BetterHelp
reviews and complaints

I have been through 4 weeks of therapy and paid £180 as a student but I was not satisfied with my result. I wanted to understand the deep understanding of my attachment style, my inability to commit and my relationship anxiety and i had mentioned this to the therapist. I had left my last session feeling incredibly anxious for a week because no problems were resolved- I feel as though the therapists insinuated i “stay uncommitted because i’m young” and not understanding relationship anxiety, and how this would spike this. I had explained that this happens in healthy relationships in the first session. Not to mention, the therapist said “This is my first session with you isn’t it” when it was my second session which made me feel unheard and unimportant- as if she forgot all the information I told her on the first session. I just am disappointed now and feel a bit hopeless.

Since my sister has got therapy from
Better help, she has experienced false memories and keeps quoting the opinions of her counsellor. She has become completely incoherent and unrecognisable. False memories have been implanted in these sessions and it has destroyed her life and our entirely family’s relationship with her. Apparently I cannot access her counsellors credentials to see if she or he is actually qualified as this is confidential! I’m not asking for what she has discussed I am asking to see evidence of his/hers qualifications!

Good afternoon,

I paid for a month of therapy (£240) on the 2nd September 2022.

In this time, I spoke to a therapist that I had spoken to before. I received no response for over a week. I booked a session, and she didn't turn up.

I then changed therapist. This particular therapist was very judgmental! She was clearly very religious (which I have no issue with) however some of the areas I was looking to talk about, she struggled to comprehend, based on her strong beliefs.

Therefore, I am extremely disappointed to have paid £240 for the month (considering the current cost of living, especially as I am paying for a household on my own) and didn't receive a single session without judgement!

Resulting in me cancelling my subscription and having no help, which has only worsened the situation I am currently in.

Regards

Yasmine Partridge

My daughter had a free month's trial of Better Help through her college. It took over two weeks for BH to match her with a therapist, which I found unacceptable. When she was finally matched, she discovered he didn't have any openings for live sessions for two more weeks. She asked him if she could message him in the meantime and he said that was fine. She poured her heart out in a long message, which took a lot of guts for her to do. He replied in a few hours to let her know he had received her message and would get back to her. Two weeks have gone by and he has not responded. My daughter finally cancelled her free account and will now look elsewhere for therapists. What if she was suicidal and really needed to hear back from him? I will never use this service for myself or my family again and would counsel friends to stay away.

Won't give me a refund

Paid my monthly subscription, did my first session, wasn't excited. Did the second, wasn't excited either. Usually I can tell if I "click" with the therapist from the first session but I thought I'd give her a second chance. There was nothing wrong with her, she was just not what I was looking for. She looked a little bored and it felt like she failed to ask important questions. Not that insightful. Instead insisted on stuff that didn't matter much. Anyway, since I am going through a deep depression and since I have a perfectly fine therapist on another platform I wasn't planning to ask for a different therapist. I just wasn't planning to complete my sessions for the month and definitely not renew the subscription. But seems that I missed that the charge is "recurring" and 200 euros where drawn from my account the minute one month pasted. I emailed them explaining everything, I said I haven't done the sessions and I am not planning to, you are basically taking money from me for nothing right now and I asked for a refund. Instead they offered a discount for the next 3 months! Are you kidding? I don't even want the first month! Just give me my money back.

I have been a Trauma-informed relationship psychotherapist for 20 years in Los Angeles and San Diego, California. Last year I moved to Kyiv, Ukraine to work on a trauma-informed virtual reality project for military and first responders. I have been working with BetterHelp as a main source of my income and livelihood. Since the war began I have been asking for support with my clients to communicate that I was unable to reach clients while I was in underground bomb shelters and have tried to reach clients but lost internet and Wi-Fi connections. They failed both me and my clients by not reaching out to them or me and in fact making matters worse they would simply copy and paste the same responses to me without a real solution. In addition, they reduced and stopped my client load as I was helping refugees in Kyiv cross the boarder into Poland, Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria. They have been unhelpful, help in lacking communication, empathy, support and professionalism during a very personally challenging time. This company should not be in the mental health business and recommend action steps to prevent this company from working with both clients and therapists. This has been a perpetual, pervasive and personal problem as they also made it impossible for me to support both clients and my own personal journey from the war zone. In addition I was getting my health care benefits of $650 per month where I was required to maintain 120 hours per month but not making it possible for me to make this a sustainable part of the work I do with only 50 clients per week. I had done my due diligence and due process to ensure clients were given duty of care during this very real and legitimate crisis. They offered free 6 months of therapy to Ukrainians whom I have referred to and they were denied this free service which is a false promotion for those that I have referred that are family and friends. This company has multiple failings for clients and the therapists that are providing the resources.

