Celebrity Who Got Bucktooth After Treatment Was Used To Advertise the Popular Dental Office X

My upper jaw bone has shifted to the left, so my back teeth don’t bite together and I can’t close my mouth properly. I am a newlywed, but I haven’t even had a wedding. I don’t want to take pictures that will last a lifetime with my teeth like this. ……”

On January 26 of this year, 153 patients filed a class action lawsuit against Dental Office X (“X”), a dental clinic with four branches nationwide, seeking approximately 200 million yen in damages. Ms. Yukari Ueno (pseudonym, in her 30s), who laments at the beginning of this article, is one of the plaintiffs.

X claimed that “if you become a ‘monitor’ of the mouthpiece orthodontic treatment, the treatment fee is practically free,” and gathered many patients through SNS, but the reality was completely different.

The “practically free” system involved taking out a medical loan and transferring an amount equal to the monthly repayment as compensation for being a “monitor. I had been worried about my teeth since I was a child, so I took advantage of the offer, took out a loan of 1.87 million yen in two-and-a-half-year payments, and started treatment at X’s Ginza clinic in July 2009,” said Ueno.

However, the payment of monitoring fees stopped after only 8 months. From October of last year, I could no longer make medical appointments, and in January of this year, the Ginza clinic was closed. Mr. Ueno continues, “Immediately after the start of orthodontic treatment, my bite began to get bruised.

“Immediately after orthodontic treatment began, I complained of problems with my bite, but at X, the dental hygienist only took care of it and the dentist never once examined me. I grew distrustful, so I went to see another dentist and found that my teeth had become more bucktooth than before the orthodontic treatment.”

Ms. Ueno would like to receive new treatment, but “with no refund from X, it is financially difficult,” she says. She says there are many patients like her who have experienced health problems.

It seems that X has been able to attract a large number of monitors because of some other reason besides the “practically free of charge” policy. Another patient in the plaintiffs’ group revealed.

The sales representative who recommended that I participate in the monitoring program said, ‘Dr. I is a very skilled dentist who oversees the treatment at X. Many of his patients are celebrities. Many of his patients are celebrities.’ He showed me pictures of Dr. I with celebrities Yoko Kumada and Yuuri Morishita. He also made the same invitation to other patients, and many of them became monitors because they knew that they were under the patronage of a celebrity.

The magazine confirmed that Morishita has indeed posted pictures of herself with Dr. I on her blog, and Kumada has also posted on SNS with hashtags such as “#Dr. I”. In addition, the SNS of another clinic with which Dr. I is involved shows congratulatory flowers delivered by Morishita to the X Ginza clinic, as well as a two-shot with Kumada. It appears that these photos were used to promote X.

When this magazine contacted the offices of Kumada and Morishita for an interview, they responded as follows.

Mr. Kumada has never been asked by Dental Office X or Mr. I to advertise. If his likeness was used to attract patients without permission, we will take legal action against him for infringement of his right of publicity, etc.” (Kumada’s attorney)

Dr. I, whom I have known for a long time, heard that he was opening a new dental clinic (X Ginza clinic) and sent flowers to congratulate him. It was not a publicity stunt, and I did not receive any money.

On the other hand, X’s management company responded to this magazine through a representative, saying, “We have no responsibility for the agreement we signed with the monitored clients.

We will pay for the responsible contracts that we concluded with the monitored clients, and we will carefully consider how to deal with the questionable contracts in the future. As for the talent, we believe it was made by Dr. I, but we have no knowledge of the details of the talent. （There is no fact that we (as the management company) requested (advertising) to celebrities such as celebrities.”

The total number of victims is more than 1,500, and the total amount of damage is more than 2 billion yen,” said Hirotaro Kato, attorney at Kato & Asakawa Law Office, who is representing the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs are planning to file criminal as well as civil charges in the near future.

During the investigation, it came to light that the X side had continued to collect monitors while being aware of the company’s bankruptcy from the early stage. We have determined that this is a case of fraud and violation of the Act on Specified Commercial Transactions, and that they should be held criminally liable.

When will the affected patients be able to smile with their teeth showing?

From the March 17, 2023 issue of “FRIDAY