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Welcome to Assignment.

I'm Joyce 022 and you join me as I'm watching some videos on YouTube.

This is the front room, the living area. As you can see, this looks like a picture up here and it's like a Jacuzzi bath.

And this is where a young woman smiles as she waves into a mirror.

And shows us around a luxurious apartment in Istanbul. I can honestly say I don't want to stay anywhere else if I ever come back to Turkey and even a holiday, because this place is so beautiful here. So that's the sky.

In normal times, Turkey's a top holiday spot for Europeans. And sure enough, we can see a beautiful relaxing scene under a pristine blue sky. But this film is no travel guide. It's showing us around a recovery house, a place for patients to recuperate after cosmetic surgery.

One of the bedrooms for the nurse is a utility room here as well.

And this is, again, where the nurse might see the young woman in.

The video is an online influencer and she's promoting a company called Clinic Hub Ltd. promoting it mainly to British and European women because Clinic Hub sells plastic surgery for much less than clinics in the West.

But some of these women say their cut price surgery has cost them in other ways, leaving them with serious injuries and complications. And they say they were misled into trusting clinical by irresponsible social media posts.

So for assignment this week, the story of a clinic company and its click bait and what happened to some of the people who clicked with me saw babbelas for an. And I realized why. This is 25 year old Londoner Rene Donaldson, a.k.a. online influencer, Miss All Fabulous wants another of clinic hubs, online ambassadors and music videos.

You see her clammed up in a sports car showing off the Internet's idealized body shape, small waist, wide hips and a big bump.

I had a cute little pinch, but when I had the cute little pinch.

You always want more, do you understand? So I wanted a bigger bump. I just wanted to make sure every area was perfect.

But Renee had a procedure called a Brazilian butt lift, commonly known as a beeble. It's where unwanted fat is taken from around the stomach, back and thighs through liposuction, then injected into the buttocks to give a larger, more lifted shape.

I was insecure about my body, you know. I mean, and then I became too involved with social media, like in pictures and thinking to myself, I need to look like that in order to be like that. There was always a little voice in my head. You can get her stomach. She didn't go to the gym. She went to go get BBR. That was the voices in my head at the time.

Renee found her niqab and early in 2019 traveled to Turkey to have her beeble, which cost her around 4000 dollars a fraction of what she'd have paid in the UK. Next, she went to recuperate in the glitzier recovery house. And then she says Khlebnikov offered her a deal she couldn't refuse.

They didn't allow me to pay for anything. I didn't have to pay for food. I didn't have to pay for my hotel. They took care of everything for me. Then they offered me to be an ambassador in the face of their brand. Oh, and there was paying me money every other month, you know. I mean, what were they paying you for exactly? I would do my YouTube videos, talk about my aftercare, talk about, oh, what made me go get a BBR like anything to do with BBR because their company would be mentioned because that's where I went to pay.

Guys, welcome back to my channel. You go miss. Our Fabulous is back together with another video today and one week post up.

My bum is really, really big. I absolutely love my body right now.

How it as an online influencer relations her entire life with around 300000 followers. So she began posting good news about clinic hub in return for payment and perks. She wouldn't tell me the amount they gave her.

Let's get straight into the video about telling you guys about my surgery and how things went.

So on the first day when you arrived in Turkey, I'm not going to I thought to myself, wow, like, I don't have to actually go to work. I can stay home and take pictures and dress up. And this can be my income.

The company is really, really good guys. I can't stress enough. Make sure you like commensal subscribe. See my next video. Bye, guys.

Clinic Limited was started in 2017 by a man called Ibrahim Kuzu. It was registered at an address in London. It's not, in fact, a clinic itself, although it uses phrases like our surgeons and our hospitals. It works more like a travel agent.

It offers package deals, including transfers and accommodation, as well as the surgery. Working alongside a Turkish company which arranges medical treatment on its behalf, Rennies glowing reviews prompted many young women to book their own life changing treatments through clinic hub. We've spoken to some of them myself. Fabulous did a video for her first procedure of her video and I was like, OK, Dialogic. I saw the clinic on Rene's YouTube video. I went to the website and contacted them through their Instagram.

It was one thousand five hundred pounds for breast reduction and the hotel was included because we now had like a lot of positive feedback.

I decided to contact clinical.

These women didn't know that Renney was getting paid to recommend Clinic Hub because initially she didn't mention this, something that's against the rules in Britain and beyond. They thought they were getting unbiased reviews and it gets worse.

Naturally, clinic have made the most of any advocacy in this social media video of one of its doctors, she's face down on the slab. Her surgeons explaining the procedure.

