Email/phone agreement by a Hypnotherapist

lateandlive

I'd offer some advice but I think it's all been said above - so good luck. In reality, she probably won't understand the words in the letter because she appears to have a very bad grasp of logic.

If her hourly rate is £500 and she charged you £4500 in total at £200 a month then over the course of 2 years she'll be helping you for 18 hours. Or in other words less than an hour a month. If she's offering more than that every 4 weeks she's seriously doing herself out of money, stupid cow. Even if you HAD have agreed to a contract via email (which you haven't) then unless it stipulates the stupid charges she's making of you then it's got less weight than a feather.

ANYWAY! Like the others have said, all that's happened is she's seen an opportunity with the rubbish situations you were having to deal with, to extract more from you than was ever required. In all honesty, and it might not be something you feel comfortable doing if you'd rather just have it all finished and done with, but i'd be putting a claim in to HER for the money she realistically owes YOU. If she wants to claim your contract via email is binding then SHE'S broken it by offering you no sessions to this point!

leebtyler

sorry was going to add, if the phone calls are part of the therapy, then yes, she can bill for them.

scheming_gypsy

leebtyler wrote: »

oh and yes, the phone calls are billable! just saying.

arranged phone calls though surely? I'm pretty sure the OP said she just kept phoning her randomly rather than phoning as part of the course. If phone calls like that were billable we'd all be at it and raking it in.

scheming_gypsy

leebtyler wrote: »

sorry was going to add, if the phone calls are part of the therapy, then yes, she can bill for them.

well that answered my question while i was asking it.. lol

paddyrg

Whittleme wrote: »

There I was thinking I would arm myself with some legal terms to compose my letter so it showed I had taken advice!

The difficulty with that as an approach can be that some legalese words have very specific legal meanings, and those meanings may not be what they sound like they mean (if you get what I mean!). A judge will find it harder to understand incorrectly used legalese than plain robust English, and it is the message, not the wrapping which is important. Probably wise to be a tad more polite than my versions above, though ;-)

Hintza

If I was in your shoes OP I would be following the advice given. I think her claim is more like a penalty and I would prefer her to justify that in court.

I do feel a very slight niggle though.

What surprises me is she has been so greedy. She would appear to gave an agreement with you by your own admittance. My question is:- Why hasn't she sent you an invoice detailing her reasonable costs to date.

sarahg1969

OP, was this therapy to consist only of telephone sessions? Or was she offering face-to-face meetings as well? Where did you find this therapist.

Whittleme

Thank you leebtyler for taking the time to reponse to my question.

leebtyler wrote: »

as a qualified hypnotherapist who does clinics on a weekend, i can honestly say im not sure where shes coming from on this one.

first off, with any treatment or "therapy" if you so wish a HUGE amount of work goes into preparing a course of treatment, for example when i take on a new client i usually have a face meeting and 2-3 phonecalls where i ask specific questions and get the client to open up and so i can understand them and figure out how they "work" mentally speaking.

with any cognative therapy a LOT of groundwork goes into making a course up, usually hours and hours and hours, this is even before you start the therapy, be it on CD / Phone or face visits, its not all watch the dangling watch you know!! some of us are professionals!! I do believe this all to be true and that is why I had agreed to start this with this woman, but she did not even start any work on me so how can she charge £1500 for a few emails and texts to arrange dates and send me a handful of initial questions?

ask her for a detailed breakdown on work "done" what materials she has used, what preperation has been done, and what has actually been produced so far, verbal contracts are pointless, and impossible to prove in court so i wouldnt worry about that! she cant charge for a service not provided. This is an extract from her actual email in red (spelling mistakes and all) - Time I have already spent working on your behalf – as I explained it takes me the best part of the 30 minutes – 45 minutes to get all the document together and email together which I worked of your behalf, (she has send me 1 email to send me the invoice and a list of questions such as my eating history, life history etc. Another email listing the dates that we will actually speak about what has been going on and start the therapy another 6/7 emails asking if I got her texts/emails etc.) I then since then have spent quiet a lot of time, emailing, texting (texts such as how are you, with my answer as 'fine thanks' she considers as 'working' on me) etc to see how you where getting on so I estimate that I have spent so far – including time today date spent in the region of an hour and a half working on your behalf – this is every time since you said “yes I want to go ahead” where my time has been spent working on your behalf since the initial consultation which is all emails, text messages, creating documnets (This is one word document she probably sends to everyone and anyone listing the questions I have listed above, so not personalised to me in anyway), telephone calls (We have had 2 telephone conversations 1st was the initial 'free 1 hour consultation which was for 45minutes the 2nd conversation was for 15minutes to get 9 telephone appointments sorted out 3 for 30mins. 6 for 1 hr. No 'therapy' was done we just spoke about dates) etc etc – I explained my hourly rate to you and that my reason for not charging per hour when on these programmes as it would add up to significant more. (Never did she say to me if I were to stop at anytime that all the time would be charged at £500 per hour!)
Writing texts, emails. Checking them etc etc all takes up a lot of time, hence why solicitors charge by the minute in most cases- for example its taken me the best part of 20 minutes now to read your email, reply, check the email etc etc which is all my chargeable time and vie included in my time above. (This was her response to my question for the breakdown of her work).

