On June 24, 2009, I carried my pet into the Flowery Branch, Georgia ("FBGB") Banfield Pet Hospital. My pet has been a member of the Banfield system since she was 5 months old. She is now 9 years old. The doctor at the FBGB is the same doctor who, two years ago, was the doctor at the Buford, Georgia Banfield ("BGB"). She was in to get her shots and nothing else. After not hearing from them by the time she was to be ready, I called and spoke with the assistant. She stated that the doctor thought it would be a good idea to split her shots up and only give her half of them. I agreed to that. AT NO TIME DID SHE MENTION ANY TYPE OF SHOT THAT WOULD MAKE IT EASIER ON HER. Two years age (2007) this same doctor was at BGB and asked my permission to give her a shot that would make her innoculations easier on her. My animal was very ill in a couple of days and I was in Alabama visiting my mother. I had to take her to a vet in Alabama and have her treated. It cost me $300.00 to get my pet on the road to recovery. Oh, by the way, the shot they wanted to give to her cost $20.00. THERE IS NO WAY I WOULD HAVE OKAYED THAT SHOT KNOWING THE EFFECT IT HAD ON HER PREVIOUSLY. WELL, they gave it to her again (and swore I had given them permission, however, I would not had done that knowing the cost and the fact that she had such an adverse reaction previously). After arguing with them for an hour, I went ahead and paid my bill and left. On Saturday, June 27, 2009, I called the doctor and informed her my dog was very ill and was running a temperature, would not eat and would not drink water. She instructed me to not try to feed her and if her temperature was below 102 degrees, she would be okay. Her temperature was around 101 so I thought the doctor knew what she was talking about even though I knew Muffin's (my dog) background with that shot and argued with the doctor and the assistant about it. They kept insisting the shot would not cause that type of problem.

On the following Monday, June 29, 2009, my dog was very ill and was running a high temperature. I took her to BGB and had the doctor there examine her. (Dr. Sims) Muffin required surgery and was very ill for approximately two weeks. She had two drains in her hip at the site of the injection. Banfield wanted to charge me nearly $700.00 for the operation. I spoke with many people at Banfield in Oregon and Georgia. They would not change the charges for this bill other than to reduce the bill by $100.00. I had to transfer my membership back to BGB from FBGB and even though they had drafted my bank on 6/27 for the July payment, I had to pay another $37.95 and raise my payment plan from $16.95 per month to $37.95 per month to get a 20% discount. I am very ill at the present time with a liver disease. I do not have the money to pay these charges. I told them that and they agreed to ALLOW me to get Muffin if I would pay $100.00 plus the $37.50 to upgrade to their higher level plan and pay the balance by August 26, 2009. Even though I did not have the money (I borrowed the $150.00), I knew I had to get my pet out of their hands. I am under Chapter 13 Bankruptcy protection and I only paid the amount required to get my pet. They have subsequently billed me the balance due and informed me it has to be paid by August 26, 2009. I have not paid the bill and I am turning it over to my attorney to include in the bankruptcy.

They injured my pet. She has always been very healthy except for the two (2) times the same doctor has given her the same shot.

Even though they are supposed to debit my account $37.95 per month, I have just looked at my bank account on line and they debited a total of $75.90. I do not have the money in my account to cover this bill. Have called the bank but they said since it was already on hold, they could not do anything about.

I will be contacting Scott Campbell (CEO Banfield, Oregon) immediately after this to tell him my story and to CANCEL my bank debits.

These people are so out of touch with the people and pets they are sworn to help. I hope you can really stick it to them because this should not be happening to people who put their pets in their hands and they do controversial treatments that cause harm to the pets simply (in my opinion) for the money.

I hope you will contact me regarding the class action suit. If I can be of service to you, please let me know.

Sincerely, Ann Davis, 6203 Compass Drive, Flowery Branch, Georgia 30542; 678-936-5655; [email protected]

My dog Clancy has dry eye syndrome, or keraconjunctivitis sicca. To make a long story short, he had an appointment 8/19/09 and the vet who had been treating him wasn't there (she said she would be, which was why I scheduled it for that time), so another one saw him, and recommended an ointment to complement the one being used which, by her own admission, was working great.

