Shout 85258 レビュー 508

I contacted SHOUT whilst acutely stressed and anxious and feeling unable to cope. I waited 4 hours and 15 mins to speak to a volunteer and then they seemed to be following a script. They offered comforting words and apps and resources but seemed
from the start to not really be fully engaged in communication. This charity was set up with good intentions but it doesn’t work all that well having people
text in and wait for half a day for a response. It could work if better managed.

Tried using this service. Waited over 4 hours to get a person to talk to. At
1.30 in the morning they got back. Because i didn't reply quickly. 5 minutes the most the cut the chat off.

Absolutely appalling! I was connected to someone called Katie! I have an eating disorder as a result of being skinny and fat shamed over the years. Needless to say, I feel worthless at times. I was hoping for support but this person made me feel worse. I confided in her saying that someone in a Tai chi class mentioned that you can lose two stone doing Tai Chi. I felt as if the remark was aimed at me and instead of suggesting it would have a remark made to everyone in that class, she suggested he was body shaming me. Not what I wanted to hear. I wanted support and encouragement as people are either unhappy that I'm skinny and gaunt or the opposite. Noone has ever been kind about the way I look that I recall. This counsellor on Shout has made me feel ten times worse. DON'T USE THIS SERVICE.

I contacted Shout yesterday hoping for support during a difficult time, but the experience was incredibly disheartening. I spent 45 minutes texting a volunteer named Chloe, and despite me being vulnerable and opening up, I was met with nothing but generic, scripted responses.

The most concerning part was the lack of basic mental health knowledge. When I explained I have BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder), Chloe confused it with Bipolar Disorder and seemed unphased. To make matters worse, the links she sent for local services didn't work, and some of the services she mentioned don't even exist anymore.

After 45 minutes of me trying to engage, I was told how long we had been chatting, which made me feel like I was taking too much of their time. I left the conversation feeling more isolated than I did when I started. If you are looking for actual empathy and accurate information, I would suggest looking elsewhere. This service felt more like a poorly programmed bot than a human crisis line.

Zero stars review Hazel is a bully at Shout. Staff are mean't to help not bully.

There was some information regarding using "BRIGHT" instead of Shout for West Yorkshire. So I asked where are you? Hazel refused to answer stated England that's not a county. Then she tried to get my name and age to go with the "flow" of the call. Not that I don't want to. It's against the law and Shout's confidential policy. That this Hazel breached make out that need and want was asking It's not she is just a bully.

I've got the same rights as her however she is just a bully "we can" nope so she can bully.

I waited about two hours to speak with someone, but no one responded. This has happened a few times when I’ve tried to reach the service, and each time the waiting period has been quite long.

Waited 3 and a half hours to get connected. Very poor service. They had absolutely nothing to offer in way of support. I felt a lot worse after engaging with them. AVOID..!!

I wish I had looked at the reviews before. I first tried to make contact in October 2025 and have tried probably about twice a month since. I was finally connected to someone this morning but it did not help how I was feeling and I felt like I was having to repeat myself. I understand it’s all run by volunteers but the replies were so robotic and didn’t make it feel like they genuinely cared. I ended the chat before the time was up. I’m not sure I would contact them again. I appreciate all mental health services are under strain but still.

I feel like the quality of this service has gone down extremely. I have used shout several times when I've been in crisis; back in 2020-2023, I mostly always felt supported and listened to. Or, at minimum, that it was another human talking to me.

When you're in crisis, human connection is very important! However, in recent years, almost all the responses sound the same. They sound AI generated at worst, and like a script at best.

I don't personally think the wait times are awful, the service is running off of volunteers and mental health services are super overrun. But, at minimum, when somebody has been waiting an hour it would be nice to at least feel like the volunteer on the other end is real...

