My vet had made an appointment with TSVS on a Thursday, but not everything was completed for the appointment. I had called the Vet clinic the next day (Friday) to talk to them about the appointment and if we were moving forward on the surgery for just the one leg of my dog (TPLO surgery) or if the appointment was set for both back legs. My Vet advised that the appointment was for one leg, but that we still needed to get some bloodwork and xrays for the surgeon. I asked that the appointment be canceled, and they stated they would take care of it. I got a call a few moments later to let me know that even though the Surgery was scheduled for the following Monday, that I would not be refunded the $500 deposit due to TSVS's policy on cancelations. When I asked about the policy, they stated it was on the surgical release form I signed. I looked at the release form, and it states "A cancellation fee of $500 will be charged if the procedure is cancelled or rescheduled within 24 hours of the scheduled surgery date." Mind you, my call to the vet was around 8am on a Friday, and the surgery was scheduled for around 10am/11am on the following Monday. So 24 hours would make it 10-11am on Sunday. Note that the surgical release form doesn't say "business days" or "Monday-Friday", it specifically states "24 hours". Even if it did say those things, I called still around 8am on a Friday. Either way, I advised my Vet clinic of what the surgical release form stated. Someone from TSVS called me and we talked for a moment and they were able to confirm that the way it was handled wasn't done properly and that they would not be charging the Vet clinic the fee, and thus the Vet clinic would refund my deposit. So while the appointment was canceled and my dog didn't have the surgery, my Vet never returned the fee. This created a lot of back and forth between my Vet and TSVS, as neither my Vet nor TSVS were getting back to me, so I had to contact each individually to get more information on what exactly was going on. My dog's condition got worse...... MUCH worse... but they didn't seem to care and got stuck on the $500 deposit. This has been ongoing for months, up until the point that my Vet was forced to remove my dog as a patient (due to the back and forth nature) and TSVS ended up blocking my number and NEVER getting back to me at all. Each time I had called TSVS, they never transferred me to who I needed to speak to (Erin) and they refused to tell me who I spoke to on that Friday and refused to playback any recordings of phone calls they had. They always advised that Erin said she'd give a call back, but she never did.
Unfortunately this has caused me to have to contact the BBB and to file a complaint with the Texas Attorney General, while also filing a report with my card company.
It's quite sad too because I was nothing but respectful on the phone and was just trying to find out what was going on. I feel like there was such a huge disconnect and became a giant game of literal "telephone". Crazy thing is, all of this could've been avoided if they'd had lived up to their own surgical release form.
My advice to them is to change the wording on the surgical release form, and to be quite literal in what they mean when they say "24 hours". Anyone who understands contracts and who's also an attorney also understands that contracts have to be precise in the wording and must lay EVERYTHING out. Otherwise, they're opening themselves up for a huge lawsuit. read more