I’m a licensed AND supervisory therapist with 15yrs experience. I was contacted by them! While going through the process I was assigned a very inept condescending recruiter named “Joel McBride” his profile pic on LinkedIn shows it all. (Tell me that pick doesn’t “oooze” contempt). The guy was completely unprofessional. I went through every step as he said. Yet, he couldn’t keep to the agreed timeline. He’d schedule calls for 1:30pm and call at 1:05pm. I’d point this out even with emails as proof and he’d claim our call was at 1pm. So why call late? Then he'd spend 5 minutes complaining he had to make 20 calls a day.

He’d tell me one thing I’d do it then I’d receive an email from the home office asking for something else. I’d tell him about it and he’d begin the “uh oh uh” routine quickly turning it on me saying he told me that. Again, thank you documentation!

Then I just took the time from curiosity to see how legit their posted reviews are. Several therapists they list with reviews DONT even work for them! The place is a scam! Why they bothered to recruit me I have no clue but their complete lack of professional business culture / model is reflective.

Stay FAR AWAY!

It is very important for anyone signing on to this service to know they will bill you a monthly fee. This fee is paid in advance of any sessions you may receive with a therapist. So, if you only meet with a therapist one time, the monthly charge is still the same. This is not disclosed up front and is incredibly difficult for people on a budget who can't normally afford therapy.

I began BetterHelp therapy in January 2021 and, on the basis that I was told that sessions would be available as regularly as I required, I paid the 4 weekly subscription. Between January and April I attempted to book regular sessions, which my therapist initially agreed to. However, to my memory my therapist only actually attended 3 full sessions between January and April. On 3 occasions she turned up over 15 minutes late, and for the remainder of the sessions she was unable to attend due to a family bereavement. I was very understanding about the latter situation, on the assumption that I would not be charged for these missed sessions. In April I eventually told my therapist that I would not be continuing with the sessions - there was no regularity or consistency and I was beginning to feel worse, and I also was due to return to work after lockdown and fitting in sessions on the off chance she might be available seemed unwise. My therapist was aware that I present with many symptoms of ADHD and had suggested a diagnosis - I would therefore have expected that she would make me aware of the subscription cancellation procedure. Instead, she left me assuming that by telling her I no longer wanted therapy that I would no longer be charged after my subscription ended. She continued to send me messages simply saying 'Hi!' and occasionally asking how I was, one of which I responded to on the assumption that she was just checking in on a former client as she didn't explicitly offer any further sessions. I am in receipt of student loans so am used to having more money in my account than reflects my earnings as I am due to pay this extra as university fees, so did not notice that I had consistently been charged £180 every 4 weeks between January and August, despite informing the therapist that I no longer required sessions and despite the therapist cancelling over almost 2 month's worth of sessions. When I discovered some of her single-word messages in my junk email, I checked my bank account and was horrified to see that I had continued to be charged all the way through from January to August. She was fully aware that I was in a vulnerable, overwhelmed and overworked state and I believe that she took advantage of my confused and unwell mind state to her own financial benefit. I feel utterly betrayed; this is a blatant breach of a counsellor's duty of care. I will be strongly advising friends, family and colleagues to avoid using this service and I will take this further if I am not refunded for the financial loss which will significantly impact my ability to pay my university fees and will increase the mental distress that I initially sought to treat via BetterHelp.
I am attaching pictures of the invoices - I know that several of these live chats were significantly shortened by the therapist's lateness but this is not reflected on the invoices, which only show whether I attended or not.

