Complaints

The complaint text that is displayed might not represent all complaints filed with BBB. Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:02/13/2023

  Type:Billing Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  My daughter was told that she could pause her sessions while she was out of the country traveling. This was a conversation with the therapist. She was not told that this was not possible. Charges continued. BetterSpeech continued to take monthly payments without any therapist ever scheduling any appointments. A cancellation request was made and the charges continued because they want to schedule an exit appointment. Since we have been paying since July 2022 for unused sessions the least they could do is not charge for the final month.
  
  BetterSpeech would have continued to charge indefinitely for services that were never used. They are taking advantage of the autobilling system.

  Business Response

  Date: 03/02/2023

  Hello *****,
  
  Thank you for reaching out! At Better Speech we take customer satisfaction as our highest priority and we address our clients’ questions or concerns in a professional manner so we hope you find this answer satisfactory.
  
  You have raised an issue regarding continued charges on your Speech Therapy subscription. You mentioned that your daughter was told by her Speech Therapist that she could paused her sessions while she was out of the country travelling. The process of pausing the account is by submitting a pause request via this link: https://*************************************, not through verbal communication. To better understand what happened, we checked the history of the account and found that there was no pause request that came in the system for the account, ********************* for the year 2022. Without the Pause and/or Cancelation request, the billing on the account continues as scheduled according to your monthly Speech Therapy Subscription Plan. On 2/8/2023, we received a Pause request on your account followed by a Cancel request on 2/9/2023 to which you scheduled a Cancelation/Therapy Call review for 2/13/2023. A auto-subscription charge on 2/9/2023 was made to your account as the pause/cancel request came less than  24-hours before the scheduled bill date.
  
  When you joined our subscription service, you agreed that it is your responsibility to schedule an appointment, and cancel or pause the subscription as needed (similar to any subscription service) at least 24 hours before the end of your billing cycle as stated in our Terms of Use. Your fee pays for unlimited access to our proprietary library of speech practices which you can use at any time during the billing cycle. A refund shall only be provided if our therapist failed to attend a scheduled session or provide services during your billing cycle.
  
  Unfortunately, you didn't complete the Cancelation/Therapy Call until 2/13/2023. When this was completed, the auto-renewal for your speech therapy subscription has been canceled and therefore there is no additional charges on your account.
  
  Following our Billing policy, while we do not issue refunds for unused sessions, however, as a courtesy, we will refund you the latest two charges on the account and provide you free sessions whenever your daughter decides to return for speech therapy. We have emailed you directly on your email address, ****************** for this resolution to your concern. Kindly respond to that email.
  
  We would like to express our sincere apology for any disconnect on the pause/cancelation process and we do appreciate the feedback regarding our processes.
  
  Please let us know if we can help you in the future.
  
  
  Sincerely,
  Better Speech Team

• Initial Complaint

  Date:11/18/2022

  Type:Billing Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I purchased services from Better Speech. On our initial appointment, the Better Speech did not show up to that apointment. Within days, I subsequently cancelled services and asked for a refund. Better Speech provided a form to cancel and request the refund, however after submitting the form there was no confirmation that it was received. I contacted Better Speech about this via email, and they said they acknowledged, would cancel service and would provide refund. That refund never came and they continued billing as a monthly subscription. When I contacted Better Speech about why they did not cancel, they said they could no longer provide a refund because they would only do so within 60 days (even though the refund request I originally submitted was well within that timeframe). I offered they could instead send me a physical check. Their response was that they do not send checks. This leaves me having paid for a service which they did not provide due to them missing their scheduled appointment.
  Total refund sought: $104.00
  They also have misleading advertising that leads people to believe they can cancel and get their money back. This is not true.

  Business Response

  Date: 12/01/2022

  Hi *****,
  
  Thank you for reaching out! At Better Speech we take customer satisfaction as our highest priority and we address our clients’ questions or concerns in a professional manner so we hope you find this answer satisfactory. 
  
  Our sincerest apology for any misunderstanding that had transpired on your contact with us previously.
  
  We checked your account history. You have joined Better Speech on 08/19/2022 and have subscribed to the weekly speech therapy subscription. Your first session was set on 8/24/2022 that was marked 'No-show' by the speech therapist. You have reached out advising that you were also waiting for the therapist on that session. For some unknown reason, you missed each other on the 8/24/2022 session. With the time it took to clear up that 8/24/2022 session, the system automatically billed you for another cycle on 8/26/2022. You eventually decided to cancel the account and since the cancellation on 9/7/2022, you were not charged.
  
  We stand by our 1st Session Refund Guarantee that provides 100% Money Back Guarantee for the initial session once the client requests it within 14 days from the initial session. 
  Although you contacted us only on 11/15/2022, approximately 3 months after the initial session that you missed, we still went ahead and provided you a full refund of $104 that was issued to your payment method.
  
  We would like to thank you for being a Better Speech client and please let us know if we can help you in the future.
  