When I went to check out, I asked the price of this ointment, which was packaged as a prescription in a Blistex size tube. I was told $26, so I asked to see it. Turns out it was 15% mineral oil and 85% petrolatum, which you know as Vaseline. No inert ingredients, nothing. When I voiced my displeasure to the clerk, she replied, correctly so, that she doesn't set the prices. So I asked to see the vet again, the clerk checked, and I was told she was busy. So of course I tossed the box on the counter, told her that the price was "unethical, " and checked out.

So watch out for these kinds of ripoffs. This tube was about .25 oz, making their price $104/oz. I figure that this is about a 10, 000% profit margin.

Banfield is a huge scam! They've diagnosed him with heart defects (suggested surgery), cushings disease (suggested $1000s to test), diabetes (which they keep coming up with new ways to charge $100s each visit, just to name a few. I have followed the dr's ordered since we got our puppy (now 13), he has health has continued declining but banfield keeps saying I need to more...The service stinks, the dr's are a scam and my biggest regret is ever signing up for the "wellness" plan which has been anything but. Save your money, don't use them.

It's quite a simple and heartbreaking story. I took my pet (details withheld due to pending litigation) in for a simple tooth cleaning. Banfield Pet Hospital sent her home with a dislocated hip.

They refuse to acknowledge they may have done anything wrong, or were in any way negligent and/or simply unobservant.

The total charges for this simple tooth cleaning came to over $1, 000, but lucky me...with the Wellness plan I "only" had to pay $350.

The real vet I took my pet to informed me that a normal tooth cleaning on a small pet is actually around $150 to $200 at any reputable vet office.

Tomorrow my pet will be sedated in order for her new, caring doctor to take the appropriate x-rays to determine the extent of damage and if/when my pet may have to have hip surgery.

I will continue to pursue Banfield Pet Hospital in order that no other pet will have to go through what mine is going through right now.

Banfield Pet Hospital does not care for your pet, or for your feelings when your pet is injured by their negligence and ignorance and stupidity.

I will continue to spread the word regarding these facts and about why I hate Banfield Pet Hospital and why you should, too.
http://banfieldhater.blogspot.com/

As of recently we have removed both of our dogs from Banfield's care based on suspicion of fraud/scams. We inherited a beautiful staffordshire terror named Sadie. She was three years old when we got her, but i knew her long before that. (She belonged to an ex-boyfriends family) Anyways, as responsible pet owners we took her to Banfield to get all of her shots because her previous owners couldn't afford to have this procedure done and we wanted to make sure she was in good health. In a superficial light, she appeared perfectly healthy: Great appetite, very strong, clever, and willing to learn. (She's a big baby though) The very first day we had her there, she didnt mind the nurses or this new environment and they did all sorts of tests on her and said she was perfectly normal and healthy. Since my other dog, a shitzu is on their wellness plan we put Sadie on it as well. Well when you're put on the wellness plan then Banfield will do little procedures to see just how healthy your dog is. X-rays and blood tests and such. I'll go fast forward: Doctor says she has heart worms. BUT get this, she only has "Male" heart worms and to ensure that no females ever show up we need to do the treatment. Her serum test was negative .I now know, after talking to a different vet that the explination the Banfield doctor gave me was a bit...wrong. But we did the treatment anyways. The first month she was okay, we followed the doctors orders and she was back to normal in no time, but she needed to get her second dose! We took her in and this time she went into anaphylactic shock!! We were charged for whatever extra expenses for what they had to do to save her and we didnt complain. We paid it and were happy that she was alive and not brain damaged. Happy ending right? No.

Two weeks later I wake up in bed and Sadie is panting REALLY hard like she was having one of my asthma attacks. She couldnt catch her breath and didnt sleep the entire night. Right away i took her into Banfield the next day. They never explained what was wrong with her, they kept her for the day and gave her fluids, i suppose they thought she was dehydrated. They gave her a type of...i guess albuteral for dogs kind of thing and sent her home. She continued to pant but it was at least lighter so she could sleep. This isnt the end.

Another two weeks passed and i noticed that it was taking her longer to get up than usual. It was around the time in which she could be active again but climbing stairs was a chore for her. She's stumbled down stairs on her belly or when she tries to walk she'll just collapse until she's ready to try walking again. Worried, I took her into the vet again. Note: We only took her in to have her leg examined right?

