A man who spent £7,500 on a hair transplant to boost his receding locks says he is now being mistaken for Tinder Swindler love rat Simon Leviev. Dan Smith said fans of the Netflix series are convinced he's the real deal.
He has been able to see the funny side. joking: "To be fair, he has a very nice hairline". Dan's sudden claim to fame has come as a huge surprise, after struggling with male pattern hair loss for a long time since his early twenties.
The 37-year-old sales director says he still isn't used to being the centre of attention, let alone for looking like a TV celebrity, the Mirror reports. Dan's hair loss started at 21 and became steadily worse - resulting in him waking up to find his pillows covered in hair.
He said: "It began to make me very paranoid. I noticed that I was starting to look a lot older than I was. I started to develop an obvious bald patch in the middle of my head and nothing would cover it.
"I spent a fortune on pointless hair growth tablets and miracle creams in the hope they would help me, but they didn’t. I felt quite depressed and just wanted to feel more confident again."
After much research, Dan decided to undergo a pricey hair transplant procedure, in the hopes of getting back the youthful hairline he’d lost. He said he spent years thinking about it after the hair treatments he wasted "so much money" on did not have any effect.
He came across Dr Fas Arshad, who runs The Hair Dr – Hair Transplant Clinic in Leeds, after searching online. Dan underwent his hair transplant procedure in December 2020 - just a few months before the Covid-19 pandemic kicked in.
By March 2021, he was starting to see some results from his hair transplant then transformed his lifestyle after noticing he was beginning to put on weight. And around a year after his hair transplant, Dan’s boss noted that he had begun to look a lot like the infamous 'Tinder Swindler' made popular by the Netflix documentary.
He said: "Initially I dismissed it as a one-off comment; a bit of banter. But then other people started to make similar comparisons. I was once stopped four times in a day in the street for pictures - people really thought I was him.
"It’s always funny when they realise their mistake. I do think I do sort of look similar to Simon Leviev, and I find it amusing. To be fair, Simon Leviev has a very nice hairline, so I don’t mind the comparisons in that respect.”
Since the procedure, Dan says his overall confidence has improved and he loves the results of his hair transplant. He is no longer conscious of the way he looks and feels a lot more confident within himself.
Dr Arshad who performed Dan’s surgery added: "Hair is intrinsically linked to a person's self-confidence, so the impact of male pattern hair loss or other forms of alopecia is severely underestimated, in my opinion. I often see once patients have a hair transplant it leads to other health improvements particularly mental health, which is great to see and something."
How hair transplants work
Dr Arshad said: “Dan’s story is not uncommon. Male pattern hair loss is a very common condition that can affect up to 85% of men after a certain age. Usually, the clear signs of male pattern hair loss start around the age of 50, but for some, it can start as early as the late teens, or early twenties.
"Male pattern hair loss tends to develop slowly and may take several years for you to notice visually. The visual signs of male pattern baldness include a receding hairline, patterned thinning of hair or significant accelerated hair loss.”
"One of the most popular, and effective treatment methods to address male pattern hair loss is a hair transplant. This procedure works by surgically removing hair follicles from one part of the scalp, known as the 'donor site' to a bald or balding part of the scalp known as the 'recipient site'.
"The procedure is minimally invasive, and it can also be used to restore eyelashes, eyebrows, beard hair and to fill in scars. Potential candidates need to bear in mind that the process does not create new hair but rather re-distributes existing hair, and therefore there must be enough hair to transplant for the procedure to be successful.
"I am very open and transparent with my patients about this, so they understand the entire procedure before they undergo it.”