oh and yes, the phone calls are billable! just saying.

Yes I completely agree with you and I would have paid if we had started the telephone sessions, my first one was meant to start in Jan 19th 2012 and it was for 1/2 an hour the 2nd was in Feb 2 for 1/2 an hour and so on. BUT we hadn't started anything as I had not sent her all the information she was after which was my life/eating history, Food/day diaries. I thought I would start them in Jan as we were going through the festive season and I was just about to pack up for a trip to my in-laws 5 hours from me and wasn't due back till the new year. I don't want to cheat anyone, I am happy to pay for any work she has done but she has not done anything but bombard me 'check your text emails and how are you text messages - do I really owe £1500 for that?? Also I let her know immediately that I couldn't carry on once I had spoken to my husband about the threat of redundency.

Please be honest and tell me if I saying anything unreasonable here.

Whittleme

lateandlive wrote: »

I'd offer some advice but I think it's all been said above - so good luck. In reality, she probably won't understand the words in the letter because she appears to have a very bad grasp of logic.

If her hourly rate is £500 and she charged you £4500 in total at £200 a month then over the course of 2 years she'll be helping you for 18 hours. Or in other words less than an hour a month. If she's offering more than that every 4 weeks she's seriously doing herself out of money, stupid cow. Sorry I haven't mentioned that I was to pay £200 every month but there were to be 2 months where I had to pay £1000, one was before we actually meet face to face for a day and the next £1000 was where she requested it. Even if you HAD have agreed to a contract via email (which you haven't) I haven't had a contract which I could look at and to agree to no BUT I had agreed via telephone and via email to go ahead and I had also paid her £200 on the 22nd of Dec via BACS then unless it stipulates the stupid charges she's making of you then it's got less weight than a feather.

ANYWAY! Like the others have said, all that's happened is she's seen an opportunity with the rubbish situations you were having to deal with, to extract more from you than was ever required. This is what shocks me about her the most she was so nice when we first spoke and now she has turned nasty, it's shows she only cared about the money and not at all about helping me. In all honesty, and it might not be something you feel comfortable doing if you'd rather just have it all finished and done with, but i'd be putting a claim in to HER for the money she realistically owes YOU. This is was the person at Consumer Helpline said too but you know I told her I was happy for her to keep the £200 but all I want is her to stop threating me. She has sent 2 emails saying I can carry on with the agreed payment plan (£200 per/mth & 2 x £1000 and finish the 'therapy' with her which I think is madness considering how she has treated me, how she can think I would want to do anything with her is beyond me) or pay her £1300 for her time 'working' on me to date. If she wants to claim your contract via email is binding then SHE'S broken it by offering you no sessions to this point!

My main problem is how the courts (if she takes me to court) will view my verbal/email agreement and if I will be made to pay her the £1300. If my husband is made redundant we will not have that kind of money to hand over to her. We had cut back on several things so that we could save and pay her for what she had quoted in the first place, and with no job that sort of money would be impossible to find.

Whittleme

scheming_gypsy wrote: »

arranged phone calls though surely? I'm pretty sure the OP said she just kept phoning her randomly rather than phoning as part of the course. If phone calls like that were billable we'd all be at it and raking it in.

Thank you scheming_gypsy for championing me!!

You are right she had not started our arranged 'therapy' calls. She just emailed and texted one/two liners of pure nonsense nothing to do with any 'therapy' during the festive period (while she is supposed to be on holiday) I did not ask her to do this, I kep saying I'll catch up with her in the new year, alarm bells started to ring then to be honest as both my husband and I couldn't understnd why she was bombarding me during the Christmas break, while we were away with family.