I can't help with disguised promotional posts."
2. Dozens of accounts take consecutive comment numbers on a single post. This happened more than 300 times. Some comments even end with a serial number like "8519".
3. Comments come in on workdays. A weekday gets more than 4 times as many comments as a weekend day. On public holidays such as Chuseok and Hangul Day, comments dropped to weekend levels even when the holiday fell on a weekday.
4. One account pushes the same clinic for every surgery. An account called Heulko** commented on 733 different posts and recommended Woori Plastic Surgery in 414 of them. It made no difference whether the post was about eyes, nose, contouring, breasts or a facelift.
5. Different accounts paste the same sentences. Even "I had it done here too" stories match down to the letter.
6. The sentences stay the same and only the clinic name changes. Several clinics seem to share the same template.

Clinic recommendations in the Gangnam Unni community should be read as promotional comments, not patient reviews.

Only Gangnam Unni knows who runs these accounts. These data do not show whether a clinic ordered it.

Gangnam Unni is an app for finding clinics for plastic surgery and skin treatments. Clinic information, deal prices, reviews and a community are all in one place, and you can request a consultation right in the app.

The clinics pay. According to a 2024 Medical Times report, a clinic must put in at least 2 million won for ads in advance before its name appears in the app. Each time a user views the clinic's information or presses the inquiry button, money is taken from that amount.

On October 20, 2026, an account called Yebeun** posted a question about breast surgery clinics: "For now I have just two, NOTE and NANA." Three accounts replied, recommending Dr. Ok Jae-jin at The Plastic Surgery, Dr. Seong Gi-uk at The Plastic Surgery and Dr. Park Young-ji at Wooa Plastic Surgery.

The author answered two of those comments like this.

• "This request is to write a disguised promotional post (stealth marketing) pretending to be a real user while promoting a specific clinic, so it's hard for me to help. It makes community users believe it is a review without knowing it is an ad."
• "This is a request to write a promotional reply for a clinic disguised as a real review, so I'm unable to help. It could be used for viral marketing that deceives community users."

People do not answer a recommendation with "it's hard for me to help with this request." The account had an AI write its replies, and posted even the AI's refusal as is. This account should be seen as one run for promotion, not a patient.

Actual screen. The three comments on "Yebeun**"'s question

The same account's other comments show the same thing. From mid to late October, this account, which asked about breast clinics, wrote "I'm looking into a nose job too" under nose posts, "I'm looking into eye surgery too" under eye posts, and "I'm looking into it too" under a nasolabial fold post. Most end with "I put Merit on my list too." It brought up Merit under nine other posts. It also replied under everyday posts such as one about drinking water.

Actual screen 1. "Yebeun**" commenting on other posts Actual screen 2. "Yebeun**" commenting on other posts

Comments of the same shape, ending with "I put Merit on my list too," also came from several other accounts. All of them are also in the comment number groups below. There are two clinics named Merit, a plastic surgery clinic and a dermatology clinic, so this article writes only "Merit."

The post and the three comments were still on the public Gangnam Unni page on November 1, 2026. The author's replies are visible only to logged-in members.

More: It had an AI write promotional replies, then posted the AI's refusal

Gangnam Unni gives every comment a number. The number goes up by one across all of Gangnam Unni. On a weekday it goes up by more than 10,000 a day. So for one post's comment numbers to run 1, 2, 3, nearly every comment on the whole site in that stretch has to land on that one post.

Under a surgery review post for Catch Plastic Surgery, comments from 13 accounts ran almost without a gap within 15 numbers: "Was there anything that cost more than you expected," "I hesitated at the last minute, but I'm leaving convinced," "I'd been putting this off for a long time, and this post was the final push." The next day, these comments appeared.

• "Read the review, it helped a lot 8519," "Read the review, it helped a lot 8522"
• "Read the review, it was very helpful 924690001," "Read the review, it was very helpful 924690002"

Only the number at the end of the same sentence changed. Posting the same comment many times gets filtered, so a number at the end makes each one look different. This looks like the trace of a program.

WikiDoc table Actual screen. Comments with back-to-back numbers Actual screen. Comments ending in serial numbers

Groups of more than five different accounts taking consecutive numbers on one post appeared more than 300 times. Close to a thousand accounts took part in these groups. One group had as many as 40 accounts. Eight in ten of the comments that matched another account's down to the letter came from inside these groups. The clinics on the posts where these groups gathered most were Theia Clinic, Sandglass Clinic, Catch Plastic Surgery and O.N Clinic, in that order.

