Dr Jean Devroye (Belgium)

[James11]

I have found Dr Devroye to be incredibly dishonest – from running multiple surgeries on the same day, to refusing to honour his own guarantee or do repairs, to directly lying about the work he has carried out, to doing unnecessary work so he can charge more money. When I complained recently by email, he replied on the receptionists email account talking about himself in 3rd person to pretend he was the receptionist rather than himself responding to the email

Back in July 2021 I had a hair transplant done with Jean Devroye for €8800 for 2000 grafts. The goal of the surgery was to improve the density of hair on the crown and to remove and bumps left on my face and double/triple grafts by a Turkish surgeon, which looked unnatural

Devroye said such a procedure shouldn't leave any bumps and that the turkish surgeon didn’t do it properly, and that he could repair them and that I would have no visible scars as a result. He also said for the multi-grafts on my face, he could split them into smaller grafts and replant them as single grafts

Despite paying €8800 I was not the only patient that day, surgery started several hours later into the day.

It very much looked like he ran out of time and he didn’t address all of the bumps on my face as promised, and instead of splitting the grafts, he just put doubles and triples back on my face which I specifically asked him not to do. Some of the grafts he implanted left bumps themselves instead of repairing them

In November 2021 I contacted him again and he quoted me €450 to fix the remaining bumps and bad grafts. I said I only wanted all the bumps and multiple grafts fixed, and no additional hairs placed. So in December 2021 I had another surgery with him and I noticed he removed a load of hairs which were completely normal and he put them back in different places. He also removed the doubles and triples and then put back on my face in different places once again despite being asked not to put them back on my face. He lied and told me he split grafts when he didn’t.

The €450 estimate jumped to €1,292 because he said he needed to extract and place more hairs than originally planned. He very obviously removed a load of healthy hair and then re-implanted it do bump up the graft count so he could charge me more. After i complained and showed before and after pictures of how he's removed completely healthy and normal hairs from places that had nothing to do with any previous surgery he reduced it to €968. I’ve seen this specific complaint about Devroye before on reddit (linked further below at the end)



January 2022

At this point I contacted asking for a repair because he’s charged me almost €10,000 now and didn’t do what I asked him to do, and he clearly also ripped me off on the last surgery by removing loads of completely normal healthy hairs and just shuffling them around

In January I asked for a repair, complaining I still had bumps and that he just replaced the multi-grafts back on my face. he replied saying he thinks it's fine and that I could just grow a beard out to cover the bumps left by the surgery



May 2022

We spoke again in May. He said wants €750-1000 and that he thinks that he can make me happy and meet my expectations after another surgery.

I said that I'm not sure I'm happy to pay to have the same work performed for a 3rd time for even more money. He said he has followed all correct procedures and protocols so he won't do a repair – refusing to honour his guarantee despite being given almost €10,000 and when twice he has removed and re-placed multi-grafts on my face despite being asked not to


June 2022

After I said I would not be happy to pay to have the same work done a third time and I’d like a repair, he replied saying he would not be happy to operate on me again. I left a negative review and he finally agreed to a repair for the face on the condition that I delete the negative review first.


December 2022

Before the repair he complained that I dared to leave a negative review. He also tried to gaslight me and told me that it was absolutely impossible that he put multi grafts back on my face and that it didn’t happen. I pointed out that a quadruple hair graft moved to different locations on my face twice. He said this was impossible

The doctor was standoffish and odd with me and demanded I personally mark every single bump and double graft he left on my face for him to remove. I pointed out that he has equipment which greatly magnify what he can see, and it would be easier for him to do so than me.

Eventually he stopped being difficult and marked them himself. Despite marking a number of bumps and double grafts, he still ignored some of the ones he marked and left them

When I got back to my Airbnb I contacted saying I was happy with the ones he addressed, but there were about 15 more that were missed. The secretary seemed friendly and said they were happy for me to come back for the remaining issues.

However, when I got there Dr Devroye was extremely unpleasant and inappropriate. He waited until my face had been injected with anaesthetic then approached when I was on operating table and started shouting about how unfair it is to do a repair which is working for free, how I wanted a free surgery and he should have been paid, and how he had to spend a load of money to rent the room to let my stay at the clinic overnight (this was a lie on his part – he owns the clinic and doesn’t have to pay someone to rent the room in his own clinic), and how he didn’t even get a box of chocolates from myself for his generosity

Keep in mind the reason I had to keep going back to the clinic, paying for flights and airbnbs, is because Devroye himself kept doing the opposite of what he promised, and I had given him almost €10,000

I also noticed he has taken on another doctor who he seems to be informally training so he can run multiple operating theatres at the exact same time for more money. I can’t help but notice that prices haven’t dropped and there’s nothing on the website about how someone completely different will be operating on you at various points in the procedure

For the remaining 15 grafts he told me he would split the grafts and not put the multi grafts on my face, and that he would put the remaining extra hairs on my scalp. He lied as you can see from the photographs – he got his assistant to cut me with a blade to make fake incisions on my scalp where he implanted no grafts, and then once again put the multi grafts back on my face for the third time

When I complained about his extremely inappropriate behaviour by email, he responded using the receptionists email, talking about himself in 3rd person and pretending to be the receptionist, making excuses for his behaviour. This was obvious as the writing style and use of language changed to what devroye himself was using previously


Conclusion

1) Although the worst bumps improved with the first surgery, I still had bumps on my face at the base of the transplanted hairs (some of them were new and from his own transplanted hairs and not from the first surgeon)

2) The 2nd surgery did little and I still had bumps on my face, he then refused a repair despite being given almost € 10,000, he only agreed to a repair after a negative review was made

3) He put back doubles and triples on my face for all three surgeries after I said multiple times didn't want them there – I suspect he did this just to save time and get the surgery over with quicker, or maybe he thought I wouldn’t notice (picture)



4) Removed completely healthy hairs from my face and shuffled them around so he could increase the graft count he was charging me for. I found a similar complaint about this sort of behaviour here: https://www.reddit.com/r/HairTranspl...eb2x&context=3

5) He instructed his trainee surgeon to make incisions on the back of my head to try and trick me into thinking he did work which he didn’t carry out. You can see he has made incisions and implanted no hair to trick me into thinking he carried out work



6) He left my donor zone overharvested (picture)



7) Became aggressive because he was upset about doing a repair, and started arguing and shouting when I was on the operating table, knowing the patient can’t say anything back or they risk him blowing his top and leaving the patient half-done and being asked to leave

8) He even pretended to be his receptionist by responding to a complaint made to the receptionists email by referring to himself in 3rd person, not signing his name on the email when it’s obviously him responding