  
  Sincerely,
  Better Speech Team
  
  

• Initial Complaint

  Date:11/17/2022

  Type:Billing Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  On Friday Nov 11th I spoke to a better speech therapist who told me to fill out a financial aid form to verify if I am qualified for a reduce cost in season. After filling out the info it showed I was qualified the therapist advised me the weekly session for the first month will be $40 I chooses to be in the weekly session after entering my credit card information it completed a transaction for $200. Which I called better health and disputed the charges I was told once by the rep that with financial aid there no such thing as paying weekly. I then asked for a full refund because there was nothing on the sight that points this out if so I would not have filled out for financial aid. She advised I would received a refund in 24hrs. I never received it. Each time called better speech and speak to a representive I am hearing something different. Today I spoke to a representative and I am now being told I need to wait for a speech therapist to call me back to speak with me in order to get a refund I explained I am only asking for my refund. Because Off better speech taking $208 out of my account with out my permission. It caused other bills that I paid returned for insufficient funds. I have never received services from better speech and have no intentions on getting services and I am being refused my refunds. I was mislead by the therapist in signing up for financial aid and was never told once you sign up that weekly charge no longer applies and there’s nothing on the form that tell you weekly fees are excluded. I was told by the therapist you can cancel at any time with no hassle in refunds and now I am experiencing a hard time to be refunded in service that was never provided. I am asking for a full refund back on my card.

  Business Response

  Date: 12/01/2022

  Hello *******,
  
  Thank you for reaching out! At Better Speech we take customer satisfaction as our highest priority and we address our clients’ questions or concerns in a professional manner so we hope you find this answer satisfactory.
  
  Our sincere apology for any disconnect that may have happened during your free consultation that causes this misunderstanding and for your difficulty with the cancelation process. 
  
  Based on your account history, you have joined Better Speech last 11/11/2022 and have subscribed to the monthly speech therapy subscription. We provided you a full refund of $208 last 11/17/2022 back to the payment method you have used and we have cancelled your account. 
  
  You have raised an issue referring to our Financial Aid program. Based on what you have said, it looks like you are under the impression that with the approval of the Financial Aid, the weekly sessions for the first month will be $40. To clarify, our Financial Aid is applicable only to our monthly plan. Our monthly base plan of 4 sessions X 30 minutes billed every 4 weeks is $260 however, when approved for Financial Aid, you will be paying $208 only. It is good for 2 months of membership and is applicable to our monthly plan. After 2 months, you are welcome to reapply.

  As for expressing difficulty with our cancellation process, please understand that our cancelation process is completed via a Therapy Review call which should not take more than 10 minutes of your time. Similar to how you joined Better Speech with a Consultation Call, cancelation is completed via a Therapy Review call followed by processing of refunds as applicable.
  
  We hope this clarifies the situation and that we hope you are satisfied with the resolution we have provided.
  
  Let us know if we can help you in the future.
  
  
  Sincerely,
  Better Speech Team

  
  

• Initial Complaint

  Date:11/10/2022

  Type:Billing Issues
  Status:

  ResolvedMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  Better Speech makes it very difficult to cancel. When you attempt to cancel online, the service makes you book a "cancellation appointment." During this appointment, high-pressure tactics were used to prevent me from canceling. I repeatedly asked the representative to cancel my plan. She agreed to cancel my plan, but a $236 charge (monthly price) was billed to my credit card weeks later. In addition, I was not able to use several of my sessions. When I expressed my desire to stop therapy after my prepaid month was up, my therapist canceled my appointment for that day and no future appointments for the rest of my prepaid period were scheduled. So, in addition to the $236 for a month of service that I never got to use, I lost out on several additional sessions. This company had no right to charge me $236 after I went through the cancellation appointment.

  Business Response

  Date: 12/01/2022

  Hello ********
  
  Thank you for reaching out! At Better Speech we take customer satisfaction as our highest priority and we address our clients’ questions or concerns in a professional manner so we hope you find this answer satisfactory.
  
  We would like to express our sincere apology for the difficulty you had experienced with our cancellation process.
  
  To get a better picture of your account, we checked your account history. You have joined Better Speech on 9/11/2022 and have subscribed to the monthly speech therapy subscription. After completing a total of 5 sessions, you requested cancellation of your speech therapy service and have completed the Therapy Review Call last 10/24/2022. Unfortunately, it seems your cancellation was not registered properly. 
  
  As a resolution, we have manually cancelled your account and have processed a full refund for the 11/6/2022 charge amounting to $236 plus another refund of $177 for the sessions that were cancelled when you initiated the cancelation. 
  
  Our cancelation process is completed via a Therapy Review call which should not take more than 10 minutes of your time. Similar to how you joined Better Speech with a Consultation Call, we are required to review session notes and other treatment materials before being able to discharge you, hence the need to book a Therapy Review call to complete your cancellation request and get a refund as necessary.
  
  We hope you are satisfied with the resolution and we do appreciate the feedback you have provided regarding our cancelation process. Please let us know if we can help you in the future.
  
  
  Sincerely,
  Better Speech Team 
  
  

  Customer Answer

  Date: 12/01/2022

  
  
  Better Business Bureau:
  
  
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.
  
  
  
  
  Sincerely,
  
  
  
  ******* **********