Absolutely terrible been struggling today 😪 reached out for someone to listen and help which i struggle to do for nothing men are encouraged to speak about mental health but rarely do and when they do they are ignored you're a disgrace

I would loove to give it 0 stars

Literally no one ever gets to talk to me, its ALWAYS apprently busy, and I'm put on hold for hours. I couldve already taken my life by now from being neglected any help, I cant call 999 because its not an emergency, I have no one. Like who the heck do I go to, because Samaritans is the same too.

absolutely terrible, i never reach out but i felt like i needed too because i couldn’t handle it anymore, i begged for human responses and didn’t get it. the responses took minutes in between, half my timeframe was waiting. i feel worse than before. service was terrible, chat gpt does better

Didn’t even get as far as talking to a human being. Texted in crisis, received several texts basically saying I’m still on hold, here’s a link. From a robot. Does this company have any idea how degrading it is to be in the pits of depression, reaching out for help, and then be sent an automated text reply back? Actually pathetic. Either offer an emergency helpline or don’t, but don’t advertise it as something it’s not. “Emergency” mean urgent. Not in six hours time. You all need to seriously rethink how you run this operation. Promising false hope to a suffering person and immediately shutting it down by not responding is genuinely dangerous to people lives and mental health, it is not the ‘help’ that you think. Quite the opposite. Shut it down or make it better, but don’t keep running it like this, it is harmful and reductive. Advising anybody in my life to avoid this service at all costs as it does more harm than good.

I haven’t been able to use Shout since February time due to sudden issues with compatibility of my network provider. Before I was able to use it with no issues and now it just says “undelivered” whenever I contact them yet the initial message “SHOUT” to activate the service sends perfectly…I contacted Shout about the issue almost 2 months ago and said they were aware of the issue and were looking to fix it…they contacted me again a couple of weeks later saying they don’t have an estimated date for when the issue will be resolved but will notify me with updates…it’s been too long now and getting ridiculous, as someone who works in IT, issues like this can get resolved in a matter of hours…sort it out…! Also reading the rest of the reviews about the general quality of the service…I agree that responses can be very robotic and inauthentic, and feels like it’s not personal/genuine especially knowing now that SHOUT volunteers message multiple people at the same time. And this can be very disheartening especially since the queue times can be extortionately long (waiting in the hours). However, I have had a couple of genuinely lovely volunteers who seem like they really do care, so don’t let it discourage you from talking or opening up. Despite, it shouldn’t be this way- the inconsistency of the support quality from volunteers.

Long wait (2 hours) which would be fine if they were helpful - but updated googles estimated ‘5 minute response’.
Sent automated links’s to resources and other crisis lines that did not work.
Robotic and generic copy and paste one line responses
Sounds like they send the same response to everyone
Asked no follow up questions or attempted to engage in further conversation.
Ended the chat because I didn’t reply for 7 minutes - after 4 minutes sent 4 follow up messages asking if I was still there. Hard to reply quickly when you’re in crisis and in tears and trying to put the words together.
Left feeling far worse.
Absolutely shocking.

Still waiting for a response. I appreciate people are busy, but the first response is from a bot, are they off sick, or on lunch break? Even the bot doesn't reply!
Update google, it doesn't take 5 minutes to get a response.
People in crisis need help, not a lesson in patience - the NHS gives us that one ad nauseum already

A disgraceful service. Such bland, dry and robotic responses. Awfully long waiting times before someone picks up. I had to text multiple times to confirm that the person was not a bot. Very unhelpful. Horrendous service. This should not be allowed to continue. Do not use this service if you are in crisis.

Reached out 4 hours ago and they still haven’t connected me with anybody. I’ve not opened up and spoke about how I’ve felt for 5 years and decided to try it again. I struggle to read the company’s responses to the negative reviews as you fail to improve your service, hire more people both volunteers and paid employees to help with the volume of messages you receive as you clearly ain’t coping. Has the audacity to tell me they are quieter during the day so reach out then Ah yes because that's the whole point of contacting a helpline isn't it? You're FINE with waiting? Looks like you have to say I’m gonna off myself right now to get some kind of response… if you’re lucky to catch someone that quick. You should be ashamed of yourself. Sort it out or simply shut down.

Really really odd experience

Basically told them I want out of life as I don't enjoy it and didn't opt in etc, so I just want to go.. the 3 questions I got asked were
"How do you plan to end your life?"
"Do you have the tools there to end your life via your preferred methods?"
And "what is it that you have next to you to do it?" I get that they have to watch for safety but wow haha

Its an utter piss take. It advertises itself as a helpline, but really its a sympathetic ear. Im needing actual HELP for my distress and dysphoria, where im responded with "i understand. That must be hard." Well no you dont understand and yes it is hard. Can you help or are you just going to evaluate it??