This time when we took Sadie to Banfield i felt like such a horrible person for taking her out of the car. She was terrified to go into the store!! When it was time to see the doctor they had to put a mussel on her because they were scared she would bite. She's never been aggressive to anyone EVER. I had to put the mussel on her myself and she wasn't happy about it and neither was I. For a dog to even get that emotional to see this man, i should have known that was a bad sign. The Banfield doctor examined Sadies legs and said they were perfectly fine, she had reflexes to them still and no damaged appeared to have been done. He noted that she had two lumps on the leg that she didn't want to move and prescribed her meds for it. He also noted that every now and then she had a little cough and immediately diagnosed that she had a 'doggy cold' as he called it. Doggy cold? I would have accepted allergies. He prescribed her some cough pills and sent us home, before that he did blood tests...not even sure why but we just wanted her to get better so we let him draw blood and he gave her a cocktail of antibiotics for her cold. This is still not the end!

We took her home and her leg got worse and worse as we gave her the benedril and cough medicine. Her cough got much much worse as well and she resorted to throwing up. If throwing up wasn't bad, she not only lost the use of her right leg but her left one as well. I have to carry my 'baby' around the house or outside if she needs to go to the bathroom. I get a call from my doctor saying that Sadie has gone into congestive heart failure and liver failure. That something was given to her to cause her bile levels in her blood to become 9x what they were only 4 months prior. I know people say "You don't know what your dog gets into", but in this case, this girl is like a tick to me. Always at my side, so I know 150% that she didn't get into anything poisonous. She's leash walked, and isn't fed freely so something didn't just 'fall' into her food.

After that incident I took her to a nonbanfield doctor to get a second opinion. Because at this point, at the time, i couldnt afford to have all the testing done again I gave them a copy of the paper work banfield had done on her. (Medical history for dogs) The doctor looked at the liver work and explained everything to me so i could understand what this meant for my Sadie. She prescibed her two medications that have helped stop her vomiting and promotes liver cell growth.

I must say that so far Sadie is A LOT more spirited, her appetite is back. She's adapted to not having the use of her legs so she uses the bathroom in her own...interesting way hehe, she doesn't mind being carried around but as the days go by she's working very hard to use her legs and walk like a normal dog again. We were so close to having to put her down because she was so so sick.

The new doctor explained that Banfield had given her something that was toxic to her liver, that it might have been an overdose of some sort. We have spent over $2, 000 on this dog at Banfield only to watch her get worse and worse. It wasnt until we took her somewhere else that she began to improve.

The only reason our shitzu is alive and well is because we have NEVER followed Banfields instructions on him. They told us he was in congestive heart failure and 10 years later he's still chasing cars and little kids around like a puppy.

I'm sure ill get one person that will flame about responsibility and having a pet costs money, sure. It takes a lot of responsibility, but if its the vets fault for why she's this way have anything to do with how much i make? i felt like they were abusing the love an owner has for their dog and how they are willing to do anything for an animal they love. They can charge you 50 bucks for amoxacillin when its only 25 bucks for a human. (and the human gets a bigger dose!!) Banfield is nice and convenient, we've been taking our shitzu there for years JUST to get his shots and he's okay, I would limit their services just to that. I dont know if they dont care or if they just werent trained properly or if the nurses (who btw arent REAL nurses) don't know what they're talking about.

Simply, I feel abused by Banfield. They've used my love for Sadie against me. I didn't ask for my money back, its not about the money. It's about what they did to her...that they put this poor dog through all that hell for money. Every time she went to Banfield she got worse and worse and worse, didn't matter what they injected into her. I'm not going to go on about how a much of a bad man the vet was or what money grubbing jerks Banfield is. There's enough bashing here as it is but until the "I LOVE BANFIELD SO MUCH" people are put in our shoes, I dont think they'll understand. Its one great big emotional rollercoaster, wondering if your best cuddly friend will be with you tomorrow because of some stupid, irresponsible mistake.

You want to talk responsibility? Tell it to Banfield.

"Treat you like Family" Yeah...put me in a nasty cage by myself, be rough with me, and so you'll never have to deal with me again, inject me with something that may kill me. Wonder if there's a 'mal-practice' for vets.