Around this time last year, a major scandal broke, involving YouTube creators with audiences in the hundreds of thousands or even millions, advertising a “counselling service”* as a substitute for therapy, which the company’s TOS clearly stated it wasn’t.

*A correction is needed; they are advertising a counsellor service, as opposed to a counselling service, which is their legal way to weasel themselves out of responsibilities towards those using it.

Anyone who looked into it soon discovered their TOS guaranteed nothing (not even counselling itself, let alone the quality of it), excluded people dealing with pressing mental health issues and invested heavily in advertising. Alternative media channels heavily pushed it around the same time (I remember David Pakman and TYT specifically).

Moreover, many subscribers of said creators (who were paid 200$ per person when referrals were made through them) were young and impressionable, looking for answers on their mental health concerns on YouTube of all places. Creators were encouraged to describe their own issues and laud the service as priceless and affordable, whilst many who had tried it peppered the Internet with negative reviews, calling the it a borderline scam.

As a result of the backlash, most channels distanced temselves weeks later and never mentioned it again.

Fast forward to 2019 and, lo and behold, around Mental Health Awareness Day in October, the net was cast again on YouTube, this time through smaller creators. Again with the links, creators’ personal disclosures for advertising purposes, and sponsorships, just like last year.

The issues remain, and judging by the odd recent review that doesn’t blatantly read like an advert, it’s business as usual.

Advertising unrealistic access to support

People in need of immediate advice might not realise what is being advertised is not feasible. Unlimited access to support from a counsellor, 24/7. That’s simply impossible.

To begin with, you are paired with one counsellor at a time; surely you cannot expect that person to be available 24/7, at weekends and the like. It’s just a job, however invested one is; people have a life and cannot be there at all times. You wouldn’t call your lawyer on a Sunday, except maybe in a dire emergency, or at 2 in the morning, just as you would expect to get time off your own job.

Obviously you can write to your counsellor at any hour, but cannot expect real time communication whenever you feel you need it.

Moreover, many people have reported receiving no time whatsoever (appointments regulalry missed or rescheduled by counsellors). This being one appointment per week, with the next one available the following one, meaning BetterHelp continued to take money from these people for services not provided and strung them along. Theoretically, they still had “access” to the platform, even if in practice that amounted to no time from counsellors, therefore no help at all.

Treating people seeking counselling as any other customer and booting them off

Businesses can chose whom to provide services to in exchange for money, and apart from protected characteristics (race, sexual orientation etc) they can discriminate against anyone for any reason.

This company does not provide healthcare services itself; they are a just a business and their ethics show it.

First off, they make the service exclusionary based on the severity of the issues people have, assuming these people know exactly what’s wrong with them and therefore should not try to use BetterHelp if they are “aware” they don’t fit the mould.

Of course that’s unethical; it’s like asking people to self-diagnose before they seek help in the first place.

Secondly, mental health is such a delicate issue and booting off someone who is in immediate need of counselling (but is reluctant to call an emergency number right away and be hospitalised – in the US, including for monetary reasons) might just push them over the edge. You don’t play around with such interactions and doing so is irresponsible.

If they can’t cover the ethical handling of every possible situation that might occur, they should not be in that sector to begin with.

At times it’s like talking to Alexa

Many reviewers have pointed this out.

The counselling service, with certain counsellors, consists of being sent worksheets and filling them out, to be given generic answers and be sent more worksheets; meanwhile, any request for personalised advice on a certain matter, which the they had signed up for to begin with, is repeatedly ignored.

It surely looks like said cousellors are trying to go through the motions and “send something tangentially relevant” to the person in need of help, in order to get paid.

Disclaiming all the way to the bank

The present TOS, last updated in September of this year, bsedides being professionally written this time, make no substantial changes to the policies of this company. Again they guarantee nothing at all and the extent of their liability cannot surpass three months of payments made by the client. I guess it’s better than robbing them blind, but regardless.

YOU UNDERSTAND, AGREE AND ACKNOWLEDGE THAT THE PLATFORM IS PROVIDED “AS IS” WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO MERCHANTABILITY, NON-INFRINGEMENT, SECURITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR ACCURACY.

I added the emphasis as they could clearly be intermediating for crappy services which are not fit for purpose and couldn’t give a monkey’s. They are just the middle man and out to make money, so who cares about “accuracy”?

Again, this is mental health we’re talking about, as opposed to, say, an agency for birthday party clowns. Almost no service an agency can operate within, aside from those with an impact on physical safety, carries such responsibility.

Aggressive and deceptive advertising

This month, one YouTube creator put up a video describing how hard they try to lure influencers, even with smaller platforms, into promoting BetterHelp. It’s the type of insistence one would expect from an MLM.

This person was contacted by them directly, declined in no uncertain terms to be associated with their company, and was recently contacted by a third party proposing a collaboration based on mental health, to then realise the third party was fishing for the company and ultimately, the collaboration would be with BetterHelp. They were puzzled, as anyone would be.

By now everyone knows BetterHelp pays for false reviews, as has been amply demonstrated last year, particularly where video reviews were concerned (which were swiftly removed from the site).

The stellar written revirews, which by sheer number drown out the negative ones, come across as false – flawlessly written as if they were adverts, touching on the same points and always mentioning the counsellor’s name. They all seem to follow a script.

Have a look at the reviews here; a clear pattern emerges – every one star review describing a particular experience is followerd by 4-5 excellent ones in order to game the rating system.

“Thereapy at your fingertips”; “BetterHelp has been a game changer” etc. Some even use the same text, though posted by different reviewers.

“BetterHelp is a reliable plattform to find trained professionals in mental health. They make a close following of the user issues and respond any question in timely manner.”

They must have a whole department dedicated to policing online reviews and gaming algorithms.

Pro tip to avoid scams: if you mostly see 5 star and 1 star reviews, watch out, as chances are there’s something dodgy going on. Reviews would normally be more nuanced. If it’s mostly “this is amazing”, versus “this is a complete scam”, look into the company more thoroughly before engaging with it.