Sky Blue Education – Possible Scam

**I have just changed the name of the company in this blog as it has been pointed out to me that the company at issue is ‘Sky Blue Education’ and not Blue Sky Education as was originally stating in this blog, so please be aware that Blue Sky Education are not the subject of this blog and should not be confused with ‘Sky Blue Education’ which is the company that should be avoided**

I dont like writing blogs like this, but I feel it is important to put this out into the therapy world. Below there is a copy of an email I sent the BACP yesterday (I have altered bits of it slightly, but the basics points and wording is the same) advising them a colleague I had contact with recently, advised me they have paid £600.oo to a company called Sky Blue Education. Sky Blue Education advised my colleague they are registered as a provider of counselling services to nearly a hundred of schools in their local area. For £600.00 they were told they would get access to a portal that would show lists of possible clients they would then be able to contact.

Too good to be true? Very possibly, but I have to make clear I have no proof that this is a scam. That said I am concerned about many aspects of the Sky Blue Education sales pitch, the organisation itself and the service they offer. I will go through the main ones:

• The first thing is that most schools have in house counsellors and teams for mental health support, so they would have no need to look to external services to support thier pupils.
• The second thing was they mentioned the BACP when trying to get my colleague to sign up to the service and I know that the BACP would not endorse or support any oprganisation like this, but they seemed to mention the BACP to add legitimacy to their service.
• Sky Blue Education has 11 negative 1 star reviews (out of 17 in total) on Trustpilot stating that they got no clients from them and they were refused a refund (even though they were told if they have no clients in 12 months they will get their money back)
• When I checked out Sky Blue Education on the companies house website (link below) you can see that the company name has been changed previously (often a sign that there is something fishy going on) and also they have had a large turnover of directors and CEO’s. Again, not a good sign as it often means people have had to resign because of action against them which precludes them from being a director. It also makes it difficult to really know who is actually runnning the company.

I would say to any counsellor or therapist, if someone cold calls you, or sends you and email offering something that sounds too good to be true, it is likely to be too good to be true and you should avoid it at all costs. Stick to the safe and established routes to get clients (BACP, Couselling Directory, Psychology Today, set up your own website, etc).

I would also say never give a lump sum to any organisation for ‘registration’, or ‘access to their portal’. As soon as you qualify, every counsellor and therapist has an intrinsic financial worth and if a company want to sign you up, they are doing so because they know they can make money out of you. Therefore, if anything, they should be paying you!! Or at the very least they should just be taking a small percentage of the fee charged as payment for the referral, even better they would be chanrging the client a one off admin fee and you should be able to then charge the full fee to the client.

Please remember as qualified counsellors and therapists your expertise and experience have a value and that needs to be a part of any counselling agreement. I paid over £12,000 over five years for my initial training and I have spent around the same amount in further training and CPD since then. We need to be paid for what we do and anyone that wants to use you and your skills as counsellor or therapist needs to recognise that. Any safe, ethical and competent organisation offering a decent service will recognise this and not charge you hundreds of pounds to register with them.

The link to companies house is here (I have put the registration number for Blue Sky Education into the link so you can check them out yourselves): https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/search?q=3744873 (You can see that the company registered is called Sky Blue Purchasing, no Sky Blue Education as it states on their website, another sign that they might be dodgy)

The email I sent to the BACP is below:

Dear Madam/Sir,

I am writing to share my concerns about a company called Sky Blue Education that appears to be charging BACP members £600.00 for a service that is none existent or at the very least inadequate for high price people are paying.

During a recent conversation a colleague told me they were concerned they had fallen for a scam. They have paid £600.00 for access to a client portal on the Sky Blue Education website, with the assurance that they have contracts with nearly 100 schools in their local area. Once registered on the portal they promise to give access to their database of schools and they would then be able to get referrals by contacting the school directly.

The colleague was then made aware of negative reviews and ratings on Trustpilot for Sky Blue Education and it does appear that the service they supply is not specifically for counselling services and they also have many counsellors who have paid £600.00 to them and received no enquiries for their money. When these counsellors have complained and asked for a refund they have been point blank refused.

My reason for contacting the BACP directly with my concerns around Sky Blue Education is that as part of their sales pitch the person from Sky Blue Education told them they had got their details from the BACP website and intimated that they did so with the BACP’s knowledge and approval. They in effect name drop the BACP into the conversation as a way of making their service seem more legitimate and trustworthy. This is of great concern to me.

Sky Blue Education seem to be using the BACP list of counsellors and therapists to identify recently qualified practitioners and relying on the insecurity and anxiety inherent in taking a financial risk and setting up a new private practice, as a way of manipulating the people they contact to sign up to their service. They then drop the BACP into the sales pitch as a way of reassuring the prospective client and legitimising their scam/largely useless service.

I think it important that the BACP does as much as possible to protect newly qualified counsellors and therapists who may be extremely vulnerable to these kinds of scams and services, which are always very expensive and offer little in return. I think it even more important the BACP has some strategy and policy in place for these kinds of scams and businesses so that their name cannot be used to encourage people to sign up to their services.

I have not been contacted by Sky Blue Education, even though I would have shown up in the same area as my supervisee. This is not coincidental I am sure. I have nearly twenty years’ experience in the field and an established private practice and they would have recognised I would not be interested in such an expensive and likely worthless service. Newly qualified counsellors, or those with less experience in the field are not so lucky as me and they desperately need the BACP to be taking a lead in protecting them from such things.

£600.00 Is a huge amount for anyone to lose at this time, especially as people are cutting back on expenses because of the ongoing cost of living crisis. This, added to the fact these kinds of companies are using the BACP as part of theri sales pitch makes me think the BACP needs to be more active in supplying information to their members about these kinds of scams and which oraganisations are safe and ethical and which ones are not. Surely it would be possible for the BACP to approach these kinds of operations as they become aware of them, and engage with them to establish whether they are safe or not. I do not believe it would take that much time to figure out those that are not trustworthy and this information could then be passed on to all its members as a way of protecting them from this kind of financial and psychological hit.

My colleague is approaching this as a learning experience and will not fall for anything like this again, another counsellor in their position may not be as resilient and this kind of experience could put good counsellors off setting up a private practice completely.

I would be interested in your thoughts and look forward to your response, anything I can do to offer more information around this I would gladly provide.

Yours faithfully,

Mark