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]