Hi, everybody. Here is Miss, our fabulous. She's very happy because your mom. But a little bit more volume and projection.

The surgeon who calls himself the Bibel King performs with the camera. That's fancy transitions and slow motion editing. At one point in the video, he flips up a syringe of her fat and catches it again as if he was in an action movie, a breast reduction.

But this kind of surgery can be potentially lethal. And the reason why is this next bit coming up, where the fat cells are injected back into the body.

So we are ready to take a little bit more fat from these areas and inject it to her body.

There's a real risk that fat cells could get into the bloodstream and cause a blockage to a blood vessel in the lungs. It's called a pulmonary embolism. And it's one reason the Brazilian butt lift has the highest death rate of all cosmetic procedures, around 10 times higher than many others. The BBA is so dangerous, most plastic surgeons in the UK won't even do it. This is just one example of how some clinical customers egged on by social media unwittingly risk their health.

Well, I've had pretty huge boobs that my boobs have been huge from young men as I've gotten older and gained more weight than they've gotten so, so heavy on me. So after trying to get help from my GP and in the client, I just decided that, you know, I need to do something about this because this really affected me.

I met this young woman who we're calling Monica in a park in North London six months ago. She took the decision to have breast reduction surgery.

Then I started seeing clinic up online on Instagram and video of You see me cnr. It just made me trust the doctor and they're OK because other girls have been and they've been violent stuff.

Monica Message Clinic up through Instagram. With hindsight, she says she should have seen the warning signs.

It did feel like they were kind of rushing me to put down a deposit, telling me the price is going to change tomorrow and stuff like that. So how did you feel when you first got to Turkey? I was very confident in the morning when the doctor came in and we did the consultation. He was just like, don't worry, we'll take care of you. Like I've done it before. You'll be fine. Just he made me feel really, really confident.

She didn't have to take his word for it. The clinical website said her surgeon, Dr. Dorsch Yelchin, had done hundreds of operations with no serious complications. Nevertheless, shortly after treatment, Monica noticed something was wrong that was bleeding around the nipple.

My right nipple just didn't look right. It just looked very, very flat. It didn't look projected. It literally just looked flat. The nurse then removed the dressing around my nipple is that my nipple was coming apart from the areola so you could tell something was going on.

Monica was due to see her surgeon for a checkup, but it was said he'd left for the public holiday and didn't see her again for a couple of days when he did examine her. She says he brushed aside her concerns.

He just told me that I'd be put into contact with another clinic in London who apparently do with their aftercare or something like that. So, yeah, and because the people in Turkey, they weren't really giving me much information. They just kept telling me, it's fine, it's fine. So then I went to London and I went to St. Thomas Hospital in central London where they looked at me and just said, yeah, like you have put process.

This lady had necrosis death of the skin, which was her nipple, the whole nipple and the surrounding tissue, which is the areola, had died off.

Caroline Payne is a consultant plastic surgeon in the UK, with Monica's permission, which showed Caroline a photo of her breast.

She would have had to have that, what we call debrided, which is removed, get the infection out, get the dead tissue out. And then it's a complex process of trying to see how, if there is a possibility of reconstructing the area and bad scarring is very difficult to address and correct.

When Monica raised her concerns with her surgeon in Turkey, she was told to get. In touch with Kinnick Hubs, a UK clinic, but when she got back, she realized it didn't exist. She says she's been left disfigured and finds it hard to look in the mirror. Khlebnikov did offer her corrective surgery, but she turned this down, not happy, putting her body back into their hands. They later asked her to sign a legal agreement not to talk about her complications, promising her a refund, which she says she was never given.

Caroline says she's seen similar cases from clinics all over Turkey, patients returning home with serious infections. She finds it frustrating that social media and influences give them a false sense of security.

In a day and age of social media, you will see good reviews, many good reviews for these clinics. They will give people free surgery, especially if they are an influencer. Right. Good report. So this person, they probably had a very, very good journey and had the most utmost care and post-operative care. But that's not necessarily what you're going to get. If you have severe complications, you're alone.

I told them I was really angry and they blocked me on Instagram and couldn't KAB had deleted my comment, Kleinig hub blocked me, even my surgeon blocked me.

Monica wasn't the only one left with serious complications after surgery through clinic hub. While investigating the story, I spoke to several other young women who felt they'd been mistreated by the company and its director, Ibrahim Kuzu. We've had their complaints voiced by actors panicking, crying.

I went to A&E and they said it's about infection and if I waited longer, I could have been left with one boob.

