Relate Avis 

We had a very good experience with some couples therapy. The service was professional, polite, respectful, thoughtful. Thanks to J for your your patience and support.

Me and the wife were in crisis. Divorce was our only solution we thought. We went to Relate in Hull and paid £50 for the initial consultation and poured out hearts out to the lady we saw. The lady told us that we would then have to 'Wait unil there's a free slot for your next consultation'. We have not been contacted for our 2nd consultation, no call back, they have not contacted us in any way. I'm annoyed that I have to give them a one star rating as this is not a service. How dare they take our money and not offer any support. For all they know we have divorced, I was on the verge of self harm and my wife was in a terrible state. They should be closed down.

I would give zero stars if I could. Assessment done at the end of June(2.9.2022 today)...no response to emails or messages. Because I'm "engaged" with Relate other local services will not support me. Waste of time and money. Please avoid.
B J

Useless, absolutely useless a complete waste of money. Do not be duped by the household name for marriage counselling as it would best be described as household waste, garbage.

I’d give less than one star if I could. Total and utter waste of time and money. About as much use as a chocolate tea pot… if you want to be told your husband’s affair and the breakdown of your marriage was all your fault then this is the place to go. In a word USELESS!

In a nut shell, if you were suicidal- this company's staff and attitudes would push you over the edge! AND its paid for!!

The complaints procedure is diabolical. The staff are compliant and un-caring and blatantly demonstrate this in your interactions with them. Seemingly this is fed down through the ranks as managers are flippant to address issues and prove to be extremely antagonistic.
For a company that is supposed to be in place to 'help' with whatever challenges their clients face, they in-fact cause more! _stress, distress, upset etc, just from sheer incompetence and de-sensitization within their roles.

I would AVOID this company at all costs.

Charged the top whack of £140. Had specific questions which, after 6 sessions, we’re still no closer to getting answers. The “therapist” gave hugely unhelpful advice. For example, I had said I didn’t want to spend time with one of my husband’s friends and his wife as they’re quite toxic people, particularly the wife. I was told I just had to do it. The therapist used words like “nutter” and “psycho” to describe these people and still insisted I had to spend time with them to improve my relationship with him. Hugely unprofessional.

If you want to mend your relationship Relate is not the place. Very unprofessional counsellor. I was told I was mildly depressed & on early menopause and wouldn’t be able to make a sane decision if I am not on antidepressants. Called my GP and she refused to give me antidepressants telling “you sound more hurt & let down than depressed.” I felt miserable after every counselling session and it didn’t help at all. Total waste of time and money as they are charging £88/hr online session.

Making money from peoples problems. Wish I’d read these reviews before making an appointment

Terrible, total rip off for a supposed 'charity'

I was told by Milton Keynes Hospital to go to MK Relate. I had just been diagnosed autistic & was going through a tough time with my wife. All they wanted was me to spend money, and do more sessions. I was not listened too, I was spoke over & was even asked to leave. They made my problems worse & I have only just started to get over them 3 years later from self healing - Relate were terrible

This is definitely a scam. They asked me how much me and my partner earn to calculate assessment price. How can they charge someone more because they earn more. We all have the same problem! They quoted £135 for an assessment and enver ended up sending us the zoom call link

My wife and I signed up for support from Relate. It was quite expensive in total.

Our Relate counsellor was a very unempathetic cold fish. She clearly had an anti-male agenda. Both my wife and I were at fault but she only found fault with me. She also lied to me on two occasions (when she was interviewing me on my own).

I definitely would not recommend Relate. I am told many of their counsellors are actually trainees although this was never explained to us.

I wouldn’t say Relate is a scam but their vetting system for recruiting counsellors is clearly not robust enough.

In conclusion my whole Relate experience was destructive not constructive.

I have just had what I was lead to believe should have been my first one hour counselling session. Infact, the "advisor" Richard waffled on about filling out forms, collecting information and safeguarding issues as this was merely an assessment. I was then asked personal information about my children which I did not consider relevant to the advice I was seeking regarding improving my relationship with my wife. The session ended after less than 20 minutes, despite the fact I had paid £55 up front for an hour. I feel mis lead by the person who dealt with my initial inquiry and was so quick to demand payment in advance. It was not made clear to me that my payment was only going to get me a lecture on rules and regulations. If the law dictates that Relate have to go through that process and charge you for it, then that should have been made absolutely clear before I paid. A complete waste of time and money. Relate are a disgrace to charities and professional counselling services.

