I have a problem with PETCO and I'm wondering what my next step should be. Here's a bit of the back story.
Ourdog had been sprayed by a skunk in September. It was a small spot onher chest, but as you can imagine it smelled horrible. We brought herto PETCO because they have a grooming servicethat claims to take care of the problem. A few days after she got back, we noticed that she appeared to ahve some sort of infection and herskin was flaking off over here entire body. This made absolutely nosense considering the fact that I have dealt with animals that havebeen sprayed before and this had never happened. It wasn't just in thearea that was sprayed, it was her entire body. As i said, the skin wasflaking and smelled horrible, like rotting flesh.
We went back to PETCOand spoke to the man that had actually given her the bath. Much to oursurprise, he advised us that they had a problem with a particularproduct that had actually caused dogs to get infected in the past. Hewent on to tell us that the skin would flakeoff the dogs. He said that due to this, they had stopped using theproduct for awhile, but for some unknown reason, began using it again. We were told to take the dog to the vet to get antibiotics and PETCO would take care of the vet bill.
But there was an even more surprising part. This same employee also told us that they have also had problems with their spray bottles. He said that the bottles aren't washed properly and they had a problem with fungus growing inside the bottles. This could have also been part of the problem.
So we went to the vet who confirmed an infection. When we tried to bring the vet bill back to PETCO, we had a difficult time reaching the manager. Each time we visited, shewas either in a meeting or mysteriously unavailable. When she wasavailable and we were able to speak to her, she twice denied receivingany fax from the vet, despite us knowing that the vet sent the fax. When she finally made sure she received the fax, the manager said thatthey would not pay the vet bill. She then said that there has been noother reported incidents in the past and there has never been anyissues with their products or with their bottles.
We ahve triedseveral times to get this resolved with the local store, but that gotus nowhere. Eventually we called the toll-free customer service number. Several times, we were promised a call back. And each time, we wouldwait 7 - 10 days. And at the end of the 7 - 10 day waiting period, wewould call back and were again promised a call back.
We finallyreceived a call back from the district manager today who simply saidthat thy have "protocols" in place for cleaning the bottles. She didn'taddress the issue with the chemical that caused the problem as well. When I informed her that we have good evidence to show that thoseprocedures weren't followed and we were made promises, she said shecould not do anything about it and would have to have someone from"risk management" (or something like that) call me back.
I amthinking about taking this to district court to get them to pay for thevet bill as promised. We have the statements from the vets to help ourcase. But on top of that, we also have the conversations with theemployees on audio tape. We have the employee talking about the fungus in the bottles plus the product that caused the same exact issue in other dogs that have been taken to PETCOfor grooming. We also have the manager denying that there has ever beenany problems in the past. We live in a "one party consent" state so Iknow there are no legal issues with the recordings. If this does go tocourt, we will also be able to use those items in court. And since thisis a civil case and not a criminal case, we really only need apreponderance of the evidence.
I feel we have a really strongcase, but was hoping to avoid having to go to court. We have triedaddressing this by every avenue we could find but it seems like we havereached a dead end, and it seems like we are just being strung alongwith promises of calls that never come. Is there something else weshould do or should I just go ahead and file the paperwork for court?
Thanks for your help!
0 comments