My children and I shopped at a Lowe's store in Houston, TX and a what appeared to be a kitten kept coming up to us and rubbing our legs. Being gaunt from malnourishment and dehydration, we elected to bring the kitty home. That evening, the kitten had diarrhea and we knew to take her in right away for a sick appointment instead of waiting for the Banfield near us to get her in for a check-up and shots. We new she probably would have lots of stray-cat illnesses. We also noted a patch of fur missing on her front paw. We took her to Banfield at the given appointment time and waited for three hours. We asked how much longer and they informed us we couldn't be seen that day and would need to reschedule due to an emergency with another patient. I asked them to call another location and they found one that could see us after lunch. We drove across town and were told that they could NOT see us. I had them call the previous location back to determine what happened. I then suggested calling another location. There was another location that could see us, but it was about thirty minutes away. We went there and were seen. The vet did an exam and a stool sample. He also looked at her foot to determine the cause. She had worms and needed her shots. Nothing wrong with her foot; just probably caught it in something or got in a fight. We informed him that she was a stray and he still insisted this was all that was needed. A couple of months, $300 more and kittens later, everyone has ringworms (including my son and I)! I took the mother and kittens to the vet to determine cause of patches with hairloss and crusty, red skin. He agreed this was ringworm, did a test for mange and sent us home with lots of medicine and a dyp. I followed-up on the test and they dais everything was negative after about 2 weeks and that they will wait a few more days to see what comes of the culture. The vet feels there may be something else wrong and says to bring them all back. Not a chance. I have seen pictures of ringworm on the internet and this is definately what they have. They look so terrible and all of this could have been avoided if the first vet did his due diligence. Not to mention that this vet either confused the test with another animal or made some kind of mistake. We went to our doctor yesterday to find that in fact we did have ringworm and need to treat w / an anti-fungal for 10 days.
DO NOT go to Banfield if you can help it. I looked on the website www.bbb.com to see if there are others and they have alot of complaints. You need to scan through some of the listings because they are all different registries and a few don't have any negative info.
Their corporate office was uncooperative and would not help me deal with the issue after they agreed to look into it and talk with the vets to see what went wrong. Also, the vets will not speak to me about this as they say their policy is no refunds for medications or services. They also charged me for the kittens after they said that they would not during the exam. You would think PetsMart would not want to deal with a company like this. Right? Wrong.in fact, PetsMart has a number of issues listed as well as their PetsMart Charity Program that the Better Business Bureau does not recommend.
I also bought a Guinea Pig from PetsMart and it was ill. They sent it to the Banfield in their store and we had a very difficult time getting it on the right antibiotics to get it well. They DO NOT guarantee their services and in fact you nearly sign away your rights that protect you if the unthinkable happens.
Also, when we checked in at Banfield, they printed another customer's information on the release to treat because the receptionist just typed in our last name too quickly and did not enter our first name in the information search. I noticed it when the signature line was incorrect. They had to check out that patient and check our kitty in. This caused much trouble during the exam and upon check-out.
Please check these people out first so that you can make an informed decision. I would like to think that as large a corporation as they are, there are still a few good vets around.
This issue was not getting resolved and I needed to see another vet for the kittens because their course of treatment was not working and I think that the medicine might actually be making to kitties more sickly. I contact Bank of America who guarantees my debit card purchases w / a dispute resolution process. The refunded the money to my account temporarily until their process is completed in investigating the information provided. They said that it takes no more than 10 days and that as soon as the verify the information provided and notify the merchant, there will be a permanent credit back to the account pending the bank receive a signed statement from my husband and me.
Good luck to ya'll who have gotten the shoe from Banfield.
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