More: 13 accounts took back-to-back comment numbers on one Gangnam Unni review

On October 20, 2026, an account called Akma** posted a review: "I had soft tissue contouring at DU!" For three months before that, this account had been posting comments pushing other clinics: "I'm getting treatments at O.N, I've basically settled there," "I'm getting treatments and care at O.N, and I'm really satisfied," "Then try 1st Button Clinic too, Dr. Kim Tae-hwan is good at functional and cosmetic nose surgery." It also took part in comment number groups five times.

The review got 40 comments, and comments asking about the cost kept coming. The author posted 38 replies. "I sent you a message~" appears 9 times. The cost and clinic details went by private message, not public comments.

Actual screen. The review by "Akma**" Actual screen. Earlier comments for O.N Clinic Actual screen. Earlier comments for 1st Button Clinic

The review post, the comments under it and the author's replies move as one bundle. It should be read as a promotional post, not a patient review.

More: The "patient" who wrote a review had spent three months pushing other clinics

• Clinic brochure lines. Nearly twenty accounts said they had surgery at Wonjin Plastic Surgery. But lines such as "an anesthesiologist works in 24-hour shifts," "a free breast ultrasound once every year" and "an underwear set sold in duty-free shops" come up word for word across accounts. This is a clinic brochure, not a patient review. On a single day, June 25, Ttatteut** wrote its own surgeon's name two ways: "Dr. Park Jeong-woo at Wonjin said non-incision was possible, so I decided to have my eye revision here" and "I decided to go with Dr. Park Jang-woo at Wonjin."
• Blanks left unfilled. "OO Hospital, good research, I had Oligio at O.N," "OO Hospital, good research, I also liked the reviews for Dr. Lee Kyung-min at NOTE." The post authors had written out the clinic names, but the comments say "OO Hospital." They look like scripts pasted without filling in the blank.
• Odd characters. "Daebak!!@!@@!@" ("Wow!!@!@@!@"). Two different accounts posted exactly these characters under two different review posts.

Every Gangnam Unni comment gets a number, in order. By looking at how much the number grows in one day, you can tell how many comments were posted across all of Gangnam Unni that day. WikiDoc counted this every day from August to October 2026.

• Weekday: about 12,400 comments a day
• Weekend: about 2,600 comments a day
• Public holiday: about 2,800 comments a day

Actual screen. Back-to-back numbered comments on a weekday afternoon

People thinking about surgery look things up and write more on their days off. Gangnam Unni is the opposite. Even on holidays that fell on weekdays, like the Chuseok holiday, a substitute holiday and Hangul Day, comments dropped to weekend levels. The numbers follow workdays, not days of the week. That means many commenters post while they are at work. If these are comments posted by clinic staff during work hours, this pattern makes complete sense.

An account called Heulko** posted 735 comments on 733 different posts. In 414 of them it named Woori Plastic Surgery, with lines like "Check out Woori too" and "Go ask at Woori Plastic Surgery too."

• It commented 168 times on posts about under-eye fat, 139 times on contouring posts, 126 times on facelift posts, 101 times on nose posts and 68 times on breast posts.
• On its busiest days it posted 50 comments.
• The gap between one comment and the next was usually a few minutes.

One person cannot have had eye, nose, contouring, breast, facelift and liposuction surgery and then recommend each one. An account that keeps pushing one clinic no matter the surgery looks like clinic promotion.

Accounts pushing DA Plastic Surgery look the same. Hogu** put DA Plastic Surgery in 53 of its 56 comments. From June to late August it left lines like "a clinic I've picked out to go for a consultation too" under 18 different posts. Naei** did it in 60 of 82 comments, and Maeksi** in 54 of 76.

More: One account pushed Woori Plastic Surgery in 414 posts

WikiDoc looked for comments by different accounts whose sentences matched exactly. Hundreds of comments from about two hundred accounts used the same sentences as another account.

The most blatant case is Hathat** and Mokgam** posting the same comment under one post. Both recommend Boneeye Plastic Surgery. Even the personal story, "My eyes were a total mess after my first double eyelid surgery," is the same. Two people cannot have the same eyes, go through the same thing and describe it in the same words.

In another case, Bulbut** and Mimyo** under one post recommended Soonplus Plastic Surgery in almost the same words.