I paid for an online consultation. Basically, it consisted of 30m of me explaining the issue while the councillor replied coldly something like ‘go on’. Had the distinct impression they wanted to get rid of me. After 30m I asked if I could talk more since I had got zero advice or even positive feelings from the session. They told me to hang up and call again (which would get me another random person) or get therapy elsewhere. Wasted money.

If I wanted to talk and get NO help and NO input of any kind I’d have called the Samaritans again. They were free, kind and did exactly what I expected them to do.

Relate is a Scam. They are very quick to take your money for the consultation/waiting list spot without properly explaining how their business model works. Sliding scale=paying full price. They are advertised as a charity that works on a sliding fee scale, however, they only disclose their pricing only AFTER you've paid for the consultation and waited weeks to get off their waiting list. They will not provide you with how they reach their figures nor an explanatino. They will also not update you in regards to your waiting list spot either. When I called they were also unable to locate me in their system. I received no email regarding my consultation appointment booking nor received a receipt for payment. The payment was made over a month ago. I've been requesting this for several weeks now along with a refund, as their service was not explained to us thoroughly. They are very quick to take your money though! Relate is not transparent with the way that they operate and it is only until they want to charge you £77/week will they properly disclose that they no longer have third party funding and cannot allocate appointments for anything lower. Had this been conveyed to me as a consumer that I would've not engaged with them as a business. They take little to no accountability for their incompetence and would rather blame the consumer. Their manager has conveniently been out and sick since September 29th. Do not engage with this "business" as they are just looking to collect money and not to service the client properly. This review is also one specifically about their appointments, management and admin team and not about the therapists. This is shameful as so many have been impacted mentally due to the pandemic and will be looking to them for assistance. Very poor experience and will not return

Phoned Relate. Made them aware of other agency involvement and booked consultation for ongoing counselling at a cost of £68. Did the 1-hour consultation, gave all sorts of personal and private information, then at the end the woman says “I’ll have to check if we can help, due the other agency involvement”. Comes back and says, “Sorry, we can’t work with you as we have a policy to only work with people not involved with other agencies”, even though she knew about it at the start! Felt like they just wanted to nosey in on my troubles then ditch me while enjoying my £68.
Refused to discuss any refund at all. Phoned Manager, again she refused point blank to offer any form of refund. I could her people giggling/laughing in the background while we spoke.
Spoke to the Citizen’s Advice Bureau who advised that relate were in breach of the Consumer Protection Regulations of 2008 for misleading and aggressive practices - focusing on misleading. Wrote a letter and was threatened with their Solicitor involvement, an involvement that turned out to be fake and just an idle threat to put me off chasing a refund for legal fees if I lost.
I reluctantly approached the innocent Credit Card Merchant used to make payment. They investigated and made a full refund. Only at that point did Relate agree not to challenge the claimback, which they won’t actually ever see because of Section 75 of the consumer credit act for transactions below £100. In other words, the Credit Card Merchants have refunded me for relates breach of the Consumer Protection Regulations 2008.
They did not even offer an apology. Took it as far as Director Level who insisted that they ‘acted appropriately’. I’m sure those who profit from such scams would agree, but I don’t!
An absolute circus of incorrigible, supercilious, nosey parkers. No help given at all. Like someone else said, save your money and sort things out yourselves (if you can).

I found them totally unprofessional, disorganised, and unable to do their job.

I had a session about relationship counselling - an initial session where the councillor was meant to get to know me as a client.

I spoke very little. I was called the wrong name throughout - even when I challenged him on that I was told 'that is your name'! Just unbelievable!

I was told stories of rape in toilets and gun crime - all totally unrelated to why I wanted a session.

I have complained to Relate about the councillor - who also said in the session he'd already had lots of complaints about his work. 4 months later they are yet to respond to my concerns.

This business is basically a total sham. I strongly advise NO ONE to go to them if you are looking for any level of professional help.

A terrible experience with this charity. An astounding lack of care, compassion and basic good practice.

If you are feeling bad with a relationship.. call Relate as they will enjoy bring you down even further. We had Denise in Bournemouth.. unorganised, impatient rude full of criticism and opinions. I wrote her an email to explain her actions. No reply! Denise doesn’t have the capacity to listen as she brought infidelity into the mix. This didn’t exist. I got the impression she was in Relate to get some revenge for her life!! Please do not waste our money with such unempathetic people. They don’t have the skills and must live in some world that’s fluffy! You are not allowed to remember the past. We have since followed a recommendation and met a wonderful lady in the New Forest. Immediately we could see the difference. It’s not easy but we know what we want now and in the right environment anything is possible. Don’t go anywhere near Relate is my advice to ALL others.