Hi All:
Effective at about 8:30a on 19 Oct, I have been banned from entering
the Pet Supplies Plus store in Findlay, Ohio. Why, you may ask? Because
when my husband & I were in that store at around lunchtime on the day
before (18 Oct), they had dried up mush for food in the ferret
enclosure, which had a sizable amount of Carefresh bedding mixed in w/
it, & also because one of the ferrets was chewing frantically on one
corner of the plastic litterbox that was in w/ them. Some of the
plastic was obviously missing from the litterbox (gone to where? the
enclosure floor? the ferret's intestines?) We pointed it out to the
teenage cashier as we paid for our items, & she said something to the
effect of , "I guess I have to do that now, too." She didn't sound
overly enthused. After we left the store, my husband suggested I call
PSP's headquarters & mention it to them, as this girl didn't sound like
she was actually going to do anything about it. The customer service
chick (by the name of Linda) thanked me for calling, said they'd have
their regional manager check it out, & fix whatever needed fixing.

As I already stated, their regional manager who covers at least north
central Ohio, one Craig, called me this morning & informed me that I
was banned from the store, for being a "troublemaker" & being
"continually harassing." In the 6-ish yrs I've been shopping in that
store (& incidentally, dropping an estimated $1,000 - 1,200 per yr
during that entire time), I've called them 3 times on various issues.
Two of those calls were about cleanliness issues in the ferret
enclosure - bad ones at that, which honestly is *very* unusual for this
store. The remaining call wasn't even to their corporate, but to the
store mgr, asking about Marshall Farm ferrets being sold in their store
that still had their baby teeth, & whether there was any way possible
they could refuse to take ferrets that were too young to be there. I
purchased 2 of my 5 ferrets in that store, & one of them, Puck, was too
young. The store staff told me that MF told them he was 8 wks old;
but when I got home & looked over the paperwork, his date of birth
indicated he was barely 6 wks old. This certainly wasn't PSP's fault, &
I didn't call corporate to talk about this - just the Findlay store
mgr.

And, just to point out further how ludicrous this situation is, it was
just over a yr ago that PSP's corporate people assisted me in finding
out why the 8-in-1 chicken FerretBites were arriving in stores all over
the US (not just PSP) w/ green mold in them. We worked together,
developed an excellent line of communication w/ the 8-in-1 people, &
got the problem solved. I publicly praised PSP for their help in this,
& emails that I still have in my possession from their corporate people
are full of thanks for working w/ them, & for being such a loyal
customer.

And now, one yr later, I'm banned for harassment? This Craig person
even went so far as informing me that they were actually *keeping a
file on me*, apparently in some attempt to document my "harassment".

99.9% of the time when I go into this store (which is about every 2
wks, on average), the conditions in that store, & in the ferret
enclosure in particular, are very good, clean, & not at all crowded.
They now only sell ferrets that are definitely old enough to be 
away from their mothers. And I've talked to one of their asst mgrs
regularly, telling her how fantastically things are being kept there.
She's a former ferret owner herself, & she takes these things
seriously. She was not in the store on the 18th, when I witnessed the
bad food & the chewing of the litterbox. Had she been, I'm sure she
would have taken care of it herself.

After getting off the phone w/ this lovely regional mgr, my husband
called corporate, to talk to this Linda in customer service. She
continued the tirade against me, saying that I "call them continually",
complaining about the "number of flies" in their store (nope, only did
that once, during one of the 2 calls I did make about cleanliness). She
said, on this current occasion, I complained to the store mgr. Not so -
it was a cashier. She said we never even bought things in the store, &
only came in to look at the ferrets & make nasty comments. Again, not a
shred of truth there. We only go in there to buy stuff - they're not
even in our town, so we have no way to just "go in & complain", w/out
making a 48 mi round trip. We bought items that day - 3 boxes of
FerretBites & one other item that I'm blanking out on at the moment
(the receipt's downstairs, I'm upstairs, & am too lazy to go look at it
right now). Not only that, but we played w/ the ferrets while we were
there, & this girl & the store mgr witnessed us laughing cuddling, &
commenting on how cute they were. We mentioned the problem in passing
as we paid for our items, & we certainly didn't make a huge stink about
it while we were in the store. Other than the health risk from the one
ferret chewing shreds of plastic off the litterbox, it wasn't a huge
deal, & we know that they're normally really on top of things in there.

My husband asked if the safety & health of the animals they sell wasn't
of the utmost importance, & while I didn't hear her answer, it
obviously had to do w/ our being harassing, as my husband informed her
that customer service is a huge part of his own job - being a pharmacy
mgr for over 26 yrs..

Earlier, while I was on the phone w/ this Craig guy, I mentioned how
much business we did in their store, but if they really didn't want us
around, I'd be *glad* to hand our money over to someone else. He said
he didn't care. I told him I'd be sure to let others know about their
wonderful treatment of their customers, & that perhaps they shouldn't
shop in their stores anymore, either. He said, "Go right ahead, feel
free, I don't care."

So, the purpose of this post is to ask anyone who feels so inclined, to
boycott Pet Supplies Plus. If they treat their customers this poorly,
maybe we *all* should give our money to someone else, since according
to Craig, he doesn't care. Perhaps we should all take him up on his
offer.

Pet Supplies Plus has stores located in Ohio, Michigan, all along the
eastern seaboard, some locations in the south (Texas, Florida, etc),
Wisconsin, Minnesota, & other scattered areas in the eastern half of
the US. Their website is located at http://www.petsuppliesplus.com.
Their corporate HQ's phone number is 1-800/960-BARK.

I think they need to know that the ferret community across the US is a
strong one, one that communicates to a large number of people quickly,
& that we are a group of people who have enormous buying power that
they would lose if we boycotted their stores. After all, this could
have happened to *any* one of us.

This situation is so ridiculous, since just a yr ago, they were thanking
me for all I was doing, & for being such a loyal customer. And now this.
I told my husband to ask Linda in customer service if they had a *mug
shot* of me to go along w/ this file on me they say they're keeping.
After all, they certainly can't expect all of their employees to
recognize me on sight. He didn't get a chance to - she hung up on him.

Please feel free to xpost this anywhere you please.

And thanks for listening. If you decide to join in on this boycott, it
would certainly be appreciated, & would definitely show them that you
don't mess w/ ferret people! ;-)

Lin Talbot-Koehl
Lin, Ariel, Oberon, Max, Puck, & Ivan

[Posted in FML 5401]