Steve
Watch out for Banfield Wellness Plan scam and unhelpful billing department
I am extremely unhappy with how my family’s whole experience has been with the financial situation at Banfield. The uncooperative, unyielding “assistance” on every level really surprised me negatively (except the helpful staff actually at the hospital who just don’t have the ability to do anything to help with the account - THEY deserve a raise for what they do to try to help). The account is in complete disarray and my family is being blamed for it. This week (first week of January, 2023) my son, who had given his dog to my daughter and her husband several years ago, received a collections letter with a ding on his credit report of 25 points, stating that he had a delinquent account for a whopping $651. The dog has not even been in his care for many years. My daughter and her husband had paid off the final bill for the dog’s last services March 28th, 2022 and closed the account. The person with whom my daughter spoke on the phone verified the account was clear, all was paid off, and it was now closed. My son-in-law had been asked to “sign the receipt” prior to this at the hospital and it turns out he had been handed a renewal form for another year of the dreaded annual contract at Banfield that committed them to 12 monthly payments of over $50. He didn’t even know that because the intent had been to close the account down. Now we find out that they have to pay $651 for absolutely nothing. No services for the dog. No vaccines. Not even a toenail clipping because they didn’t even know they had a wellness plan since they had intended (and it had been confirmed) that this had been closed and they were good. No effort has been made to reach out to get the bill paid for the unintended Wellness Plan, even with the email and cell phone. The address on the account was from when we created the account for this dog back in 2012 - 11 years ago. I haven’t lived there in over 4 years and my daughter hasn’t lived there in longer. She kept trying to tell staff at Banfield to update the account to her information and all she managed to get them to do was change email and cell phone. Naturally, ONE notice letter was, of course, mailed to the old address (so says the corporate finance office). No other effort was made before it was immediately sent to collections. Had we known this was an issue, we would have used the wellness plan, albeit begrudgingly because we thought it was cancelled. But we would have wanted our money’s worth. Again, we didn’t even know there was an open account because of how this went down. We never even used the services. Does anyone in billing care about that? Not in the slightest. No efforts have been made to believe any of my family who have tried to get something fixed. This is theft and deceit, in the form of a signed contract and there’s nothing we can do because the wonderful, amazingly understanding billing people could only repeat, “Well, I have a signed contract here.” I’m insulted, very angry, and disgusted with this business for being so deceiving and for making absolutely no effort to make this right for the customer. When it comes to Banfield Pet Hospital, I unequivocally will encourage people to go elsewhere if they want to hang on to their wallets. Nobody cares in the billing departments or at corporate in the financing department. It’s just, “There’s a signed contract.” So no effort to help or make it right. The principle of this thing is a lot more important to me than even the $651. Whatever you do, do NOT use Banfield Pet Hospital!! Go to a different vet for your pet’s care if you don’t want to be scammed or run through a boatload of disrespect and poor treatment ending up in a ruined credit score and a hefty bill for nothing. They are walking away with $651 and we get nothing for it but a 25 point credit score ding. Unbelievable.