Petco vs Me - Could go Legal.

[tgolden]

I read the post.
Just go somewhere else.
This is hardly what I would call a law suit worthy event. (Just My opinion)

I got to agree with ya Tom.
~ Tommie

 

[cr1chard]

Since when does any business have to sell to a customer? What ever happened to "we reserve the right to refuse service..."? This entitled, sue-happy behavior is what's wrong with this goddamn country. Of course your lawyer says you have legal reasons xyz on your side - he's making money off you by encouraging what is basically a frivolous lawsuit ("They wouldn't sell me an animal because they think I took bad care of a previous one that I returned").

What's your end-game? What "damages" did you suffer - other than being refused service? Because if this doesn't get laughed out of court, it's going to force Petco to never refuse selling a pet, no matter how irresponsible the prospective owner is, under threat of legal action.

 

[ShannyBeard]

Since when does any business have to sell to a customer? What ever happened to "we reserve the right to refuse service..."? This entitled, sue-happy behavior is what's wrong with this goddamn country. Of course your lawyer says you have legal reasons xyz on your side - he's making money off you by encouraging what is basically a frivolous lawsuit ("They wouldn't sell me an animal because they think I took bad care of a previous one that I returned").

What's your end-game? What "damages" did you suffer - other than being refused service? Because if this doesn't get laughed out of court, it's going to force Petco to never refuse selling a pet, no matter how irresponsible the prospective owner is, under threat of legal action.

Interesting perspective. My husband and I were just talking about the 'right to refuse service' while we were at ReptiCon last weekend. There were breeders there selling babies that were WAY too young and small to be sold. These were breeders that should KNOW better, too. I saw a 5 year old girl with a 4inch long beardie in her hands and the mother was asking, "is that the one you want?". Now you know that was a death sentence to that baby beardie. Dragon couldn't have been a month old. It was so tiny I would have shied at taking it. But there were breeders, well known breeders, selling those teensy dragons without even giving a care sheet. I stood right there and saw it. So if we have our own well-known breeders selling to anyone with a credit card, then I'm shocked that PetCo would refuse to serve anyone.

Because obviously it's all about the money.

 

[kjinxx2]

Since when does any business have to sell to a customer? What ever happened to "we reserve the right to refuse service..."? This entitled, sue-happy behavior is what's wrong with this goddamn country. Of course your lawyer says you have legal reasons xyz on your side - he's making money off you by encouraging what is basically a frivolous lawsuit ("They wouldn't sell me an animal because they think I took bad care of a previous one that I returned").

What's your end-game? What "damages" did you suffer - other than being refused service? Because if this doesn't get laughed out of court, it's going to force Petco to never refuse selling a pet, no matter how irresponsible the prospective owner is, under threat of legal action.

I wanted to say this exactly, but couldn't think of a good way of saying it. Nobody has to make a sale, as long as it's not based on some predetermined factor (race, etc) they can do what they want. They don't feel like you should have a pet, so they're not going to sell to you. What's the difference between that and someone on craigslist saying "I don't want to sell to you, don't think you're the right person". Nothing.

 

[cjsdragons]

So if you go read through some of my previous threads, you will see I have had issues with my local Petco and their store manager. Well, this continued to a whole new saga today.

Last week my wife told me she wanted a Frilled Lizard. It just so happened that Petco had 2 of them and we went and picked one up. Since I basically had all the housing requirements, I only needed to get a few small things and a Tropical rated UVB for it, no big deal.

3 days ago, while I was cleaning the Frilled lizard's cage, I noticed it wasn't moving and was very dark in color. I picked it up and began examining it to see if it was hurt, had any lumps, or anything noticeable at all. While I am holding the frilled, he begins to stiffen up, point his legs and arms straight back, blow his belly up fat, open his mouth and frill wide and rolled his eyes a bit and began shaking. It dawns on me, this frilled is having a seizure! So I call Petco and arrange to return it. We arrived there 15 minutes later, at which time the frilled had come out of his seizure and was just holding onto my thumb.

Today I went back into Petco because they have a Cuban Knight Anole that I wanted to purchase. Before I even said anything, this associate comes up to me with a very angry and wild look on his face and tells me they would not sell the Anole to me. I was told I could not purchase the Anole because I had returned a Frilled Lizard that was 100% healthy. I asked how they can come to this decision, and their exact words were "because you fed the Frilled lizard roaches". Seriously! LOL! They took the Frilled Lizard to the Vet, a non-herp experienced Vet mind you, and told the Vet that is what the Frilled ate. So they told me the Vet laughed and said I shouldn't be trying to feed a Frilled lizard roaches. The Petco store manager holds up her hand and shows me a length of roach that would be adult size female for Dubia roaches. I told them their Vet wasn't a certified Herp vet and had no clue what she was talking about. And also I asked them if they seriously thought I would try and feed a 9" long baby Frilled with full sized adult Dubia roaches.

The associate standing there says to me "The Vet isn't wrong, she's my tech college teacher!" HAHA

So I leave Petco, I let them know my displeasure and let them know they will be hearing from me and I won't allow them to do this.

I spoke to my attorney tonight and she had some good things to say.

1. The Vet and Petco employees Defamed me with false information
2. My First amendment rights were violated
3. If I don't hear what I want to hear, she's filing papers against Petco to force to have this store manager and associate fired.

So I am calling the Vet tomorrow, asking for proof of her credentials, and experience working on reptiles from Australia and Indonesia.

Then I am calling Petco corporate and speaking to whomever is in charge of their pet wellfare.

