Be Wary of KSM Pet Care

This is my review of the services provided to me by KSM Pet Care. I had previously left this review on Yelp.com, but my review mysteriously disappeared from the site after the owner of the business contacted me with a 9 paragraph message and asked me if there was anything she could do to "improve my view of KSM Pet Care." (not that she was asking me to change my review, of course!)

I started dog-walking service with KSM Pet Care (Stephanie). Stephanie and her boyfriend own the business and their website specifically states that her and her boyfriend personally provide all petcare. At first, things were fine. The dog was getting walked mid-day so we were satisfied with the service. Then after awhile we began to notice that some days, he was more rambunctious when we arrived home than other days. We were paying for 30 minute mid-day walks, so we figured maybe he hadn't been walked for the full 30 minutes - maybe just let out to go to the bathroom and then put back inside. But then on some days, he had accidents in his crate, so we began to wonder if he was let out at all. At the beginning, there were notes left letting us know how the walk went and the notes gradually stopped being written. The absence of the notes coincided with the days when he seemed especially energetic when we arrived home. We tried to do things that would allow us to tell if someone had been by to let him out - like arranging the leash in a strategic position, and then checking when we got home of the leash had been disturbed. Or, putting a piece of clear tape on the door or putting a dog treat in the path to the door. Often times these items were left undisturbed when we arrived home, so our suspicions grew.

We discussed whether we should bring this up to Stephanie and ask her if she had really been walking our dog. We felt uncomfortable doing this as there is not really a polite way to ask if someone has really been doing their job. Plus, she had keys to our home, so we didn't want to upset her. Then one day I went home sick from work. Our walks were scheduled to be between 12-2pm. I arrived home at 12:15 and let the dog out and he peed a lot and also pooped, so I knew he had not been out since we left in the morning. I didn't call Stephanie and cancel the walk because I felt like crap and didn't want to take the dog for a walk. So I laid on the couch for the rest of the afternoon and waited for Stephanie to come. No one ever showed up. I think it's incredibly shady for a dogwalker to charge for the service and then not show up. If there is some reason you can't stop by that day - whatever, I get it, sometimes things come up. If you can't make it, so you have a friend do the walk - okay, fine, not ideal, but okay. We pre-paid for the week every Monday - be honest and say that you couldn't make it over and you are only charging for 4 walks that week instead of 5. But don't try and pretend like you fulfilled your obligations, hope we won't find out and take money for a service you never performed. To make it worse, when we canceled our service, we asked her to just come by and drop the keys off the next day (the last day we had paid for) but that she didn't need to walk the dog. She said she wasn't going to be in the area and could we pick the keys up from her over the weekend. Uhh....WHAT?!? How were you going to do the dog-walk if you weren't going to be in the area?

Also, on her Yelp page, prior to me leaving my review - there were 12 reviews - all with 5 stars. Oddly enough, 11 of the reviews were written within a 2 day period in February and 7 were written by "reviewers" with only 1 review on their account (their review for KSM Pet Care).

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The above is the review I left on Yelp. I left this on 4/24/09. On 4/25/09 I received a lengthy message from Stephanie trying to explain away our bad experience and by 4/29/09 my review had disappeared from her page. In her message to me, she said that my bad experience must have taken place in the fall and that she had a sick relative and had to employ an outside dog walker who was not performing up to par. She said some people had reported that the outside dog-walker had missed days and when she realized she couldn't continue to use him, she refunded all of the payments that her clients had made that covered days in which she was not the walker since had no way of knowing when the walks were completely properly or not [weird, I never got a refund]. I got the feeling that she wanted me to change my review after she explained to me that there was an outside dog-walker. I don't understand why the fact that there was an outside dog-walker excuses the fact that I was defrauded by paying for services I didn't receive. Employers are responsible and accountable for their employees - if the employees provide bad service, obviously it is going to affect the employer.

She said that it was apparent that I was one of the few people who did not contact her with my concerns when I discontinued service and she doesn't know why - but that she wished I had so she could refund my payment. She said people start and stop their dog walking/pet sitting services all the time, so she had no way of knowing who was canceling due to these issues and who was canceling due to other, personal reasons. I feel that if she knew that some people were canceling due to shoddy service provided by her outside walker, that when people started canceling service, she should have at that time informed them what was going on (that she was not personally completing the walks) and check to make sure the cancellation wasn't due to dissatisfaction. And actually, I feel that if she is going to send someone else into her client's homes, she should inform them of that. I am upset that keys to my home were provided without my knowledge to someone who was obviously dishonest .

What makes me the most upset about this whole situation is that my review was taken off her Yelp page. I have a feeling she contacted Yelp and worked out a deal with them to get my review off her page. I have heard of other cases in which Yelp removed or rearranged reviews for business in exchange for the business starting advertising service with them, or doing some other favor. (See this Chicago Tribune article from March 2009: http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2009/mar/09/business/chi-0309-yelpmar09 ) I find it highly suspicious that all her reviews are 5 stars. I wonder how many other time she has had Yelp squash a bad review left for her. It completely undermines the whole premise of Yelp - I thought Yelp is supposed to be "Real People. Real Reviews."? I guess it's really just 'the reviews that the business wants you to see.'