BetterHelpReviews of betterhelp.com

I subscribed and paid for a few months but wasn’t well enough to engage with a therapist. I tried to request to use the payments that were unused but they’re impossible to deal with and won’t facilitate me. Very unfair to take payments and not offer a counselling service, afterall most of their customers are vulnerable in one way or another.

After suffering another bad spell of anxiety that led to depression I decided to try betterhelp. I had heard it advertised on various podcasts and I trusted them. I signed up and waited to be contacted by a therapist. I presumed I would only be charged after each therapy session and only when I had chosen a therapist. Unfortunately I was wrong, I was charged a recurring bill and within 2 weeks, and with no therapy sessions booked or therapist spoken to, I was charged over £150. I was unaware this was going to happen and after contacting the site, thinking there had been a mistake, I was told that this was what I had signed up for, and the only thing they would do was to extend my time to have more time to book a therapist. It was only when I threatened to write this review and remind them what a vulnerable state of mind I was in that they agreed to refund me. Please be careful when signing up to this site, it is obviously meant to make money from peoples misery as I found out. Make sure you understand what you are signing up for, as when people are desperate for help they won't be checking the details.

Therapist stopped talking to me, it’s been about 30 days. We had an appointment, I waited but no one showed up ever. And guess what, I still got charged money for that month! 400 for what? To be ignored and left? It’s actually impressive to make zero progress in 10 months.

Took that long to click next next next while answering questions that by the end I gave up, no one ☝️wants to go through that when they are calling out for help, I gave up.some people might but some people need it simpler. I’m a well educated person and I still found it stressful to go through the same old old processes like you would a job interview l, too many questions too much verification just help. Help is what we need. I want to cry at the stress at spending 20 minutes trying to get help. Give up.

I don’t think this platform is designed to truly help people with their mental health… I think it’s designed to con people out of as much money as possible. It needs to be more flexible with its pricing, and my sessions would usually start off with a technical issue which would waste 10 minutes of time. After about 4 sessions I wasn’t feeling any better, felt like it was a waste of time and money, but thought I’d give it one more go - went to book, all slots taken. No refunds allowed for the missed (and automatically billed) sessions. IMO it’s been less than helpful, expensive and has probably made me feel worse than when I first started. 🙃

Was awful. On top of that the bills just kept coming on the monthly when I didn’t have time to use the service. Talk about kicking someone when you are down. I asked them never to contact me again. They kept sending emails. Re-ocurrí c reminding of a bad time.

Betterhelp signed me up and billed my account immediately, then only offered a first meeting after the SECOND weekly payment had been taken from my account. I scheduled the meeting anyway, hoping that it would be worth the DOUBLE price I had already paid. It wasn't. The therapist had requested additional info prior to our first session (over a week prior) which I dutifully sent, including a very specific and deal-breaking requirement that she fit a certain criteria - or the whole thing would be pointless. She had plenty of time to read the notes, and to notify me if she didn't fit this deal-breaking criteria and arrange a different therapist. But this didn't happen. When our first meeting finally started, she had clearly not read ANY of the notes I had provided, and had NOT seen my deal-breaking criteria. As it happened she did NOT fit this criteria, and so my time and money had been wasted. She suggested that she didn't NEED to fit this criteria, as she understood my situation despite not having any lived experience - because she knows people who do. And THAT is why I specified so early on that it was a DEAL-BREAKER! I cancelled the session and cancelled my membership without seeking a replacement therapist. My experience with BetterHelp had already taught me that I would probably pay for at least a further two sessions before anything actually got scheduled. No thanks! BetterHelp seems to be a mercenary company preying on the vulnerable and the desperate; people perhaps too much in crisis to know what's good for them, or to manage the complexities of a system DESIGNED to extract as much cash as possible, with the customer's needs coming a distant second. I am very disappointed. I really need some help from a therapist who actually understands my situation because they've been there. Not because they've awarded themself an honorary membership to my "club" because it pays well.

Edit: to reply to the response below. I did not ‘choose’ to continue I pressed next to see timing options. I did not update my payment details - if I had I wouldn’t have updated them with a card that I no longer have as it was cancelled 3 months prior, so I wouldn’t even know the card number to update it. No responses have gone into spam, I’ve been checking. I had a response today (funnily enough after posting this) offering me less than half of what I paid back. Your reply is an attempt at being polite whilst trying to point the blame onto me ‘you missed replies in your spam’ - feel free to send me proof. ‘You updated your payment details’ - no I didn’t. ‘You confirmed to rejoin’ - no I didn’t. When looking at rejoining the service, I searched the website and my profile to add in my availability but there was no option. I assumed that pressing next would bring me to the option to see if there were therapists that could work with my schedule, to have my card, charged without my confirmation or needing to put in any details. I contacted better help and received no response. They then matched me with a therapist automatically that didn’t have my preferred availability, as I’d paid I booked in a meet which was a ‘get to know you’ hoping the calendar might open up more options the following week. It didn’t, as such, the appointment booked was at a time that meant me having to cancel prior commitments to attend which was a full session of discussing how our timings would not work. By this point I had already contacted better help via their web form again and got no reply. To date I have contacted them 4 times on their web form and had nothing back, they’ve taken £180 from my AMEX account, (from a card that was cancelled months ago) to automatically take payment without my conformation, ability to select a therapist based on timings that would actually work for me, or customer service to move forward. I’ve had a ‘get to know me’ chat and then a 35 minute chat about how the timings aren’t going to match moving forward (initiated by the therapist, not me). Terrible.