This will go the legal route once Petco decides to mess with me and not listen to what I have to say.

this has to be the biggest waste of my day ive ever written

who are you to say a employee should be fired MOST petco/petsmart employees are college students working for a degree in animal related studies petco dident defame you nore did they cause you to lose any amount of money from the so called defamation and sueing them would cause you to lose large amounts of money because you wanna get on a high horse
unless they duck tapped your mouth they dident violate free speech your rediculous petco does reserve the right to not sell to any person unfit to care for an animal and thats solely management descresion i applied for store manager at one point im well aware of there basic guideline for animal sales as it was my concern people who had no clue what they were doing would not be able to purchase animals

you need to check yourself they might be wrong on many occasions but x rays dont lie if thats what they were saying showed a large female roach than what was it you missing many details and this isent clearly the whole story people dont just say its that specific feeder for no reason

 

[Zeusmybeardie]

I disagree petco or any of them should sell to anyone but they should be giving them info to care for the pet well the problem is that they don't know how to there selves so they shouldn't not be selling bugs to a person that does know how to take care of their animal proper because if I walked into a petstore and said I want to buy a frilled lizard but I need the basic care for them and they say well we won't sell it to u because u don't know how to care that's not right it's their job to tell u how to take care of your animal and the right way not the cheap improper way

 

[Mistyck]

I read the post.
Just go somewhere else.
This is hardly what I would call a law suit worthy event. (Just My opinion)

I agree with you Tom!

 

[cjsdragons]

I disagree petco or any of them should sell to anyone but they should be giving them info to care for the pet well the problem is that they don't know how to there selves so they shouldn't not be selling bugs to a person that does know how to take care of their animal proper because if I walked into a petstore and said I want to buy a frilled lizard but I need the basic care for them and they say well we won't sell it to u because u don't know how to care that's not right it's their job to tell u how to take care of your animal and the right way not the cheap improper way

How is it petcos job to teach you how to care for an animal what happened to learning and educating yourself ?

 

[Zeusmybeardie]

What happened to hiring people who know how to do it proper and what happened to taking care off animals properly

 

[ShannyBeard]

I disagree petco or any of them should sell to anyone but they should be giving them info to care for the pet well the problem is that they don't know how to there selves so they shouldn't not be selling bugs to a person that does know how to take care of their animal proper because if I walked into a petstore and said I want to buy a frilled lizard but I need the basic care for them and they say well we won't sell it to u because u don't know how to care that's not right it's their job to tell u how to take care of your animal and the right way not the cheap improper way

How is it petcos job to teach you how to care for an animal what happened to learning and educating yourself ?

Good point. We do have a very firm rule in our house that there are absolutely no impulse buys on animals that we don't already have thoroughly researched. That research is the proper care and housing of the animal in question. I've been burned a few times buying something and then realizing I needed to buy a zillion other things to give it the proper home. The biggest one was my anole which wound up costing over $200 to properly house. The anoles cost $4.99 LOL.

 

[Zeusmybeardie]

Well I spent 400-500$ on Zeus I got him free lol

 

[cjsdragons]

What happened to hiring people who know how to do it proper and what happened to taking care off animals properly

your making statements that are ridiculous your saying hey petco is responsible for teaching me how to care for an animal? why should they have to sit with a customer for 2 hours because that customer to to lazy to do the work themselves and put the time in otherwise

petco has many flaws and i dont buy from them but when i see them being unfairly bashed it calls for a red flag there in stores to sell animals not to baby someone and explain a full list of animal care the problem is not the employees its the guidelines as to what they are taught petco has set sheets of care that are exactly how things go (or supose to)it starts from the top not the employees selling animals

animals would not be abused nearly as much if breeders had the stones to refuse sales to certain people you can generally tell a clueless person from a experienced one
with the economy its hard to do i understand that but some people willingly put animals in harms way generally speaking when selling the high end reptiles there alot less likely to be abused since the amount of money the customer has had to invest in that specific animal

 

[ShannyBeard]

Well I spent 400-500$ on Zeus I got him free lol

Yes bearded dragons are expensive! We got our anole at the Medieval Faire thinking it would be a great starter lizard before we invested in a beardie. It was $20 for a little plastic container, the lizard and a cup of dried, dead bugs that would last about 6 months. ....wha? Totally misled by the Boy Scout troop that sells them as a fundraiser.

$200+ later we realized we should have just gotten a beardie. The anoles are much harder to care for than the dragons are. :roll:

 

[bunnyrut]

I disagree petco or any of them should sell to anyone but they should be giving them info to care for the pet well the problem is that they don't know how to there selves so they shouldn't not be selling bugs to a person that does know how to take care of their animal proper because if I walked into a petstore and said I want to buy a frilled lizard but I need the basic care for them and they say well we won't sell it to u because u don't know how to care that's not right it's their job to tell u how to take care of your animal and the right way not the cheap improper way

How is it petcos job to teach you how to care for an animal what happened to learning and educating yourself ?

but it is their job to give out the wrong information for caring for that animal?

It should be MANDATORY for employees to learn about all of the animals they sell.
Working in the food business you have to take courses about food safety and handling to be certified to handle food. Why can't it be the same for working someplace that sells live animals?

 

[NeosMom]

It would be wonderful customer service if a pet store taught customers the best way to care for their pets. However, that is honestly not why they are in business. The basic fact is that they are in business to make money - sell things. This includes animals and the supplies and food that those animals need. People need to understand that we can not hold others to our own personal standards.

I completely understand the frustration on these forums. We love dragons. That is why we are here. And we all want to see every dragon treated the way we would treat them. But people need to accept that is simply not how the world works. And if you want the authority to tell someone else how to run their business, then you need to be prepared for someone else to come along and tell you how to run yours. I guarantee someone out there thinks there is something they should be able to change about you.