PetSmart

October 25, 2022

4:46 pm eastern.

US ARMY VETERAN WITH MISTREATED SERVICE DOG.

Read in full.

I brought my approx 2 year old (service dog) German shepherd to the christiansburg Virginia petsmart for a 3pm appointment today. I was informed upon dropping him off for a simple bath/furminator that he would be ready in 2-3 hours. I started to walk out of the store when I realized what I was told, so I went back to make sure I heard correctly because every other time in the past they have taken no more than an hour for everything. They usually ask me to hang around the store because of the regular amount of time. I thought it odd. When I went back to the grooming area to double check (passively), I was met with attitude. Following that, I inquired with a store manager in the front of the store about the weird 2-3 hour wait. The manager informed me that they just overestimate the amount of time so they can make sure the dog is completely dry and such.. So following this, an hour has now gone by. I’m still in petsmart making purchases and waiting for dog. I received a call from petsmart. I expected to hear my dog was ready to be picked up. Instead, they called me trying to claim that my well trained service dog was oddly trying to nip at the groomer while they were trying to dry him with a blow dryer, while attempting to trim his nails, and that they did not complete the services. After that hour, I received my dog soaking wet, services not done, and a clearly false story being told about my dog. The same dog that has never once but anyone. Ever. Also, I was billed full price of $71 for complete services performed that were not. When I picked him up, soaking wet with most services not done, I went straight back to that front store manager and informed her of the story I was just told. With my service dog on leash that I simply had dangling from my fingers. No hold on the leash. He simply sat there soaking wet and whimpered a lil while I explained my disgust with petsmarts clear poor treatment of my service dog. People everywhere constantly ask me why he is so well behaved and respectful and do I have any tips for them. Everyone that meets Storm loves him. He was even just maliciously attacked by another dog at a dog park yesterday and simply tried to dodge bites at him to avoid avoid being hurt. This’s the dog that petsmart groomers informed me would not be welcome back. So my well behaved, thoroughly trained SERVICE DOG is now being blacklisted from petsmart stores because someone in there clearly did something hostile to my dog or simply has a serious problem with shepherds. I highly recommend not bringing your dog to this store for grooming services. I further recommend that someone in corporate management bring there well trained shepherd to this store for “grooming” without them knowing who you are so you can see for yourself what goes on here.

By the way, this’s the first complaint I’ve lodged against any business in over 15 years. I’m a thick skinned U.S. army veteran with a service dog that I won’t see mistreated. Trust me, I’m not the complaint guy, but you all need to be aware of this place. At least some of their groomers should not be doing this kinda work.

Furthermore, I’m now back at the store where, after calling the store about being fully charged for services that were not done, the have offered to now refund me. But my dog is now black listed, likely at all petsmarts nationwide. You tell me how this’s ok at all… 👎🏼

Please read this before going here.

So I'm not where to put this, so I may as well place it here. I want to regale a story, mind you that I will not be using the names except for one, single person.

Bentley.

I am a dog owner. I have a mutt, and I love him with every part of my being. He's a fun corgi mix, the energy of a corgi, and the whine of a chow. It's very strange, but he's our (my fiancee and I just want to clarify for future reference) little Odin. Now we take Odin to petsmart for grooming. His hair grows like wildfire, and frankly the groomer we found at the pet store is amazing. They know who they are, and to help them out i'm not going to be using a name. Slightly confusing, but I don't want them to get in trouble. The groomer we have is an amazing individual, who cares about our dog and does her best. I am proud to say that we have an amazing groomer.

We go in to get Odin groomed, this is the third time mind you, and we go in and hand him over. We leave, and come back a few hours later to pick him up. He looks amazing, another job well done.

We notice something after we picked up Odin however. He's scratching. A lot. Now obviously the first thing we thought of was maybe he was allergic to some sort of spray they used on him. We didn't think anything like fleas because we give him his flea medicine, once a month every month. So we give him a nice scrub down and put a shirt on him to help him stop.

He continues to bite and scratch until he bleeds. We take notice. We go to the vet. We learn there that he has fleas. Fleas who are not biting him, but are just on his body. We see the picture and we are surprised. How could he have gotten fleas? Our minds quickly start putting pieces together.

When we took Odin to petsmart, he was not scratching, biting, or hurting himself. When we pick him up, he's scratching, biting, and hurting himself. See the assumption? We did. We assumed that he somehow caught fleas from the Pet groomers. We didn't have 100% proof, and we understood that, but we wanted to talk to the grooming salon to ask what may of happened.

So I call petsmart. I ask politely to talk to the manager, who I find out is named "Bentley." Bentley answers the phone, he doesn't seem happy that he's talking to a customer from the tone, but he simply states his name. I say hello, my name, and tell him what was going on. I did not curse, I did not yell, I informed him. I told that he may want to look into it. His response?

"We don't have fleas here. This is a very clean grooming salon."

