John Borders

Direct quote from John, "My apologies for not getting back to you right away; however, the start of Summer is always an extremely busy time for families."  This is after not hearing from him for 8 days after he said he was going to reschedule us.  He asks for you to limit the communication between the other parent and discuss things only with him, but then he doesn't respond for over a week.  This wasn't an isolated time either.  

Now, if this was the only thing I can understand, things happen, but it's not.  John charges for everything and is not open about it and doesn't share it with you.  When you give a retainer for services it is standard procedure to share bi-monthly or monthly records of charges.  He does not.  When I noticed I didn't get one, I asked him.  No response.  I followed up 6 days later, and nothing.  After a week, I cancelled my services with him and disputed the charges.  It was only after the credit card company reached out did he respond with an itemized bill that was full of little charges that he never mentioned he charges for.  He made sure the charges went over the $850 retainer, and then hits you with the because you are unsatisfied with my services I'll cancel the remaining fees and make it $850 even.  I met with John once solo, and twice in joint meetings and my bill was $996.  How did it get to be so much, I'm happy to explain. 

He emailed us asking if a date worked for our first meeting.  I responded with yes, see you then.  He charged us 5 minutes for that at a rate of $200 for this email interaction.  After the meeting is over, he reviews his notes and types up a summary and then charges you for that, again at his $200 rate.  Your hour-long meeting now is an extra $50ish dollars per person.  It doesn't stop there, he will ask for the parenting plan to review, yup he will charge you.  Credit card processing fee... he isn't going to pay that on his end.  It ends up on the bill.  He charges for every little thing he can.  I'm a little shocked his travel time wasn't included somewhere in there.  While he finds everything to charge on his end when he was late for one meeting he didn't adjust the time.  He doesn't have his own office and during our meeting another counselor showed up to get her mail and interrupted the meeting.  Do you think he stopped the time as he made small talk and helped her remove a bunch of mail?  I wouldn't have minded that until I noticed him charging for everything under the sun in the opposite direction.  

Now the worst one was the other parent got Covid a day before our meeting and we could not meet in-person.  She asked about doing Zoom, which I said I didn't want.  We exchanged a few emails with John copied, about how she wanted Zoom and I wanted to wait for it to be in-person the following week.  John didn't respond for 24 hours, and 3.5 hours before the regularly scheduled meeting to send his Zoom link and said we would meet at the scheduled time via Zoom.  I responded 12 minutes later telling him I don't want to meet over Zoom for counseling.  After no response, I emailed again letting him know that I do not want to do a Zoom meeting and will not be there.  He didn't respond until the scheduled time and said the meeting was cancelled.  He then charged me $200 for a last second cancellation of the meeting.  I didn't find out I was charged this until the final bill he sent after I stopped services.  

There are just better options out there than John Borders.