Hundreds duped by online therapist, fraud discovered after the imposter died

While going to therapy can be extremely important for many, hundreds of Americans may have unknowingly been duped by a fake online therapist whose deception fell after she died, officials shared.

The Florida Department of Health reported that Peggy A. Randolph, a social worker licensed in Florida and Tennessee who used to work for Brightside Health, a nationwide online therapy company, was the main focus of a recent investigation.

According to the investigation report, Randolph has been accused of helping her wife impersonate her in online sessions with clients.

The Florida report claims the couple “defrauded” patients through a “coordinated effort,” where Randolph would treat patients in person, and her wife would pretend to be her in telehealth sessions with Brightside patients.

While the couple was able to pull off the trick, their deception was eventually uncovered after the wife died last year and a patient realized they had been talking to the wrong person, a Tennessee Department of Health settlement agreement said.

The report from Tennessee noted that while therapists are generally required to have a master’s degree, Randolph’s wife was “not licensed or trained to provide any sort of counseling services.”

“[Randolph] denies knowing that [her wife] was using her Brightside Health Therapist Portal log-in credentials or treating clients under her account. However, [she] received compensation for the sessions conducted,” the agreement states.

In the Tennessee settlement, it says that Randolph was supposed to provide online therapy to “hundreds of clients” while working for Brightside Health from January 2021 to February 2023.

However, Florida’s report cited a Brightside internal investigation that found it was actually Randolph’s wife who was“seeing all her patients and had been for a long time.”

Randolph has since surrendered her social worker’s license in both states, resulting in both health departments dropping their investigations.

Brightside spokesperson Hannah Changi said in an email that once the company was made aware of the allegations, it audited its security, terminated Randolph, and reported her to state licensing authorities.

“We take our patient experience seriously and hold ourselves to a high ethical code of conduct,” Changi shared with CBS News . “We’re extremely disappointed that a single provider was willing to violate the trust that Brightside and, most importantly, her patients had placed in her.”