Banfield Pet Hospital Just Lost My Business⁠🙀
Updated  by  nm  2024-August-20

A little less than a year ago, I walked into a Banfield Pet Hospital, signed up for their service, and set up autopay, which was about $40/month. I brought my cat there a couple times and was happy with the people I interacted with and their services. I regularly got text and email messages from them saying things like “It’s time for X’s preventive health exam and vaccination.” Last week I walked in and scheduled an appointment for a preventive health exam and, after scheduling the appointment, the friendly receptionist said “Oh, your account has been canceled and sent to collections” and I said “WHAT?‽?”  It turns out that ~4 months ago the $40 autopay failed and they never told me and never tried to rebill me. After lots of phone calls and explaining my situation and that I actually wanted to continue to use Banfield, I found out it was too late and I had to pay $312.14 for the rest of the year of service I had signed up for. As part of the conversation with Banfield collections, I said “When my storage unit autopay fails, they call me and we get it sorted. Why didn’t you call me or mail me a notice that said “IMPORTANT” on it?” The Banfield collections person said “We are a paperless company.” After sleeping on this infuriating thing, I decided not to fight it, pay what they say I owe, never use Banfield again, and – as a form of #activism-hacktivism – write this article to spread the word about this weird impersonal paperless corporation.◊