To want a refund for therapy?

[KittenDayzy]

I started online therapy a couple of weeks ago, for my second session I prepaid £50. Unfortunately on the day of the session my childcare fell through so I emailed the therapist explaining the situation and asked if it was possible to rearrange. She said yes but I would be charged £50 for the session anyway due to less than 24 hours notice. I replied saying I’d go ahead then.

i joined the meeting but she didn’t turn up, I emailed her 10 mins in to chase and stayed on the call until 45 minutes in when she emailed back saying she hadn’t seen my emails, she’d been out gardening. So she asked how I wanted to proceed. At this point I’m thinking therapy is more stress than it’s worth when you have a baby so I asked for a refund for the session. She’s refusing to give me one, referring back to the 24 hour clause.

however, I would never have asked to rearrange if I thought I would lose my money, I attended the session and sat waiting and even emailed her (I don’t have a phone number).

Am I being unreasonable to expect my money back?

Did you reply straight away?

it was your mistake

How soon did you reply and how soon before the session was it? Did the tone of your first email suggest you absolutely couldn’t do it with the baby at home (and so she wouldn’t expect you to change your mind and go ahead)?
if you’d have cancelled you’d have been charged anyway- the 24 hour cut off is reasonable and very common.

Yes, you're being unreasonable. As far as she was concerned you wanted to rearrange as per your message. She doesn't have to be available to read and respond to emails at short notice.

i understand the cancelling within 24 hrs policy it’s the same with lots of things that you book in advance. You will lose your money or deposit at least if you cancel within this time frame. Which I understand as you have taken a space which could be filled with another client.

When you replied and said you would go ahead with the session anyway how much time had passed since the therapist had replied about telling you about the charge before you replied saying you would go ahead?

Few factors to consider first. The time stamps should be on all the emails etc.

It was the therapists mistake as she didn’t wait for confirmation that OP was cancelling the session. OP said she’s only asked if it was possible to rearrange.

I can understand your frustration but I can also see where the wires were crossed.

You emailed to say you couldn’t attend due to childcare fallen through and wanted to reschedule. She emailed you that you’d be charged cancellation.

You still were (although not ideal) able to attend therapy which is why you tried to log on and wait.

I’m also interested to know the time frames between emails.

If a friend messaged me to say they could no longer meet for our meal out because their childcare fell through can you reschedule, Id reply saying that’s a shame another time? But I might not check my phone after that because I might if made me new plans, put my phone away etc. I would find it harsh if the friend messaged me back 30 mins later to say actually let’s still meet and then had a go at me for not seeing the message.

How long was there between your two emails and how close to the session was the last one saying you wouldn’t cancel? Assuming it wasn’t very close to the session, I’d email her and say ‘as per my reply during our email correspondence, I decided to go ahead with the session as planned after realising there was a 24 hour clause which is of course reasonable. Its unfortunate that you didn’t read the last part of our conversation but as it was X hours before the start of the session, there was ample time to do so and I’m afraid I’m not willing to shoulder the cost of the session that you missed as a result’

This may well be the end of your relationship with her but it’s either that or suck it up and lose the money (I wouldn’t be ok with that either, assuming your response wasn’t ages after your first email and immediately before the session in which case yes it’s on you).

I’d guess she did see your second message saying youd go ahead, but it was a better deal for her if she didn’t see it… paid for doing zero work.

Id find someone else if you think the sessions would be beneficial or bin it entirely as too stressful. I wouldn’t use her again.

You may not get a refund but you can vote with your feet and not return. It depends on whether you think this will damage your therapeutic relationship or not.

I would say it depends on how long it took you to reply and say you would come anyway? Was it a few minutes, or a few hours?

Well, there’s no way you can have an actual relationship with her as therapist-client, so I’d push for the money back. Equally, however, she’s got no incentive to play nicely.

I’m sorry but no refund, and therapy is worth it, but you have to be able to make a commitment
for it to be effective. You would have signed a contract with the cancellation policy in it.
i would not assume that someone cancelling for childcare would suddenly be able to attend when I reminded them of a cancellation policy.
maybe you could look for a therapist who can work with you having your baby with you, if this is going to be a recurrent issue.

I think you should not ask for a refund in these circumstances. You could not do the session and cancelled. It is not appropriate to go ahead when you have a baby in the house, so you could not be fully present in the session. The therapist should not be out of pocket due to your childcare situation.

Therapists still have to pay their costs, whether you show up or not. And if you cancel or rearrange at very short notice, they have no chance to fill that slot. If I were her I would have logged on anyway, but she is not wrong to charge you.

If you had a nail or hair appointment and cancelled close to the session, you would get charged. Why would therapy be different.