My account was compromised I have written four times and they are not contacting me back. What kind of place provide therapy services where if you get locked out you cannot get back if your account is compromised. They need to have a phone number I'm not going to stop complaining to process until they have a phone number and care about the welfare of their clients. I tried it completely wrong that people who needs therapy can not Contact their therapist if They lose their emails they can't find anyone to talk to? No need to change.

The customer support line is an answering service. They took my money then assigned me to a counselor who already had a full case load. They sign correspondence for their employees without their consent or knowledge and this creates an environment where there is questionable security surrounding the app/chat/video conferencing between client and provider. This undermines their business model. Avoid at all costs. 0/10

I signed up on the 19th of Jan for better help, never having done anything like this before, with money I did not have (it is budgeted out of my grocery money for the next month) - as I am at the end of my rope and my limits of what I can handle with economic losses from pandemic year and now need to think clearly as I am about to lose my home and there are no jobs offers coming. 48 hrs later, I still had the same message "finding counselor for you" - and when I looked up billing, it said I would be auto charged Feb 16th, but I had no services yet. Then I get a message from them stating 'sorry it is taking so long' but that my membership would not start until a counselor is assigned. So miraculously, of course a counselor is assigned — then - I get a note from that mismatched counselor — that I need to request another one as she didn't feel qualified to address my issues? This is now the 22nd of Jan. I have written them to either admit they do not have a counselor and refund me my full amount (and am humiliated to have to admit that I really need the money if they cannot provide help) and that if they actually do, I want a full month of services as paid — which as of now, is down to a little over 3 weeks. And of course, during the weekend, I expect to hear nothing...

If I do need to report them to various therapy associations as well as the BBB — want to know if anyone has had their money back, ever? Will I have issues quitting or do I need to just tell the cc company to make sure none of their charges go through ever again?

I signed up with Better Help after seeing an ad on YouTube. I was assigned a counselor that I had 2 phone calls during the first 2 weeks. The counselor never discussed the terms of the subscription which supposedly allowed for unlimited sessions. In back of my mind I kept thinking I have paid for 4 sessions over 4 weeks. After the first session and not feeling my counselor was performing an assessment, I searched for feedback on this service. I was appalled by the derogatory comments I read about BetterHelp. I told my counselor that I wouldn't be scheduling a week 3 session. The reason, which I didn't convey, was my daughter was staying with me and I felt a lack of privacy. I went to schedule a call on Monday of this week for the 21st but was told my subscription was ending on the 20th. I felt the company was deliberately trying to confuse customers and wasn't trying to ensure the understanding of the ongoing terms of the services they purchased. This was such a negative experience that people considering the service should run away before they pay $400+ Canadian for 2 sessions in which I received little to no insight into a potential course of action to manage my issue. Finally, all of this occurred under Covid and I feel this company was exploiting the situation and carelessly preying on people with mental health challenges.

After making one month payment for theraphy sessions I have chosen a counselor. Although she accepted me as a client she was not responsive and I lost my time and energy with her. I chose a second cıunselor. We have arranged an appointment. After waiting for the appointment she cancelled it at the very last minute saying that her husband is ill. And she did not guide me the other day eventhogh she has promised. I have found a third counselor. In our first session he told me that I need emdr and we could do it in the next session. I have waited for the next session but his camera was not wıorking which is necessary for emdr. We have arranged a third appointment. One day before he told me that his camera will not be working. He told me that it is because of the hurricane. I would like to quit my membership and get a refund for the left period of one month?

Better Help. On line counseling services.

After registration and payment of the first month in full, it took some 3 weeks to get matched to a counselor which was not in my first, nor second nor third list choices (these lists where said to be lost in their system). That process involved more that 12 emails (mostly every other day) each from a different person, who had not apparently read my previous communications not the lists. I kept adding their names successively in the subject line of my emails, noting ATT: each time. Messages sent in their system generate no record, so I started copying and pasting to regular emails. In the last email after my complaining about this behavior they acknowledged that my first early request therapist was not available. Finally I was matched with a lady from yet a fourth list. The lost time was adjusted in my billing.

