Complaint Review: Affectionately Cats Of Williston - Williston Vermont

Unfortunately please do not bring your cat here. Sadly all these people care about is their wallets. It is not the love of your pets. If it wasn't for the need of needing a "cat only" clinic, I would have gone elsewhere a long time ago. Were start from the first offense with them.

Scenario 1 - (May of 2017) Brought my 3 year old Ragdoll and 4 month old Himalayan kitten I had just bought in to see Dr. Denise Kessler. We didn't know at the time but the Ragdoll was sick because he had contracted the coronovirus from the kitten. Vet ran all sorts of tests, socked me with a bill of $800 + and told me they had no clue what was wrong with him, refused to give him anything to help him feel better and sent us on his way. I self medicated my Ragdoll on my own when I got home using homeopathic remedies, and he recovered thankfully. He was bad though, lost 3lbs, was dry heaving and gagging, runny nose and eyes, fever....yet they had no clue what was wrong with him and refused to help. We know now that these symptoms were caused from his body coming into contact with that virus for the first time.

Scenario 2 - (Aug of 2017) Himalayan kitten was having bloody stools and occasional constipation throughout the summer months that started after they jabbed a thermometer in his butt and he had started bleeding, but they didn't know what was causing it, but he had not had a bowel movement for about 3 days and his tummy was getting very distended. So I brought him in to see Dr. Denise Kessler. We unfortunately came to the conclusion that this was FIP. YUP. Socked me with a bill of $700+ to come to that diagnosis. I took her diagnosis with a grain of salt, since I had never heard of this disease at the time, and was not able to accept the fact that my baby kitty had just got given 5 days to live. So I went home and started calling all around to many vets asking questions about this disease and what could possible be done about it. I found a few options, so I called up my primary vet to ask if they could land their hands on this medicine and I would rush him strait in.

Basically what happened after that is it pissed them off that I had called another clinic to ask questions about FIP and pricing for a belly tap. Other clinic was charging around $100 for a belly tap, Affectionately cats wanted around $250 at the time. Regardless, they put all sorts of nasty notes in my files that I had called around to other clinics. They never called me back in time that week, and my kitty ended up not making it. He passed away on my lap on the way to Littleton Emergency clinic at 4am Sunday morning.

I received all sorts of "sorry for you loss" letters from all the clinics I had called (and I wasn't even a client there). I even received one from Cornell! But I didn't get one letter, phone call, or sorry for you loss from Affectionately cats.

Scenario 3 - Fast forward to June of 2018. Decided to run a PCR fecal on my Ragdoll. Seeing if he had eradicated the virus from his system, or if he was still carrying it. Went in, paid $178 dollars to send some stool overnight to Cornell. Waited 3 weeks for results.....( I should have had these results 5 days later ) "But they were too busy to call me back". Finally get results that he's positive for the virus. Bummer I thought. So I had some questions to ask about the test. What were his titers, what was the dilution ratio when testing because that can lead to false positives. Called to get these questions answered, never got a call back. Tried calling Cornell, they wouldn't talk to me because they only speak to veterinarians, but was told if my vet called and said it was okay to talk to me they would.

My vet never called, nor would give verbal authorization to them for me. My vet also would not call me back to answer any questions about the test I PAID FOR. I got emails from them stating that they "made a mistake" and they never should have ran the PCR fecal test for me because they hadn't seen my Ragdoll since Aug (you know because he needs a check up before they can test poop) NOT, it was just about them trying to get more money out of me. (This was all through email btw). I kindly told them through email that I was not going to bring in my cat if there was nothing wrong with him just so you guys can give me the answers to the test I sent out that I already paid for. I said if there's a need to bring him in, I would, but I would not be driving 2 hours to bring him in for no reason (that's how far I lived). They apparently did not like that.

Basically to make a longer story short, After 4 weeks of repeatedly calling and getting no response, or help from Affectionately cats, I receive a letter in the mail stating that they no longer wish to serve me as a client. I was obviously taken a back by that. I know it was solely because I refused to give them more money for bs reasons, and when asking for a reason from them, all they said was "I am emailing regarding your question as to why we have dismissed you as a client. The only response I have is we will no longer serve you as a client but wish your cat all the best. "

Scenario 4 - You think it would be over right? Nope. Go to submit that PCR test bill to the insurance company and it got declined because there was a record for my cat that stated he had been diagnosed with "Hyperthyroidism" which he had never been diagnosed with that. Needed vet to correct falsely reported record (doing this all while being a "dismissed client") Vet finally corrects it, then insurance needs her to write on a letter why she removed it (ya know cause it looks funny all of this to be happening), had to fight with her for 2 weeks to get that letter of reason. They were complaining to me that they were busy and to basically stop bugging them, when none of this issue would have even came about if they hadn't falsely wrote off on one of my cats records. Makes me wonder if they did it intentionally... I had to scare them with an email saying that I was going to stop in and wasn't going to leave until Lisa wrote that letter for me, because it scared them into finally doing it...

Just don't go here. It's bad business. They don't care about you, or your cat. They just want their money, and will try and guilt/lie/manipulate you in as much of a way as possible to get it from you. They will not get back to you in a timely manner, and you will have to chase them down for everything. Just find another practice.