Email/phone agreement by a Hypnotherapist

unholyangel

Whittleme wrote: »

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

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.

You're not being unreasonable at all.

As I previously said in another post, it is entirely possible that you are due some of your monies paid back. She can only claim for quantifiable losses and she has a duty to mitigate her losses.

IMO she can't claim texts asking how are you? are of relevant significance unless she can show that you agreed to these as part of the "therapy". And personally, if i received such texts from a supposed "professional", they would make me uneasy. It is behaviour I would expect from a friend, not what I would expect from any kind of therapist unless they were asking in person (as in therapy, body language is extremely important and often tells the truth more than we do by speaking).

Whittleme

paddyrg wrote: »

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 ;-)

Right again paddyrg!! Thank you!

Yes I will probably use the terms in the wrong context and confuse the matter further, I'll just stick to plain English and in my own words... much safer!

lateandlive

Not in the slightest, Whittleme.

Without wanting to sound stereotypical, she sounds like she's found a course that was fairly cheap and 'qualified' her to do something that sounded specialist. She's set herself up in business (by the way - have you checked her on the register at http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/809e00812a1f363a3b55991290884c2c/wcframe?name=accessCompanyInfo to see if she's a registered business?) and is charging stupid amounts to people she hoped wouldn't catch up with her. Unfortunately, you questioned her, meaning she's now trying to scare you so she can keep herself in the OTT lifestyle she's become accustomed to.

Don't let her buy the next fur rug.

Whittleme

Hintza wrote: »

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.

Thank you for your response Hintza.

Yes everyone has been right from the start and yes I will follow the advice given. I considered the £200 as a penalty and that is why I was happy to let her keep it, even though if my own financial situation gets worse I could do with it back but I won't persue it.

This is her 'detailed' explaination of why she wants me to pay another £1300 to appease her.

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, I then since then have spent quiet a lot of time, emailing, texting 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, telephone calls 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.

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
I have witten explainations of what some of her ranting mean in an earlier post, honestly most people could do all that she has done in half an hour at the most!

sarahg1969

OP, it looks to me as though this woman is a real scammer, who is trying to fleece you of as much money as possible, without providing you with any kind of service. I'd be surprised if she really would take you to court. She's more likely to move on to her next victim, I feel.

Where did you find her? What qualifications does she have? Is she a member of any recognised bodies? How far away from your home address is she? Has she offered any face-to-face counselling at all? It all seems very strange indeed.

lateandlive

She won't tae you to court because she risks exposing herself and all the other stuff she's done in the past. Simple as.

HB58

Ths person clearly has no idea of professional ethics or behaviour (because she is not a 'professional' in the real sense of the word). Frankly, no-one with a half decent grasp of English should have spent 20 minutes composing a semi-literate email!

I feel that you read the replies on here and gain some confidence, but it all seeps away again once you are on your own. Don't let this person bully you - stand up tall and tell yourself that you are worth more than this. Even if the 'work' that this woman has done is chargeable (which is disputable), the £200 that you have already paid her should more than cover this.

Please don't pay her any more money, and try not to lose anymore sleep about this.

Whittleme

unholyangel wrote: »

You're not being unreasonable at all.

As I previously said in another post, it is entirely possible that you are due some of your monies paid back. She can only claim for quantifiable losses and she has a duty to mitigate her losses.

IMO she can't claim texts asking how are you? are of relevant significance unless she can show that you agreed to these as part of the "therapy". And personally, if i received such texts from a supposed "professional", they would make me uneasy. It is behaviour I would expect from a friend, not what I would expect from any kind of therapist unless they were asking in person (as in therapy, body language is extremely important and often tells the truth more than we do by speaking).

Hi unholyangel! Thanks for your reply. I wrote a big reply to your pm last night but lost it due to losing internet connection then when I tried again it said I can't send another for email for another hour due to spamming even though I didn't even get to send it!!! I will reply to your pm soon x

'She has a duty to mitigate her losses' is EXACTLY word for word what the man from the Consumer helpline said!!! So it would be up to a judge to decide should she take me to court.

Yes her texts did make me feel uncomfortable, but me as always trying to see the best in people though she was being nice and friendly I never thought it was part of my 'therapy'.

unholyangel

Whittleme wrote: »

Hi unholyangel! Thanks for your reply. I wrote a big reply to your pm last night but lost it due to losing internet connection then when I tried again it said I can't send another for email for another hour due to spamming even though I didn't even get to send it!!! I will reply to your pm soon x

'She has a duty to mitigate her losses' is EXACTLY word for word what the man from the Consumer helpline said!!! So it would be up to a judge to decide should she take me to court.

Yes her texts did make me feel uncomfortable, but me as always trying to see the best in people though she was being nice and friendly I never thought it was part of my 'therapy'.

I got your first reply, which i also replied to. Unless perhaps you lost the reply to my 2nd pm? You can usually hit the back button and (most of the time but not always!) it will have your reply Take your time though, no rush

Seriously though, I wouldnt worry one iota about this. Perhaps a name and shame is in order so people can read an accurate review of just how "professional" she is before parting with any money to her.

Whittleme

lateandlive wrote: »

Not in the slightest, Whittleme.

Without wanting to sound stereotypical, she sounds like she's found a course that was fairly cheap and 'qualified' her to do something that sounded specialist. She's set herself up in business (by the way - have you checked her on the register at x x x to see if she's a registered business?) and is charging stupid amounts to people she hoped wouldn't catch up with her. Unfortunately, you questioned her, meaning she's now trying to scare you so she can keep herself in the OTT lifestyle she's become accustomed to.

Don't let her buy the next fur rug.

Thanks lateandlive.

The thing is she has been going for years, she is registered at companies house, is VAT registered too, also is NLP registered. I checked all this out before I got in touch as I wanted a professional person to help me. I think hynosis does work and maybe she would have helped me but why does she need to behave like this? If you are so in demand then you should have your next client lined up and keep my £200 as a penalty not chase me for more when she hasn't actually done a thing!

BUT since all this I have looked for reviews on her and she have a few strange ones which all look the same but under different names, none seem at all genuine, also another Hypnotherapist picked up on this and wrote a reply to a review to that effect!