I told Abraham that I could have died and he said, Are you dead? Like he actually said to me and foul that I'm trying to bring down his business life.

Is that all you care about? Why is this clinic, how many first call clinic hub, the director, Ibrahim Kuzu, is the first person you'll speak to?

We have blackbirding.

I'm now asking him about something even more alarming that had seen on social media.

I saw like this Instagram page of like these girls, and they were saying that they were like assaulted, not just assaulted, sexually assaulted, but the girls did not help themselves because they were offered money.

The claims I'd seen were all made about the same male nurse working in one of the partner hospitals, clinic books for surgeries. Memorial attache in Istanbul, Ibrahim Kuzu said the women fabricated the claims, but said the man in question had nevertheless been sacked.

But now we find out that he lost his job unfairly because these girls made up this story.

But then he went on to tell me personal details about the complainants, including referring to one of the girls by name and giving me intimate medical details about her and her surgery itself.

Catherine is one of these cases that lost a lot of weight after her weight loss surgery, and she needs a lot of surgeries to look good. So she had one. She wants to do a second, third, fourth year. So she chose this route and now she will pay consequences. She the window to the prison and make sure that for some 10 minutes.

Ibrahim Kuzu said the women were liars and that he'd sue them all. Back in the UK, I got in touch with the woman whose private medical details he divulged to find out what had happened to her. Catherine had a breast lift and a beeble with Clinic Haab. Last January, she agreed to meet me.

I had weight loss surgery in twenty eighteen because I was so addicted to food that I couldn't see a way out for conventional means like diet and exercise.

When you have a massive weight loss like that, you still have like loose skin or your body just doesn't bounce back. So I booked a consultation with Khlebnikov to get a breath there, which would have just involved removing the excess skin on my breasts. And it was literally when I was in the cab on the way to the airport, I decided to add the video aspect to it.

So took me through when you was taken into like you're recovering, what happened then?

So I woke up from my surgery and they take me back to my room. There's three nurses with me. Two of them are female and one of them's male. So the other two nurses left after they checked that I was fine and the male nurse stayed behind. So he was on my right side. I remember him specifically walking over to my left side, kind of getting closer to my face like, oh, you look so sexy. He looks so there.

She looks like that with the surgery bra. They do really like push your, like, boobs up to high heaven. So he's there, like saying how sexy I am, asking me if I can have a kiss.

And I'm like, no.

Catherine says the nurse went on to sexually assault her. She says when she told a member of Turkish clinical staff what happened, they dismissed it as a normal medical check and offered her a free postop massage. A few days later, she learned two other clinical patients had come forward to make the same claim about the same nurse. She says she only found out after overhearing a conversation between two other patients in the recovery house. Again, she went to find a member of staff that basically said, like, what do you want to do?

Do you want to pursue this further or not? 100 percent? Yeah. They were like, fine, we've got to go to a police station and then give statements. And when we saw each other, we all just like crying like immediately. Just I can't believe that we were actually sexually assaulted.

The other women had almost exactly the same experiences. One who didn't want to be identified told us what happened to her. Her words are spoken by an actor.

I was laying on my stomach and the nurse was telling me to kiss him. He was translating on his phone saying, You're very beautiful. I said, I have a boyfriend. I was very confused and in shock that a nurse was doing this. It was very abrupt. He just moved my blanket, my outfit and did it. Staff from Klimek Limited's partner firm in Turkey took Katherine and the other women to another hospital for an examination and then to the police station.

So what do they promise you clinic when you were there? They did say that they were going to sue the hospital on our behalf. They also said that the person in question had been arrested and that he wouldn't be allowed to work in a hospital again. And they just promised that they sort it for us.

But once Katherine and the other women returned to the UK, the promises of justice soon dried up. Katherine says she stopped receiving replies to her messages. Frustrated, the women set up a social media page to air their grievances. This didn't go down well. Khlebnikov in Turkey called in their lawyers.

We got a letter well, an email from a clinic call basically saying that our expert forensic reports have come back to say that it didn't happen. Like nothing of what you said has happened, nothing of what you said is factual. They wrote to us from their legal department and it said that their client is very unhappy with what we're posting online about them and that like basically we should stop.

We tried to speak to memorial at a hospital. They didn't respond. Our investigation found that accused nurse is still posting online photos of himself wearing scrubs and a face covering, apparently still working at a hospital. And despite the allegations, the hospital is still listed on the club's website. We asked Monaca surgeon Dr. Dorsch Yelchin about the problems she was left with and the fact that Clinic Hub's website still says he's had no serious complications. We didn't receive a response.

