Shout 85258 Reviews 

The past couple of times I’ve used this have been terrible. When you get through they don’t engage and just send impersonal responses. They said the chat could go up to 45 mins to an hour but took 4 or 5 minutes between each response. They asked questions and the next response didn’t follow on from the previous one. It’s shocking that they are one of Google’s main signposted resources when searching takes a dark turn but the overwhelming response from people on here (and elsewhere) is that they are not fit for purpose. NHS fob you to Shout and Samaritans and they just fob you back to the NHS.

Do not trust them they are not confidential they phoned the police giving my contact details because their members if staff was patronising so just wouldn't engage so they phoned the police pretending it was for my protection all they have done is make me not trust them in future as its not confidential.

Unfortunately I can't put 0 stars otherwise I would have done so.

AI text messages, 0 help, completely worthless, choose another service (wouldn’t let me put 0 stars)

For two nights running I was waiting for 5 hours. 5 hours!!! and no volunteer found. This service needs to be scrapped, because this is only going to cause exacerbated bitterness and despair in those struggling with a mental health issue (very often which is going to be lonelinness - the very thing which is going to be exacerbated by an experience like this). Every half hour or whatever youh get the automated apology message, 'the help youh deserve' which is almost a -p-take quite frankly. Help you 'deserve' - but can't get - that is ths stuff to induce suicide not prevent it.

Very poor onboarding and volunteer support, no warning or thanks given, randomly cut of after doing well with out a word of contact or thank you, then being told that there is no longer any training while most of it was automated lies. Just looks at all negative reviews regarding people with long waits and you tell me you dont need volunteers.
Very disappointed, if you treat you volunteers like this how bad to you treat you callers!

- There looking into was pritty much just repeating them self - they struggle to answer text in time but don't want volunteers.

if I could rate it negative 5 stars I would, they BLOCKED MY NUMBER because I was MESSAGING THEM TOO FREQUENTLY, they close the call no matter what state you're in after the allotted time, and often you don't feel better yet because it's about 40 minutes of talking.

I'm not the only one with stories like this, I have never heard anyone say a positive thing about SHOUT.

I have begged these people for any kind of help, any feedback but all they ever say is "I understand" and after waiting hours for a volunteer to pick up being brushed off feels so much worse just sitting in your feelings alone which is abysmal for a suicide prevention service, truly truly terrible and should be either completely and seriously revised or shut down because they are doing measurable harm.

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.