Samaritans Anmeldelser 420

I was experiencing an extremely low mood on the verge of suicidal. I have worked in mental health and know how important it is to show empathy even if you are on the phone. I was met with coldness and nonchalance that was noticeable even via the phone. I felt like I was going to lose my mind and the more intense I became, I realised that he hadn't interjected but ended the call or just out the phone on the side as the timer on my phone was still going. Having been use to people not listening to me, I just accepted it fir what it was. I urge the Samaritans to look closely at who they have volunteering for them. The importance of having an empathetic person could make such a difference between life and death it's that serious Samaritans should deal with this seriously. I will contact them directly as this isn't the first time I have called and was made to feel even worse. It's unacceptable

Now i can understand why men dont want to talk to Samaritans and deal with things on their own or takjng their own lifes is because they dont want to listen, instead blaming us for the problems we are experiencing, if it is women they get listened to, I will not be using this again.

Total lack of empathy, sends you messages that you have taken up their time and when I did the maths….it didn’t up. Their funders are being manipulated 😞

Just no empathy, silence and no sympathy for my suicidal state, quite happy to end the call with me in distress. 0 from 5 stars.

A service that has historically been operated by a high number of judgmental hypocrites who breach their own remit or go out of their way to make a person feel more down I know cause I've chanced it on and off since 2000 . however in the past there was a safe ratio of empathetic people to mitigate the bad ones and your call was not tracked and callers were not punished for speaking against the gov , you called a local number and really had a full on anon and safe experience on the calls that worked out . However in 2026 they are another sinster and blocking service passed off as a support service .
For example if you tell them you've been to your GP to get help and been denied it . They disbelieve you and sing the praises of people who have been helped in turn the current NHS . However it is just their words . They then patronisingly tell you to go back as if that will make a difference when you've tried multiple surgeries and GP's over a period of ten years . That part can't be listened to . They have to ignore that part and tell you to go to the GP as if a grown adult has not had that idea or tried it .
But hang on aren't the Samaritans meant to just listen or respect your experiences at the very least in the past the good ones would try to see things from your perspective and offer something meaningful . Now they want to deny you speaking to any degree if it does not fit their narrative they want to bombard me with rubbish sign posting which is to other low quality services run for private gain . Regardless of how that will impact on my mental health .
But why on earth are they telling me to go back to my GP when Samaratains are meant to be a non judgmental and impartial service hear to hear you not their own short change .

You know what wish I had read these reviews before wasting my time on their online pilot chat service. I may have well talked to the wall think I would have had a better response. Uncaring, unsympathetic, no empathy and then clearly when bored with me cut me off. First time I reached out to this service and will not bother again. You slap signs up on bridges on trains etc that we’re here to help. No you’re not - this company needs an overhaul. People come to you when at their lowest ebb feeling they don’t want to carry on yet look at your reviews. It’s disgusting yet you’re a mental health service??? Deary me I wonder how many that have reached out to you have ended up harming themselves 😓

Don't trust them. They will threaten to call social services on a happy family if you're a little stressed. Other than that, they "can't give advice" which makes them pointless.

Edit: I'd really like to get in contact with people who feel the same way about these charlatans. We can help each other.

I've just got blocked for over a year ? For what ? Well I don't know . As I was not abusive. Neither did I misuse the service. I'm.also banned from calling the Welsh language line too , even when all I ever heard from them was that it was fine for me to phone back and express my stressed thoughts in my native language. I was also told by them time and again that I had used the service appropriately.

Clearly the Samaritans don't respect privacy let alone fair play neither do they respect a person's bilingual rights in practice .
This foolish, callous and counter productive decision was more then likely made by one of their pre set bots . Due to ignorant decisions made by duh management. As I might well have questioned the attitude of the last volunteer I spoke to on the main line or made critical comments about the appalling state of other public sector miss actors . However all software is controlled by people. In the case of the Samaritans. Clearly it is toxic people serving the interest of income driven managers and a ideology to suprass the lived experiences of callers from a less fortunate position. Within society.