I just think there’s too much ambiguity in how definitively it was cancelled. Plus, the therapist got her time back. If she had sat staring at a blank monitor, absolutely patent she should keep her fee though.

This was your fault. You asked to cancel last minute it is perfectly reasonable for the therapist to still need to charge. If she offered a refund or to rearrange every client who did this it would be utter madness, her diary would be all over the place or she’d be losing out on a lot of money.

You cancelled, then changed your mind which shows you didn’t really need to cancel. She’s not a mind reader to know you changed your mind back again. You had cancelled the session, why would she still be there waiting on the zoom session?

If the roles were reversed and someone was trying to mess you about with your line of work I’m sure you’d understand.

You’re not entitled to a refund. You told her you couldn’t make the session (with less than 24 hours notice) and wanted to rearrange. You then changed your mind when you realised you’d still have to pay for the session (so what happened to the childcare issue?!). I suspect as soon as you told her you couldn’t make it, she took the opportunity to have a break before her next session (usually therapists will be booked in back to back sessions) and it was only when she logged in again just before her next session starting that she saw you’d changed your mind. None of it is her fault and it is entirely down to you.

YABVU and have no right to a refund. The 24hr cancellation policy was clear and you had contacted her to say that you were unable to attend. You had only met once before so she has no idea if you’re flakey, unreliable and likely to mess her around moving forwards. Perhaps if your relationship was more established she would know if this is out of character for you, but at the beginning I’d expect her to use the cancellation policy as a tool to weed out those people who are not in a place to prioritise therapy.

Sorry I think this is on you OP.

Can you post the exact wording of your request? Did you explicitly say something which, in that single self-contained email, would be taken as a request to cancel? Or was the wording more like, “I think I’ll need to cancel” - ie giving a heads up of a possibility?

I also have a 24 hour cancellation policy but I use common sense in a situation like this where there is a misunderstanding, particularly as you confirmed again before the session was due to start that you did in fact want it. That message was sent during her working hours and there’s a reasonable expectation she should read it. I think in the situation I’d press for a credit for a future session rather than a refund as you didn’t cancel the session - she simply failed to read her email which told her this. It’s a mix of errors and communication issues.

I'm a therapist offering flexibility with online sessions to parents with small children.

In the situation you describe, if it were possible for me to do so, I'd offer you another session instead, as I would see it as an understandable mistake and I understand childcare difficulties. I'd do this because it's an understandable mistake on your part not to wait for a confirmation and on the therapist's part not to check for your reply (that is, if your reply was very soon after the original email exchange).

However, I might have a busy schedule and not be able to offer another session time that week.

My contract requires a fee to be paid unless I have sufficient notice. I am flexible, but I make the limitations of my flexibility clear from the start (I explain that if childcare issues arise last minute, I can try to find another time slot, but otherwise require the fee to be paid).

If your contract requires 24 hours' notice, your therapist has done nothing wrong here and it could be helpful to talk about your frustration in the next session.

A lot depends on the wording of your first email, and whether it was reasonable for her to take it as a cancellation.

I think yabu because you've messed her about quite a bit. She has a life just like you do. You need to give adequate notice.
Therapy can be really good but you need to properly commit to it and put it first. It sounds like you were only doing it because you couldn't get the money back if you cancelled.
It can be scary starting therapy but you have to give it your full attention for it to be of any use. If you decide to do it again make sure nothing is going to get in the way of it and that you are firm in your decision.

YABU to expect most small businesses to be able to just rearrange an appointment. They survive by filling appointments and suddenly having a free slot - especially for therapy- isn’t a magic opportunity for them. They are very unlikely to be able to fill it.

YABVU for expecting flexibility in when you can have appointments. In not understanding that one of the foundations of therapy is to create firm boundaries and a safe space. That means committing to a certain time and place. If you don’t go you have to pay. And really that payment acts as a reservation for future therapy at that time going forwards. A therapist isn’t a dentist or doctor who has people queuing up to be fitted in to a one off appointment. An empty space stays empty until it is filled up by a different patient who will then take on that slot going forwards.

Therapy is a process and part of that process is about creating a commitment. You are not going to find a (decent) therapist who is going to be happy with seeing you at 5pm on a Tuesday one week and then 3pm on a Thursday the following week because that better suits your schedule.

That said, your therapist is BU if they didn’t talk you through all this at the start. Though really it is the sort of thing you might be expected to have read up on before starting the process.

YABU and NBU to think of giving it up. It’s completely understandable but it’s so worth sticking at. Therapy is like dieting or exercise or learning a new skill. It takes commitment and it’s bloody hard work. You will spring forwards some days and then spend weeks feeling that it’s all going backwards. But the benefits eventually are worth all the grind and upset and expense.