- Report: #1165156
Complaint Review: Cynthia Sweeley - Spring Mills Pennsylvania
Reported By:
A Concerned Parent -
Lemont, Pennsylvania,
Submitted:
Updated:
-
Author Not Confirmed
Why?
Cynthia Sweeley
332 Harter Road Spring Mills, 16875 Pennsylvania, USA
Phone:
814-422-0534
Web:
www.wildfireranch.org
Categories:
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Cynthia Sweeley Wildfire Ranch Horse Therapy Scam Spring Mills Pennsylvania
This happened a few years ago but after coming across other complaints about this woman I felt compelled to relate my story.
My fiancé has a wonderful 14 year old son (who was 8 at the time) who is autistic. He suffers from a particularly acute form of echolalia and our doctor suggested pet therapy as treatment. We have no pets (our landlord doesn’t allow pets) so he suggested hippotherapy. We looked into it and that’s how we had the misfortune of coming across Wildfire Ranch and Cynthia Sweeley. We contacted Cynthia. We asked if she had experience dealing with children with autism. She assured us she did. She said she was a certified counselor in traumatic and spiritual therapy and claimed she counseled hundreds of traumatized and special needs families.
We scheduled a session. When we met her it became painfully obvious that she lied. When she spoke to our son, she did so in a loud, slow voice (he’s autistic not deaf) and touched him, which every ABA therapist knows NOT to do. Things didn’t improve when we met the posse. Her horses were skittish and jumpy. We finally did get a pinto named Zion to calm down enough for him to brush but he clearly wasn’t comfortable with the horse. Cynthia insisted that he was just being silly and for us not to project our fear onto him. When her horse tried to bite him we had enough. We told her this wasn’t working and that we wanted to leave. She insisted we pay her $60.00 saying since we weren’t staying for the four hour therapy session she was going to charge us the trail ride price. For 20 minutes of us grooming her horses with no riding involved whatsoever. Of course we refused. Things got out of control from that point. She claimed her horses where more traumatized by being subjected to our “retard” than he was by them and mimicked how our son reacted to her horses. My fiancé was enraged when she did this and told her that she was an unlicensed screwball. Cynthia screamed that she was going to call the cops if we didn’t leave her property right then and called us the worst parents in creation. As we drove out her driveway, I glanced in my rearview mirror and watched her wave and blow kisses at us.
When we got home we found a message on our phone from Cynthia letting us know that she planned to sue us for $600.00 she could have made by holding trail rides instead of babysitting our retard. She also threatened us with a $50,000 lawsuit if we spoke out about what happened. She was obviously full of hot air. No action has been taken to this date. She probably couldn’t find a lawyer unscrupulous like her to take the case. She’s no kind of a counselor.
That was 6 years ago and our son is doing much better thanks to a reputable pet therapist. If anyone is considering pet therapy for their autistic child, I suggest going to ((Redacted)) instead.
2 Updates & Rebuttals
JDPV
Madisonburg,Pennsylvania,
USA
Here's a bit of truth Cynthia Sweeley doesn't want you to know
#2Consumer Comment
Mon, August 10, 2015
I delivered hay to her once, NEVER got paid, and saw exactly how ""wonderful"" Wildfire Ranch is. The horses live in filthy stalls that are so bad, it's a miracle their hooves haven't rotted off from thrush. They are inadequetely pastured with 6 horses trying to eek out a mouthful of decent grass on about 3 acres of over grazed dirt and gravel. The barn reeked with the stench manure and wet hay. Someone should do these poor animals a favor and report her Animal Humane services.
A Concerned Citizen
State College,Pennsylvania,
United States of America
THE TRUTHS ABOUT WONDERFUL WILDFIRE RANCH
#3REBUTTAL Individual responds
Thu, March 26, 2015
To be blunt,, this entire story has been made-up by a very jealous mind. There is not a word of truth in this entire fairytale. Wildfire Ranch uses horses to heal people of depression. In 4 years of full-time therapy we have not yet even HAD an autistic boy as a client - even once! We have had just about every other type of mental and emotional disorders but not one autistic boy; EVER.
Secondly, there is not a place or time in this life that I would ever treat a hurting child the way this woman accuses. I have over 100 testimonials from men, women and children who have experienced our program. Every single one of these people stand with me stating the exact opposite of what this person accuses. We are growing every year because of the epidemic of depression. Like so many of the other hateful people who I will never understand, this woman decided she was jealous of what we do, what we have in this Christian ministry, and made a very poor decision to attack in the most cowardly way possible - hiding behind the internet.
If there is a syllable of truth in this tale of such 'woe' I challenge this person to call me directly to talk about it. Most mature adults do handle problems in that manner.
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