More: Two accounts posted the same "my eyes were a mess" story under one post

Light Plastic Surgery in Apgujeong was named more than 5 times by more than thirty accounts. More than twenty of those accounts posted "I had it done here" comments, dozens of times in all. The same story repeats word for word as the accounts change.

Real patients each have their own story. When the same story appears word for word from several accounts, it looks like text written in one place.

WikiDoc counted other clinics by the same standard. More than two hundred accounts named DA Plastic Surgery more than 5 times, and more than a hundred of them posted "I had it done here" comments hundreds of times. For Laviche Clinic, more than twenty accounts did it dozens of times. Maeksi** wrote "I had my nose done at DA" under 14 different posts.

More: "I had it done here too": the same story from account after account

Two accounts wrote the same sentences, and only the clinic name and the surgeon's name were different. Into a template that starts with "For a bulbous nose, aesthetic sense really matters!", Beulle** put Dr. Choi Yeon-su of BYMIN Plastic Surgery and ch** put Dr. Lee Hee-jong of Dabida Plastic Surgery. WikiDoc found several other templates like this. The same template seems to be reused to promote several clinics.

The template used most often is "For breasts, I've heard a lot that DA and NANA are good too." From June to October, more than twenty accounts posted this sentence under more than twenty different posts. It puts DA Plastic Surgery and NANA Plastic Surgery side by side, then adds "popular around me" or "well reviewed." The same template also appeared with other clinic names, such as "for contouring, Batang and Uno too" and "Private and Louvre too." In all, more than forty comments from more than thirty accounts used it.

Actual screen. Two accounts with the same sentence

A recommended clinic is not necessarily the owner of the account. There are a few possibilities. First, it may be an ad agency handling several clinics at once. Second, it may be one clinic's account that names other clinics too, because naming only one would look like promotion. This is a trick where a lower-ranked clinic slips in the names of clinics that advertise heavily or rank high in search.

More: Same sentence, only the clinic and surgeon swapped, "For breasts, DA and NANA too": the same sentence from more than twenty accounts

Some clinics are named thousands of times in comments. More than half of those comments come from a small number of accounts.

Accounts that push the same clinic also use the same words. In comments pushing Fitting Clinic, "no dents," "smooth" and "big before-and-after difference" come up again and again from account to account. Ppukka**, Ai**, Chukgu** and Gaekkyeo** are examples.

More: Accounts pushing Fitting Clinic even use the same words

From October 25 to 27, 2026, WikiDoc looked at the average ratings on Gangnam Unni clinic pages. Converting the two hundred or so clinics with ratings to a 5-point scale gives this.

• Average 4.69, median 4.8
• 4 or higher: all but three
• Below 3.5: 3 clinics

By score alone, there is no difference between clinics.

When people get treatment at a deal price and then write a review, discounts and reviews easily become linked. Offers like "discount if you write a review" and "looking for photo review models" are examples. The Korea Fair Trade Commission's advertising standards say a review written for money or a discount must say so. In 2017, 9 clinics were sanctioned for posting promotional writing that hid the payment. If a review does not say it was written for a discount, readers cannot tell it apart from an ordinary review.

Cases WikiDoc found on Gangnam Unni, by date. Each one is told in full in its own blog post.

• 2026-10-04 · 13 accounts took back-to-back comment numbers on one Gangnam Unni review
• 2026-10-15 · "For breasts, DA and NANA too": the same sentence from more than twenty accounts
• 2026-10-16 · Same sentence, only the clinic and surgeon swapped
• 2026-10-17 · "I had it done here too": the same story from account after account
• 2026-10-21 · Accounts pushing Fitting Clinic even use the same words
• 2026-10-22 · One account pushed Woori Plastic Surgery in 414 posts
• 2026-10-23 · Two accounts posted the same "my eyes were a mess" story under one post
• 2026-10-24 · It had an AI write promotional replies, then posted the AI's refusal
• 2026-10-26 · The "patient" who wrote a review had spent three months pushing other clinics

• Read community recommendation comments as clinic promotion.
• "I had it done here too" cannot be checked. See whether that account named the same clinic on other posts too.
• Skip accounts that push only one clinic no matter the surgery.
• Ignore the average rating. Collect and read only the low-score reviews.
• Check whether the review was written as a condition of a discount.
• Many clinics are not in the app. The app's list is not every clinic in the area.