My kid was obese and all used to laugh at him.He was very much depressed due to his overweight.Well Spring has helped him in losing weight and depression.Now he is happy.

The worst camp ever. Completely inappropriate behavior with no supervision. My daughter was harassed and bullied. The camps only concern is financial gain rather than the true well being of the child.

Very dangerous camp. Ghetto location, sketchy staff. Unsafe eating program (500 calories per day, no exceptions) FORCED exercise even when campers are injured (I had a broken leg but was forced to run a 3 mile marathon every day). I fractured my spine and received no medical care whatsoever. This camp does NOT care about the well-being of the children, ONLY financial gain. SAVE YOUR MONEY AND YOUR CHILD. AVOID WELLSPRING AT ALL COSTS!

In brief: We wanted to do the right thing by our overweight depressed teen, We paid $9,000.00 for a six week camp, Our child returned home from camp after less than 72 hours, They are keeping our $9,000.00 without the opportunity for discussion or return to camp, Is this part of an unethical predatory business model? The full story: This is a cautionary tale for anyone considering a Wellspring weight loss camp. It is based on our recent firsthand experience, which has led us to a very unfavorable opinion of this company. We want to make sure that any family considering sending their child to this camp do so with full awareness of their predatory behavior and less than honorable business practices. If you are reading this, then you like us, may have an overweight teenager with all of the self confidence and self esteem challenges that go along with that. For our daughter that also included depression, inclusive of counseling. We are willing to do anything to help her with her challenges, and want her to be healthy and happy. We even went as far as to sign her up for the $9,000.00 six week Wellspring camp. She was so excited to go she could not wait to work on her body image and a healthier lifestyle. We felt, from everything we read, that Wellspring would be a good fit for her and brought her to one of their weight loss camps in June of this year (2011). She was greeted by a great group of enthusiastic counselors, many of them young college students not much older than my daughter. Their enthusiasm was contagious. Although we were a bit uneasy leaving our daughter away from home for the first time, especially with such a young group, she seemed to be in a safe healthy environment. Three days into camp we get a call from one of the counselors that our daughter is homesick and feeling depressed and needs to come home. We talked to our daughter and her camp counselor and they were insisting due to her depressed state that we come get her right away. This is less than 72 hours into a six week camp! Of course two days back at home and she was feeling less depressed and wanted to go back to camp. The folks at the wellspring camp told us she could not return. “It would be unfair to the other camp participants”. We broached the topic of a refund of some of our money and we were told that the camp had nothing to do with monetary issues; that we would need to deal with their corporate offices in California. They gave us the contact information and numbers while also assuring us they would have someone contact us. We have tried to call on several occasions. We have yet to reach a live person, only voicemail boxes where our unreturned messages are left. We also have never been contacted by anyone as we were promised. Wellsprings Corporate offices kept $9,000 of our money without providing the service we paid for or even the courtesy of a discussion regarding a refund or her return to camp. With no communication from Wellspring corporate offices, we contacted our credit card company and asked them to revoke payment for the $7,800.00 final payment. We did not even seek the $1,200.00 deposit. Wellsprings response to the credit card company’s inquiry was to send a copy of our signed agreement. That long one sided document does state that no monies will be refunded ever, and that the child’s ability to go to camp is at their sole discretion. Since we signed the document we had no recourse and they were going to keep all of our money. In our opinion, this company has designed a program to lure well-meaning vulnerable parents and their children into a system where they can collect large sums of money without obligation. They prey on our vulnerability, and our desire to want the best for our children. They insist on early payment in full and the signing of long one sided legal documents intended to provide them refuge from any obligation. They do all this, in our opinion, to prey on these children and their vulnerable state. Why else would they hide behind faceless unreturned voicemails and legal documents? Why would they take $9,000.00 from a well intentioned family seeking help for their child and not even return a phone call after refusing to provide the services paid for? Why would they not have the morality or decency to feel obligated to provide the contracted service? It makes us wonder if this is a part of their business plan. We believe they know the emotional state of the children they extract the funds from. Do they count on a percentage of them not being able to cut it so they can just take the money and run and hide? In our opinion Wellsprings behavior is unethical and immoral to the point of being a company not worthy to do business with and perhaps even deserving of investigation. This document is being provided to help warn other well meaning families of the company they are considering doing business with. It is also a cathartic exercise on our part to ease the frustration of being financially and emotionally violated by this company we believe to be immoral, predatory and unethical.

We wanted to do the right thing by our overweight depressed teen, We paid $9,000.00 for a six week camp, Our child returned home from camp after less than 72 hours, They are keeping our $9,000.00 without the opportunity for discussion or return to camp, Is this part of an unethical predatory business model? fvisit nowellspring.com to learn more