I was slightly caught off guard. No "I'm sorry that happened to your dog," or "I'm sorry to hear that let me look into it." No, a simple answer. The "I'm the manager and you are a stupid customer."

Now you may be thinking that I was taking this a bit too personally. But I continued to talk to him about what had happened, offering that perhaps somebody made a mistake, or perhaps somebody didn't see the fleas.

Bentley did not budge. He continued to be adamant against me. His tone was harsh and direct. He was saying the same thing over and over again to get the point across.

To him, I was an idiot.

Now to put in a little tidbit on this manager, Bentley. I found out recently, from an employee, that he was charging my fiancee and I an extra 25$ on my dog for each grooming session. Why? Because we put down on his breed that he was a Corgi/Chow mix. He has little chow in him, but apparently writing those words is a death sentence. Our groomer even tried to ring Odin up as a Corgi, but Bentley refused.

Now, back with my lovely conversation with Bentley.

Of course I got angry. I didn't yell, I didn't curse, but I even told him "You can stop telling me I'm wrong, because it's getting very annoying." His sarcastic response still irks me. "I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just telling you that doesn't happen here." So he wasn't saying that I was wrong, but he was saying that I was wrong without using those words. Right.

I finally get fed up. "Then I guess I have to take my business to another groomer." His response still amazes me. "Alright then, goodbye."

I was shocked actually. I understand that I'm not the most important in the world but frankly, as a customer, as a person who literally handed money over for a service, or even as a human being, did I not deserve some sort of respect? I guess that's the follow, I assume that I deserve some sort of respect because I'm the customer.

Well I was angry, as most people would be, and I then called the customer service. I wanted to reach Petsmart at their headquarters in Arizona. Their customer service however, is in Wisconsin. For such a large company, I could understand that. They have thousands of calls they have to have a separate call center, I just wish it was in the same state. Oh well, no big deal. I call them and inform them. Now when I say "Inform" I will admit, I was very angry. I held back from cursing. I told them how I was angry. They understood. They did a write up and told me that the company would reach out to me within 3-5 business days.

Now, I work in HR. I understand how this process works and this makes sense. Nothing happens overnight. Just because there's a problem, people aren't going to rush to solve it. There's always a deadline, but you have to prioritize. So I understand that it will take most likely 5 business days. That's fine.

Missing the deadline is not good.

The 5th day comes up. No call. I call customer support and get elevated to a supervisor. They inform me that because of a loophole (to explain, because of when I submitted the information, the first business wait day was not the day after I put in the ticket, but the day after that) I had to wait another business day. Fine, I'll wait another day. I was told two things after that. 1. That I should expect a call on the next business day (the monday after the 4th of july) and 2. I should call the central office and talk to somebody there. I thanked the supervisor and called the central office in Arizona.

I called and was put on hold for thirty minutes. I did not talk to anybody when I called, I was directly put on hold, for thirty minutes.

Angry? A little bit. I felt like a fool for sitting there for 30 minutes. I was hopeful, but obviously wrong.

So I wait until the next business day. Today.

Again. No call. Nothing. Great. Just perfect.

So I call customer service again, this time I'm angry but not swearing. I tell the poor agent (I apologized for getting angry it's not their fault, they just answer the phones) that I wanted to talk to the manager right now. He agrees and puts me on hold for a minute, maybe less. He comes back and informs me there are "no managers or supervisors here right now."

I was really confused here. My response:

"You're telling me that you all are _ doing nothing right now because nobody is watching you?"

Obviously the language wasn't needed, but yeah. It made no sense. He apologizes quickly and tells me that the "escalation team" had left the building. "Ok, how long were they going to be out?" "Until the rest of the day." "Why?" "I have no clue sir." Again, more confusion. "So when do they normally stay until?" "8PM eastern time sir."

This was making no sense to me.

"Do you want somebody to call you tomorrow?"

"Yes. I want somebody to call me at 3:15 MST, that's 6:15 EST. I want to talk to the manager of escalation. If you could have the actual company call me? That would be great."

He agreed and asked if there was anything else he could do. Obviously nothing.

So now I sit here, typing this up. I've given this company multiple chances to talk to me, to somewhat appease me (let's be honest, that's how customers work) or even apologize to me. To this company, that has remained nameless through this post, has failed time and time again. I want them to call me. I want to hear what they have to say.

I'm not sure what posting this will do? Nothing? Probably. I wanted to have a place to vent, and this helps. I'm going to post this whole thing (without swear words) on as many review pages as I can. I'm just amazed of how little they care. Working in a company next to the customer service, I see people care about business. Obviously Petsmart, just doesn't care about the pets they take care of, or the customers. There are amazing employees who work there. The groomer we have is somebody I would trust with my dog 100%. Yes there was a mistake made possibly, and I don't think it was their fault. But because of Bentley the manager, because of the terrible customer service, I'm not going to hand money over to a company that doesn't want to even look at me as a customer. All I am to them is a pile of garbage who hands money over to them. I guess that's the real world, obviously right?

Thank you Petsmart. You are great