All in all the Samaritans are a bunch of middle class people. Who seem to believe it is their own inherent right to, sit behind a desk and block the experiences of others. In order to suprass the callers lived thoughts. Which they will often snooker out of us . By starting the call in a faux manner of empathy For the services own narrow minded purposes.which often involved the abrupt extrapolation of sensitive data about a callers personal circumstances .
As per the 1984 style message I got on my phone. These lesser jobsworths as the head office want me to phone in to get some explanation which given their form will just be more of the same nonsense and a further data grab .
My remaining question would be . Why would I want to do that . ?? Trust a bunch of short sighted staff . For no valid reason. Least we forget at that level,they get paid to waste more time with their facade of soft language and pre planned routines of institutional double down . While I wont be compensated for an unnecessary waste of my time.

Terrible.

To the people saying “they’re just volunteers,” you need to start reading the room. Samaritans is marketed as the number one hotline for people in crisis—specifically those with suicidal tendencies. Yet, what do these “trained” volunteers actually do? There is no point in this charity existing if you don't hire people who have at least minimal experience in handling clients showing distressing signs of wanting to end their lives.

Today I called in hopes of feeling better, and a volunteer asked me baseless questions only to end the call with, “I can’t hear you, your voice sounds distorted... I’ll call you back later, okay?” and then hung up. Excuse me? I am a young person who requires help from a hotline that claims to assist people like me—and I get hung up on because you can’t hear me? Thanks, because this “charity” reminded me that if I feel like ending my life, I should just call 999. At least their operators have enough empathy to keep me calm while an ambulance is on its way.

I have plenty of experience supporting friends through their hardest moments, but these people? Based on these reviews, they clearly don't even want to do their jobs. It doesn’t matter if you find one or two people in this “horse show" who happen to be the best; half of these volunteers are absolutely hopeless. They are unbothered, unempathetic, and careless. If you think hanging up on mentally ill people will fix their problems, then disband this ridiculous organisation.

That man said he would call me back; he hasn't. Stop hiring people off the street who don't give a damn about helping people in need. If you have an excuse for this behaviour, I’d love to hear it, because you have no defence against the fact that it is your job to calm a person in need down.

I have absolutely no idea why this number is recommended by google and other platforms after today, I feel miserable and exhausted.

Don't answer the phone despite me calling 8 times now.

How the Samaritans can consider themselves to be caring people is literally beyond my belief. They have blocked me at a time in my life when I am desperate. They have sited the reason for this as that some of the things I have said are inappropriate. I have only spoken the truth in the most respectful way I could and they block me. Really? They are Samaritans? Don’t waste your time with them. They don’t care

CLOSE THIS ORGANISATION DOWN!

The people over the phone are extremely difficult to talk to and they sigh down the phone, talk over me, dismiss me.

These people do not care and have any good intention of saving people who are suicidal. People donate to this organisation and they do not live up to what they are supposed to do. The advisor prey on vulnerable people and use them to enhance their career for university and to get ahead.
Don’t trust them. They study you.
Shame on you.

I have read about a lot of fair minded callers getting a three month ban for no valid reason . However it seems that I've hit the jack pot and been given a 12 month one. For what exactly ? You may well ask. Well not for any obvious reason like misusing the service for lower gratifcation . Nor for giving them verbal abuse. The Background . Is that after a period of a couple of months I tried them again in desperation , as I was experiencing terrible brain fog at 3am in the morning . I got through to a young person with zero empathy but plenty of arrogance . However I was polite and played along with his script . However I made a lot of critical comments about people in power and I did question the way he was asking a lot of intrusive questions in a routine and policing manner . I asked if they collect data , he told me that they did and that they use it to go after their definition of abusive callers .
The guy was not intrested in listening . As they like to excuse themselves off as being a lessoning service . He wanted to know my age , my income bracket and my living arrangments . This is a tatic that war masters use not people who are supposed to be there to empower and suport you . He had nothing empathetic to say when I mentioned that he was contridicting his posh rant about being there in order to just listen to people by extrapulating in order to serve his data quest . By the way each time he asked me a question about my life's circumstances he just moved on to another , no effort to offer emotional support or discus things in a meaningful way . He got angry and just repeated back at me false and twisted statements that he wrongly claimed I had made .
It is clear that this awful service is no longer there to help you feel heard let alone helped . But for their own internal satisfaction . What irked them the most it appears is that I would not let them put words in my mouth and questioned questioned the system .
Their website if full of dsimssive ignorant statements about "understanding their service . The issue is that the people running this organisatation . Don't understand the service that is as it was originally set up .
I wonder what Orwall would have made of this dispicabel lot

I will preface this by saying when you do find that rare gem that naturally gets where you're at and has a lot of pre-requisite qualities that would make them a brilliant therapist, the experience is really helpful.

