Hair transplant frauds – How to protect yourself

Are you taking quotations from various doctors and Hair clinics for your hair transplant?

This article is the most popular article on our website and has saved many patients from getting cheated by hair transplant clinics. Take the help of this article to select the best hair clinic in your country.

Patient remains confused about why there is such a cost difference among the number of hair transplant clinics. Are there so many Experts in hair transplant, or is hair transplant a very easy procedure to do? Some patients think that the USA, the UK, or Australia have better clinics than India and Turkey. But the procedure has not remained ethical in more than 80 % clinics in these countries, even after paying 6 dollars per graft for FUE in some clinics. A lot of patients from all around the world Head to India and Turkey in search of cheaper hair transplants.

Cheating No. 1. – Hair transplant entirely done by Technicians, Assistants, or trichologists 

99 % of turkey clinics and more than 90 % Indian clinics do not have any role for a doctor in your hair transplant. In the USA, Australia, the UK, the UAE, and other countries, the figure is more than 60 % – 80 %.  Doctors only observe your hair transplant; they don’t have any role in the execution of the hair transplant.

A doctor’s job is just roaming in the operating theater at regular intervals.  Doctors explain to the patients that it’s a trained technician’s job. So, suddenly, hair transplant is done at very cheap prices in 100 clinics in one city. Patient thinks that he has 100 options, so they calls various clinics and starts accumulating quotes for his hair transplant.

Cheating No. 2: Less Qualified Doctors operating on you 

Do you show your teeth to a plastic surgeon?

The answer is no, because there is a doctor who has been trained to treat dental diseases called the dentist. But various hair transplant companies hire Ayurveda doctors, homeopathic doctors, and dentists to get a shield for hair transplant being performed by a doctor. These companies do a few cases with a proper doctor and get a few results. They then just use their results photographs to lure patients to their clinic to be operated on by under-qualified doctors.

Cheating No. 3 . Showing results of the chief hair surgeon and  having operated on the Patient by another doctor 

There are clinics that make a name by the ethical work of one good hair transplant surgeon. Then they hire various doctors. You are given the belief that hair transplant is teamwork, and the other doctors operate on you. They open their clinic branches and get you operated on by different doctors. Practically, you see good hair transplant results, which are provided by the chief hair surgeon, but you don’t know the results provided by other doctors. There are many clinics in India that set the cost of the chief hair transplant surgeon 2 – 4 times higher than other doctors available in their clinic, so that you are forced to choose other doctors. So always confirm the charges.

Cheating No. 4 . Using hair society memberships as qualifications or degrees 

There are many doctors who write membership of ISHRS and IAHRS, AHRS , ABHRS as degrees. They always cite that they are superior hair surgeons than others because they have memberships of these societies. The fact is that these societies have been created by a group of doctors to share their knowledge and experience. They are not training institutes or medical colleges. You get a degree from a medical college after you get training of 3 – 6 years and then pass an examination to obtain that medical degree. All these hair society memberships are provided to doctors who are interested in the field of hair transplant without any training provided by them. These are made to share experience and knowledge, for which they conduct conferences every year. They are not medical institutions, and their memberships should not be used as degrees or qualifications to lure patients.

There are some doctors in Turkey who have all these memberships, and they openly write on their website that no steps of your hair transplant will be done by a doctor. The doctor will only observe your case and guide his technician.

Cheating No. 5. Getting your graft extraction by a technician

Sometimes clinics try to prove that only the slitting process or channel making by the doctor is important for getting a natural hair transplant result. They explain that graft extraction can be done by an assistant or a hair technician, as this will not impact your result. The fact is that graft extraction is the only step in which the graft can get damaged. Your donor area will get damaged severely when technicians do it.

Cheating No. 6. Sedating you by tablets or injections during hair transplant

There was a patient who got one hair transplant in Australia and told us that he waked up at the end of the procedure after the clinic provided him with tablets. Giving the patient sedative tablets or injections so that he does not know who performed his hair transplant. There was one clinic in Punjab that provided sedative tablets on the pretext of antibiotics or painkiller tablets. This type of cheating happens all over the world. The hair transplant process has just 5 – 10 minutes of mild pain, which happens when the area is given numbing injections. Refrain yourself from clinic who provides you sedatives . Always inquire that you will not be sedated and will be able to have lunch in between your hair transplant procedure.

Cheating No. 7: Unlimited Grafts at fixed price

Giving an unlimited graft offer without telling the number of grafts or the area. In Turkey and India, many clinics provide you with an unlimited graft package so that patients don’t care about the things because of the term unlimited. It may lead to extensive damage to your donor area because in most of these cases, hair grafts are not extracted by the doctor himself.

Cheating No. 8: Giving a package in terms of hair or follicles rather than grafts.

Explaining the package in terms of hairs or follicles. Few doctors/clinics/companies charge you per hair instead of per graft. They explain to you that one graft has 2 – 4 hairs, and 2000 grafts have 6000 hairs. This is entirely wrong. On average, 30 % grafts have 3 hair, 40 % have two hair, and 25 % have single hair; only 5 % grafts have 4 – 5 hair. On average, 2000 grafts have 4000 – 5000 hairs.

Cheating No. 9: Robotic Hair Transplant

Robotic hair transplant – The Only robot available in the world to perform hair transplant is ARTAS. There are certain vacuum-assisted devices like SAFER ( Neograft ), FUETOR, etc, which are modifications of the normal micromotor mechanism used for powered FUE.  Various studies have indicated that vacuum-assisted devices like SAFER actually dehydrate the grafts, and hair transplants fail because of the drying of the grafts. But to make an advantage in marketing their hair transplant center, they call this machine ROBOT and term ROBOTIC HAIR TRANSPLANT.

Cheating No. 10: Delivering a lesser no of grafts. 

The clinic will explain to you a package of 3000 or unlimited grafts at very lucrative rates, and then put in just 1000 – 1500 grafts. Many times in a bid to prove their promise, they cover very big areas with a very small number of grafts. The result is very futile, and sometimes patients think that he was better looking before the hair transplant itself.