7cups.com

Very little support for Listeners who are dealing with members with severe psychiatric issues

I (was) a long term listener with 7 cups who did all the training to get their certificates, had over 250 positive reviews, and volunteered in other admin and support roles within the platform. I had two chats I had severe concerns about, and both with people diagnosed mental illness they alerted me to. Both were also very abusive, and one was even convinced I was the friend who had raped and was now on 7 Cups, stalking her across the platform. Listeners on 7 Cups are supposed to have mods and admins to handle these things, but before I could ask for support, I found I couldn't access my account. I am presuming I was banned because of reports sent in by the members I was chatting with, but I am not even sure of that. A month later I had not received any communication about what happened, despite contacting the Admin team, and being told I had to wait 7-10 days to hear. After many days' reflection / feeling hurt, upset, AND somewhat used, I realised I’d been given a wake-up call. 7 Cups only really exists to promote their paid for therapists. The 'free' side of things are the listeners who are volunteers with little training, hardly any back -up and have to expect to chat with literally anyone. I am as open-minded as the next person, and thought my many years as a teacher might be helpful in dealing with chats, but this is not true Often chats I have taken part in have been disturbing, and having someone say they are there masturbating while you chat to them is pretty creepy. I have chatted people in trauma, chatted with someone needing to take their anger out on someone (I was standing in for whoever they are angry with), chats who swear at you if you talk common sense, and chats who come back with new accounts, even if you block them, and continually threaten with violence and death. If a member doesn't like a chat, or is just feeling the need to be vindictive, they can report you for any reason they can think of. The admins will then ban you, saying it is important to listen no matter what and be ‘kind’ even if we are abused. We then have to prove we didn't do anything wrong -- it's guilty until proven innocent. During my time on 7 Cups, have also seen how the fast listener turnover is. Most volunteers don't hang around either when they realise what is happening, or when they get weirded out, which is often. In conclusion, 7 cups are using listeners to provide a free service, and then blames them for wrong doing although being given proper support. EDIT - a month after the ban I received an automated response about giving off site contact details, and it would be a permanent ban if I did this again. I feel I have been victimised here, and have sent a sternly worded response to the support team and will, again, report back here if I get a response. In a real life situation, I would of course have contacted Human Resources, brought in my union, hired a lawyer AND taken them 7 Cups to an employment tribunal by now.

Date of experience: Oct 25, 2025