For those dentists, their employees, the various dental marketing consultants, industry reps and other Townies who visited the forum, TheVisibleDentist (yours truly) was a familiar presence on DentalTown for over a year (8/01/08 - 11/16/09).

FYI, TownieCentral.com is a private niche forum for dentists who come to share with their colleagues and learn more about dentistry. Receiving a moderate amount of daily visitors (approximately 250 uniques), the forum sells banner and newsletter advertising to sponsors.

I Registered August 1st, 2008
I was originally invited by another member to come participate in the forums and share my knowledge of the Web. I had amassed 2,366+ posts, minus an unknown number of posts that were either censored or removed from threads by Dental Town administrators and moderators.

In addition to providing information, strategies, tips and articles regarding dental websites, SEO and marketing in general, I was quite possibly the most outspoken Townie voice when it came to exposing rip-offs and scam artists who occasionally rolled through trying to grift a few victims.

Where Am I, ScamTown?
During the course of my membership and after being muzzled, edited, deleted and offered “protection” to speak freely (for $10K per month), I soon realized that TownieCentral was apparently more interested in earning advertising revenue, rather than protecting the interests of dentists.

Farran Media (Phoenix, AZ), the publisher of DentalTown recently decided to implement another unwritten “policy” which essentially says the code of conduct is to “play nice in Howard’s sandbox“, in an attempt to gain more members and drive up forum traffic numbers.

However at the same time, this so-called “sandbox code of conduct” can mean whatever the moderators want it to mean — whenever they feel it convenient to bolster their administrative clout and personal egos. In this instance it meant keeping your mouth shut and turning a blind eye to a fraud.

Case In Point
On November 13, 2009 a new member named “SocialMediaDentist” posted an announcement with offers to sell seminars and tutorials on how to create Twitter and Facebook accounts, while extolling the benefits of social media to promote dentistry. The claims were outlandish and exaggerated.

As I was writing my response, I noticed the poster had referred to himself in the third person. Even after I posted my opinion that Twitter was over-rated and largely a waste of time, SocialMediaDentist again posted — yet another time with reference to himself in the third person.

Who Speaks of Themselves In The Third Person?
Needless to say, this was very odd — and I asked for an explanation. Instead of addressing my question, the person decided to attack by disparaging my services, my clients, my prices, my achievements, not to mention throwing in copious amounts of childish remarks and outright lies.

The story might have had a different ending had this been just another garden variety, wannabe marketer trying to hawk silly “how to get rich” material to dentists, but not so; the person was using the name, credentials (and today a photo) of a Virginia dentist named Jason Lipscomb.

After I refuted his false accusations, I immediately came under fire by a couple of dentists and moderators who felt I was out of line to speak in my own defense and theirs against this charlatan, whoever he or she was. In the brief exchange, moderators deleted more of my comments from the thread.

Calling Jason Lipscomb
Since I speak with dentists everyday, I was shocked to think this person in the forum could be a doctor. Surely, if there were a dentist named Jason Lipscomb, he was unaware of the situation, so I decided to call and talk with him. Unfortunately, this didn’t work out too well - he did return my call though.

Dr. Lipscomb was immediately defensive and argumentative. I managed to ask about the forum posts and he admitted that his associates and he were posting together and that they often consulted on what they should post. When I questioned the ethics of such an enterprise, the guy went ballistic and asked if I was the “ultimate authority” and how dare I call him, etc.

Ask Questions, Get Banned
To make a long story short, I was subsequently banned from DentalTown over the whole sordid affair, even after a DentalTown adminstrator called my office and demanded that I cease and desist, or be banned. For the record, I did capitulate, agreeing to abandon the topic and thread, yet the trustworthy folks at DentalTown went ahead and disabled my account anyway.

To date SocialMediaDentist, which looks to be a small publishing company (FMWebschool) that has seemingly partnered with Jason Lipscomb in some sort of publishing deal, is still on TownieCentral and still misrepresenting themselves as a dentist — not to mention they use strange advertisements with “English” that makes no sense at all (e.g. bury your practice?).

The Attempted Cover up
To document what appear to be actions to hide evidence of intent to defraud dentists and members of Dental Town, here are some screenshots where the SocialMediaDentist group went back to edit their posts. (see red underlines)

Hapless Fakery (click thumbnail image)
The group, finally realizing their mistake, returned to the thread seven days later on November 20, 2009 to change things up a bit. As you can read, they botched the cover-up and even failed to use correct diction. It still refers to the dentist in the second person. (my comments are in green)

Feeling The Heat (click thumbnail)
To reinforce perception that SocialMediaDentist was in fact a dentist, on the same day November 20, 2009 their domain name socialmediadentist.com was changed from its original registrant FMWebschool and administrative contact Allyson Olm to SocialMediaDentist and Jason Lipscomb respectively. Does anyone think this was a coincidence?

Busted (click thumbnail)
After editing their posts, changing domain registration and attacking me for asking questions, I did more research and found what appears to be a tutorial (maybe ghost written) and a publishing company using the dentist’s name for credibility to sell the material — together with the real dentist’s full knowledge and participation.

True Identity
There is nothing wrong with another person representing a dentist, or writing on their behalf; I do it everyday. However, I’m a Web developer and I say that up front. I don’t pretend to be a doctor — that’s the big difference. Falsely misrepresenting yourself as a doctor is not only unethical, it’s illegal.

The Problem
By Dental Town and its mismanagement condoning such behavior, the continuing deception becomes yet another slap in the face of dentists everywhere, and one more strike against dentistry as a whole. For the most part, DT forums can be a useful tool to help its members avoid many of the scams perpetrated against dentists - this time though, it fell short.

Rather than talk about the issue and resolve it, the dentist elected to perpetuate the fraud, even going ahead with a cover-up campaign to mask the unethical behavior and misdirect attention away from himself and his partners.

Consequences
Any dentist who would obfuscate facts and lie to enable such a charade letting other dentists believe they are dealing with him (not his associates), in my opinion, deserves reproach, public exposure, and perhaps censure or disciplinary action by the appropriate dental regulatory boards.

Optional Etiquette
In hindsight, I must admit that I can be a tough, independent ole cuss. It’s my nature to dispense with any niceties or boot-licking when confronted with thieves and scammers. However, I might have handled this recent situation in a more tactful, politically correct manner.

Maybe I should have held their hand and bounced them on my knee, saying “now now, you’ve been a bad little boy.”

Then again, screw that.

Unscrupulous individuals who intend to defraud consumers (namely dentists) don’t deserve any quarter. I exited TownieCentral under honorable conditions; and I’m delighted that I was banned for standing up for what was right.

Plenty of Great Dentists on DentalTown
I can say that I met and made friends with a vast number of outstanding and forthright dentists on TownieCentral.com. It is appalling and unfortunate though that the very forum which purports to hold their best interests in mind allows the sort of fraud described above to continue unabated.

As a final mention, a little birdie told me that (as of this posting date), the dentists who had ordered books and material from the SocialMediaDentist group — never received their orders and are now wondering if they ever will.

(screenshots/images provided under Fair Use Doctrine)

John Barremore

This entry posted Saturday, December 19th, 2009 at 8:03 am - Filed under Editorials, Hall of Shame. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.