Our family was in desperate need for help around this time last year with our teen who has a double…read morediagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ASD & ADHD) but was on a very long waiting list for ABA Therapy, Occupational Therapy, and Group Therapy so we turned to Brain Balance (BB) for help!
Initially, the program and the staff seemed like the perfect fit, and the impression that was given to me and my family by the Center Director the whole time that we were looking into the Brain Balance at PeachTree City Center, was that we could pull out of the program without financial consequences if it actually turned out not to be the right fit for our child.
To our surprise, after multiple conversations and emails exchanges between the Center Director and us, we only found out on the same day we took our child in for their first one-hour session that they would hold back 20% ($2,720.00) of the cost of their 6 months program ($13,600) if we pull out of the program in the first two weeks, and that two-week window started immediately!
Once we were informed of the situation at hand, we asked the person doing the intro to the program to ask the Center Director to put something in writing that that immediate 20% cancellation fee wouldn't be the case for us as the Center Director knew we were still in the process of seeing if our child's school would even partner with them. We were then promised a note cleaning things up for us, but the next day when we took our child back in, the note was not what we were expecting based on what was earlier discussed with the Center Director and that was that there would be no financial consequences/ penalty to pull out of the program at anytime, especially if that period of time was on the first day our child was there for a one-hour session.
To our great disappointment and horror, instead of them keeping their word when we went back the next day, their note was a demand to sign their contract for service. A contract to lose $2,720 as a 20% cancellation fees. It was at that point in time, it became clear that all their seemingly caring to help our child actions were just a bait and switch act!! To add to our challenges with them, our child school gave the confirmation that second day that they couldn't partner with the Brain Balance, as such, even if we wanted to sign their contract to work with them we couldn't so we decided not to sign the contract and pull our child out of the program. To our shock, they kept back $2,720 as a 20% cancellation fee anyway, though we never signed any agreements with them!!
This being said, we would like to caution families NOT to attend not even a one-hour session with them unless you know that you can really work with them, as they will not make you aware of their contract and its 20% cancellation fee until you are already there with them, and then it will have already been too late for you and your family, and you will be made to pay thousands of dollars in cancellation fees even if you don't sign a contract with them. We are even still paying back that fee to the credit company today! At this point in time, we very highly doubt this is legal so our family will now be looking into getting legal relief.
Additionally, please also know that the credit company that partners with Brain Balance, Your Tuition Solutions (YTS) through Comenity Bank, will not help you, their customer, either as they have a system with Brain Balance that allows them not to pursue Brain Balance for that money by them asking you to ask Brain Balance for a receipt of "services rendered". Brain Balance then makes something up and claims it's an invoice where they justify charging you exactly their 20% cancellation fee, and for our family that was a whopping $2,720! Their claims were: 2 hours of service; a claim that you have access to their website (which they can see that you NEVER use except when they themselves log you in to show you around their website); a box they open and give you with inexpensive fidget gadgets (with everything still sealed except what they open); and parent meetings (the meeting where they tell you about their program, and then the meeting where they introduce you to their program the first day they entrap you and your child at their center). None of which is truly justifiable as all those claims conveniently add up to their 20% fee!
Even though this happened to our family around this time last year, I am still sharing all this here because what happened to our family should never have happened, as they had no legal grounds to take that money from us but they did it anyway. Which means that they have done this sort of thing before and have mastered the art of doing it and getting away with it and so they will do it again to other families unsuspecting families who are desperately trying to find help for their child/ children who battles mental or neurological disorder or both!
Parents PLEASE BEWARE