We've also written to Clinic Hubb. They didn't respond either. So we called it Director Ibrahim Kuzu again. And if so, can I help you?

Hello, my name is Joycean. I'm calling from BBC. I've spoken to you on this number before. I believe this is Ibrahim. So I'm calling and I thank you so much.

So I'm calling because we've spoken to several women. After identifying myself as a journalist, Ibrahim hung up the phone. I called him again, but he didn't answer.

If only online influencers could be held to the same standards as regular advertisers. The suffering of women like those we've spoken to might be reduced. The problem is that regulations are sometimes remarkably soft. Catalina Gallanter, assistant professor at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, studies the global regulation of influencer marketing.

One of the main drawbacks of current regulatory regimes is that while rules are in place, enforcement isn't always something that authorities pursue. It's not very often that there is going to be a punishment or there is not going to be a very clear indication by the state that influencers shouldn't engage in this type of behavior, Catalina says.

Some of her research with partner universities has found that only one in 10 influencers disclose affiliate marketing, getting free stuff and money in return for promotion. She's calling for this to be addressed.

What I believe we need more of in this digital marketing sphere is a sign from different authorities that they are looking at the activity of influencers and when this activity will impact the interests of consumers in a negative way that there is an action by comparison. In Germany, there have been some cases where influencers have been brought to court because of the fact that they didn't disclose advertising on social media. And I think that is the reason why in our research we see that, generally speaking, German influencers tend to disclose advertising more than, for instance, Dutch influencers even can paid influence.

So Rene started to have problems after her beeble. She got an infection after some of the reinjected Fat died, she was treated back in Britain and left with a dent in one bum cheek. She told her followers about the issues, but was emphatic that Clinic Hubb wasn't her fault.

I just want to make this very, very clear. This has nothing to do with the clinic. This has nothing to do with them. It's not their fault. They're very professional. They're very good. You know, they've been doing this for years. And, you know, I do recommend them when it comes to surgery.

But by the end of the day, with her position as an influencer, Renney had access to free surgery and she took full advantage of it. She had worked to correct the dent in her bum, more liposuction, breast reduction and another beeble. Three trips to Turkey in just under a year, but it still wasn't successful. Because of my fat cells that died, once again, it's caused me pain. There's times where I can't get out of bed because of my baby always done to me.

It's made me so tired.

Despite her ongoing problems, pain and corrections, Rene continued promoting clinic hope. But during this time, she says, other patients started contacting her.

I'll get young girls messaging me things that. Could you please get a nurse to come into the hospital? Could you please reach out to Ibrahim? And I used to always screenshot messages that girls would send me and send it over to Ibrahim and be like, this is a doctor needs to go in her room. And when I start to do things like that, I start to realize you treated me differently because of who I was, not because I'm a normal person.

You treat me because I'm a Intrinsa.

But being an influencer didn't protect Renee from surgical complications after the third corrective surgery on her bum. She says she noticed the swelling on her thigh. It now juts out from the rest of her leg and she says it causes her serious pain two years after her first surgery. She says she still doesn't understand why it's happened and she wasn't given any of her medical notes from Turkey. It was only after this that Renee decided to break ties with her niqab.

It just wasn't making sense to me, someone that was being paid, somebody that was the face of their brand, somebody that was representing them. And watched. Hey, guys, welcome back to Montana, which got me some fabulous, pretty Funny Cide going away. And I'm back for another video. So it's no secret. I've done it three times. And in my last video, I wasn't clear about things that I'd done.

18 months after her first beeble, Renny finally told the truth to her followers about all her problems of the company and advised people not to book surgery through them. She's currently on painkillers. We contacted her surgeon, Dr. Phil Concertgoer, to ask about the problems she's experiencing. He didn't respond. Her videos promoting clinic hub Austin online clinic Hub continues to advertise surgery at the hospital she went to and continues to use her surgeon. What would you say to the women who were influenced by you who had complications?

I want to send a massive apology to every single girl that has sat down and watched my video and took it upon themselves to go all the way to Istanbul based on my videos. Just want you to know how deeply sorry I am if it's changed our lives is a lesson for all of us to learn, including myself. So please, ladies, think before you do anything that would change your life, don't be influenced by influences, don't sit on YouTube and watch videos.

Remember that day experiences that won't be yours. That's all from Assignment and me, Joyce Ejeta, for more stories, just type BBC assignment into your Web browser, or you can subscribe to the documentary podcast from the BBC World Service.