After having extensively described my habits and issues in their initial materials, plus a couple of extensive letters before the first call (that took also two weeks -the only choice for a phone call -she does no video calls- in the following week was at 4:00am my time, which I refused. Finally in the call, she listened politely, asked questions and reflected each time "I am so sorry you have experienced that", and suggested a book on anxiety and panic attacks, and directed we would start with the nutrition section. I am a scientist and sort of a health practitioner, including yoga. I emailed her rapidly after reading over the nutrition section and politely said that was all covered. Then she switched to the exercise chapter (I am a yoga teacher and professional dressage rider). In the meantime she wrote two emails in response to mine again with "I am so sorry you are experiencing these problems". On 2 occasions, plus is the prelim materials I have specifically stated I need help with attachment and connection issues, to no avail. No direct questions about this in the session or in the email communications.

Now in the second week ongoing I realize we have no call scheduled. She says "yes the client is responsible for scheduling". Here she offers in this week another 4:00am slop (10:00pm in the US). No video calls, as she finds them "distracting". I am quite frustrated, and find this is not for me. So after 20 days, I have decided to cancel and go to a therapist here in person, even of my not-so-great German will make things a little harder.

Specifically the prospect of enduring through another lottery and random nightly emails from the disconnected personnel in order to change therapists is stressing me out. I will not do it. Their system of hundreds of therapists has no filter function, and every time you select one for inspection, the system send you back to the beginning of the list. No discerning order of how they are organized; in one occasion I spent 2 hours looking for a therapist I had identified before and failed to copy and paste in a Word document, something that I learned to do as a last resource.

I have requested a full refund on the basis that the whole experience was of no help. The immediate email answering to my cancellation notice very polite from a computer, no mention of a refund. I want to ensure I receive the 240 euros back. Can you help me?
Sincerely, Isabel Valencia email: [protected]@usa.net

Signed up with better help and while I was mildly okay with the services I was receiving, it was just too expensive to continue. So I quit after speaking with my therapist but the same day I quit, they charged my card again. I have emailed several times and after nearly 2 weeks, still no refund. They just keep telling me it takes "several days" im pretty sure most refunds dont take 2 weeks. Im really frustrated because now im late on rent and it's literally their fault. I was charged 3 days early as well. You can bet I wont resign up and I wont recommend them to anyone

On August 6, 2020 I was charged immediately for an entire month and after 12 hours still no update nor assignment to a counselor. There is an option to cancel subscription but none to request refund (even after not using the service at all). Cancellation receives the automated e-mail response with no customer service number to contact a live representative:

BetterHelp.com Unsubscribe
8:16 PM (18 minutes ago)
to me

Hi MT,

We'd like to confirm that you have canceled your subscription with BetterHelp. You will be able to continue counseling until September 3, 2020 when your current subscription ends. Note: Your sessions history may become unavailable after your subscription ends.

If you would like to continue your subscription, please click here.

Thanks,
BetterHelp Team

IMPORTANT: Please remember that online counseling is not appropriate for crisis situations. If you need immediate attention please call now [protected]-TALK (24 hours hotline). If you or anyone else might be in danger please call 911 or go to the nearest emergency room. Also, please note that this email was not written by a counselor and doesn't constitute as counseling.

The only ACCEPTABLE resolution to my complaint is a refund of the unused service fees.

I signed up for betterhelp for just one day and hoped to have online therapy conveniently, i live in gcc and they paired me up with a part time therapist that i have to keep up with her schedule, i realized they should have therapists devoted to the online counseling who are near the patient's country because we chose the online therapy and pay for it to be convenient and easy. I want a full refund because i canceled my subscription and haven't used any of their services. I realized its not going to work for me due to time differences and my schedule since i am a student. Please refund my money.

Hello,
I am very blessed but decided to come to the site for extra supports during the shelter in place and still working. I am a Christian who requested a Black Christian female counselor or a counselor who is Christian. I did not hear back from the person assigned to me during this time on 4/25 after being switched a day prior since the person I was assigned to the day prior moved my apt a week out without any notice. She also replied to my message with information I couldn't read or understand with a lot of words misspelled which would be important if you are counseling. Since this has been the experience I requested my private personal data on the site but it won't allow me to download after various attempts. I wish I would've read these reviews prior to signing up.