Update: Under threat of collections, we've made the payment today. Not much a consumer can do short of contract litigation, and our credit rating isn't worth the hit.
Nithya's response fails to address the core complaints and misrepresents her conduct. To recap:
1) The contract is deceitful, in that it references a Vacation Policy that does not in effect exist.
2) Nithya knew of our challenge in meeting a 2x/week schedule, but locked us in to that commitment anyway. To be clear, we had discussed dropping back to 1x/week if schedule was too challenging. Secondly, we'd discussed the challenge of paying for 2x/week out of pocket. It was our mistake for not formally issuing a scheduling advisory to Nithya, but we assumed falsely that saying we would be traveling or that our kid would be at summer camp would be sufficient. It would be a generally decent thing to do to advise someone you are going to bill them $2000+ for a month of missed appointments especially after hearing they are concerned about the schedule and the out of pocket expense. Or, one can choose to hide behind a poorly worded contract.
3) When we argued with Nithya about the steep fees, she suggested that a couple of the sessions could be made up at no additional cost. We had fit in 2 appointments in July/Aug. But Nithya ultimately billed us for all sessions, with late fees, and threatened us with collections when we refused initial payment.
4) Last and most importantly, our son is the one who gets the short end of the stick. Nithya's first response when we argued that we thought the contract was unfair was to drop us as clients. I suppose if there is a waiting list of concerned parents you turn to the next easy mark and drop the child whose parents disagree with your policies.
5) In ending the relationship, we requested that Nithya summarize the treatment our son had received--methods, outcomes, progress areas and areas of concern--in order to take that information to another therapist. Similarly, we asked Nithya for a list of recommended academic accommodations for our son, who is starting at a new school. Nithya, through 2 weeks of silence, has refused both requests. For the nearly $10000 spent, we have no information to take to another therapist, and we're underway at a new school without guidance. That fact in and of itself speaks to the priorities here. read more