They call themselves the largest group of facial plastic surgeons in the country, but Lifestyle Lift is currently under investigation.
Patients and ex-employees claim Lifestyle Lift is more concerned with selling surgeries than with their patients’ satisfaction.
You may have seen the group's infomercial before; celebrity singer Debby Boone hosts the program, singing her hit song, “You Light Up My Life".
Lifestyle Lift describes itself as a nationwide group of 40 clinics. They promise less invasive, cheaper facelifts.
In its infomercial, founder Dr. David Kent claims they can turn back the hands of time.
“It simply makes you look the same way you did years ago,” Kent says, in the advertisement.
It was the before and after pictures on the infomercial that convinced Diane Jarzab of Sun City to do it.
She had the Lifestyle Lift done at the Phoenix location in 2008.
“I was amazed. I thought, wow!” said Jarzab. “When I heard that you could actually have it done on your lunch hour, I said this can't be too bad.”
The clerk lifted Jarzab's skin up from under her chin and showed her how much younger she looked.
“She said, 'You're the perfect candidate for this. Your skin texture… you are just perfect,'” said Jarzab.
The results didn't live up to Jarzab's expectations. She filed a complaint with the Arizona Medical Board.
Complaints for the Lifestyle Lift are adding up nationwide.
Sixty-eight people in Florida filed complaints with the Attorney General in the past two years.
The Florida AG is now investigating accusations of "unfair and deceptive trade practices" against Lifestyle Lift.
Our sister station in Tampa, Fla. reviewed all the complaints filed. Several of the patients said employees convinced them they'd look years younger.
Lifestyle Lift maintains the majority of their 150,000 patients are satisfied with their results.
They offered five patients who all told us the procedure did work for them, including Nancy Martin of Clearwater, Fla. Martin said she got exactly what she was promised.
“The sagging was gone. I was very happy,” Martin said.
Two former employees from clinics in Florida said the problem is not the surgery, but the sales tactics.
Lifestyle Lift’s former Vice-President of Advertising Operations Harold House said he witnessed several unethical practices during his 10 months with the company.
He has filed a complaint with the Florida Attorney General’s office.
House said employees were given quotas to sign up a certain amount of patients for surgery every week.
“Each center, like the Tampa center, the Fort Lauderdale Center, were given a total quota to hit,” House said.
House also said employees used high-pressure sales tactics to sign up patients even when they knew the patient might not benefit from the surgery.
Lifestyle Lift said House is lying about all of his claims, pointing out he was fired from the company and he was convicted of bank fraud 21 years ago.
Former Lifestyle Lift doctor Michael Branch of Lake Mary said during his six months with the company, he was concerned with the pressure put on patients to sign up.
“I really felt like there was a bit of a, for lack of a better term, it was somewhat of a mill,” Branch said.
“I don’t want patients to be misled and to be given false hope and to be given procedures that are inappropriate,” he added.
The company’s founder, Dr. David Kent, denied that Lifestyle Lift uses quotas or high-pressure sales tactics.
“Absolutely not. As a matter of fact, about 65 percent of patients that come into Lifestyle Lift don’t even have the procedure,” Kent said.
But in 2009, the New York Attorney General’s Office found Lifestyle Lift was intentionally and illegally “duping consumers.”
Lifestyle Lift agreed to pay a $300,000 fine for creating fake reviews of the surgery online, written in the names of patients who did not exist.
According to documents obtained from the New York Attorney General’s Office, one internal e-mail from Lifestyle Lift read, “Take off the Lifestyle Lift logo – nobody is supposed to know LL is involved with this website.”
Kent said the company is not posting fake reviews.
“Lifestyle Lift, like all companies, is learning how to properly deal with the internet. I think we have come a long way, and we do know how to deal with it,” he said.
Kent also defended Lifestyle Lift when asked it was unusual for a group of medical clinics to have faced two attorney general’s investigations, two ongoing lawsuits alleging false advertising filed in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties in Florida, and several claims from unsatisfied patients.
“In any plastic surgery practice, you’ll always have a few people that did not get the results that they wanted, despite all their best efforts,” Kent said.
“This may look like a lot, but when you consider it in the context of 150,000 people, it’s not that many,” Kent added.
The Florida Attorney General is also investigating whether Lifestyle Lift is still posting fake reviews online, written by employees or paid customers.
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