However, finding these people has become increasingly difficult over the years, needle in the haystack territory. You now have to eat a lot of sheep droppings before you find a Malteser.

My experience is that many of the volunteers simply have no clue and lack ability to think outside of their basic training. You're better off talking to the wall, its less harmful for you.

Unfortunately, there's also an increasing number who wilfully operate with a sinister, Machiavellian agenda, which seems to follow an intentional pattern.

They will initially present as empathetic, while throwing in a few CBT / other miscellaneous psychology soundbites to seem knowledgeable and gain your confidence in them.

After you open up and inevitably share the background/context beyond the initial reason for you call, they have the inside track. The pattern is roughly as follows - negate your concerns/feelings, twist the narrative, further increase your self-doubt, diminish your standing in the moment and attempt to blame-shift whatever it is you are going through as somehow "being all in your head" or blown out of proportion.

This gaslighting and manipulative power-play is often followed up by them abruptly ending the call.

This is often the behaviour of people in need of their own therapy, but lacking the awareness or guts and if you're dealing with a personality-disordered individual, research shows therapy is largely ineffective.

Disclaimer, I have never abused this service as a chat-line, so the people engaged in this are unable to rely on that as a deflection tactic for their callous and narcissistic behaviour.

These people have no business being allowed into our psychological lives.

They haven't earned that right and completely unable to respect what you share with them, or hold it with the dignity it deserves.

On a personal development note, I also now believe the basic concept of opening up to a complete stranger over the phone during a one-off interaction encourages oversharing and poor personal boundaries around safely holding your own stuff for the right time, place and person.

Tried to call them because I've been feeling the worst I have ever been. On the phone to them as we speak and no one has picked up after 7 minutes. Within this time, I could've jumped off a bridge, which seems like the better option right now.

Legit, if you are thinking of committing suicide, do not wait for these incompetent melons to pick up. Go straight to A&E. At least there you will be safe.

Called in a very bad state, needed empathy and at least some interest. The woman sounded so disinterested. I really felt so much worse afterwards as if I was bothering her. Why volunteer for Samaritans if you couldn’t be bothered to show at least some level of humanity.

There is a volunteer called 'Maria', they like to give a different name when they are on the phone, she hang up on me twice tonight, because she did not like what I said. Samaritans is supposed to be non-judgemental, but some volunteers like her are. The first phone call was made at 12:11 am.

She just talked to me for a couple of minutes and found out what was bothering me, she didn't like the issue, she hang up. I rang back a few times and trying to get her and I did, I told her she hang up on me because she did not like what I said, she hang up for a second time.

Question: why doesn't she stay at home if she doesn't like to talk to people? why get on the phone? or is she being judgemental?

No excuses, there is no way the phone drops twice in a roll after speaking to me a minute or two. My phone calls to others do not drop this frequently.

This is judgemental apparently, the volunteers have freedom to choose what they like to hear.

I wish I never made the phone call tonight, feeling much worse now...

I have also found Samaritan service useful especially in the early hours of the morning when desperate to speak to someone.I know they cannot advise but listen and sometimes I just need to hear my own voice of concerns to gain clarity.Yes I have had to wait and there is an automated message to inform me that Samaritans know I am waiting.But wouldn't use if I required urgent help or assistance as don't that would be helpful to my situation.But always there when I need them and that's a comfort for me.

I found it off-putting that I could hear other ppl on calls in the background but I would of got a grip
It was a Female i spoke to

So I explained that I have bipolar, im under the community mental health team but I cannot get through to the mental crises line since its gone over to 101 option 2
There was a silence
I then asked if she was still there
I had to repeat myself and she told me to see if my GP could help
Do the volunteers know about community mental health teams and crises lines ? What about the 111 options 2 surely?
Its the Nationwide telephone number for mental health
She wasn't rude or anything
Hope other ppl get the help they need

It was before Covid. The person I spoke to on the phone laughed at my face and said to give a call back after thinking thoroughly. I do not like them, do not recommend their services even to my enemies!