1800-PetMeds

PetMeds appears to be authorizing and or refilling prescriptions of heartworm medications for dogs, without veterinary authorization. This is a prescription medication and legally requires a prescription from the veterinarian. Additionally, they require no proof that the pet has been tested for heartworm disease prior to dispensing medication, which is recommended for all dogs - there are potentially adverse effects of giving heartworm preventative to a heartworm positive dog, including death.

This company misleads the average pet owner consumer into thinking veterinarians are just trying to make money off heartworm medications and devalues the importance of an annual physical exam for pets and annual heartworm testing.

Most consumers are also unaware that there have been lawsuits against them. This is not propoganda from the veterinary field, it is true.

At least I was able to cancel my so called, enrollment in these two bogus lame companies.

I would have been charged on the credit card I used to purchas the Petmed items, by both of these "clubs" if I had not read the fine print, found their sites and cancelled the enrollments. I will be watching my credit card statements very carefully from now on...also this can happen from ordering items off TV 800#s...once you give anyone on the phone or internet your credit card number and security number on the back, they can charge anything they want..if you are careful and "notice" it, then it is on your head, time, annoyance etc.. to correct it, stop it...

If this isn't addressed..many online users will BE FORCED to BOYCOTT any online purchases just to be safe..too bad. I had thought highly of petmeds.org and heard good things about them, getting greedy and allowing sketchy companies/service clubs to have acces to YOUR customer is not a good business practice EVER.

ordered meds credit/debit card paid in full. order not delivered sent back. petmeds refunded card w/o permission & no divulgence to me. finally dawned that order wasn't arriving and called. assured order was coming by company. no arrival, called again. assured arrival again. notified that credit/debit card not take new charge.10 day refund policy places funds unavailable while animal suffers awaiting meds. no other funds available to cover petmeds mistake.

Again, I write to warn pet owners. As a lab tech, I spend a good part of my day calling in or filling prescriptions for animals. While the majority of the RX's that I call in are to local pharmacies, there has been a recent trend among pet owners to use the online pharmacies, PetMed in particular, when filling a prescription. The routine is simple: the pet owner emails/faxes in their prescription, PetMed contacts us for approval, and they dispense medications, prescription and non-prescription, to the client directly.

There is logic in this system when one considers that PetMed sells their merchandise at a substantially lower price than most pharmacies. However, you get what you paid for, and few veterinarians are authorizing prescriptions through PetMed anymore due to their grave errors.

It is easy to assume that veterinarians do not like these online pharmacies, PetMed in particular, because they sell medications at cut rate prices. However, PetMed places no guarantee on their product, and using them has been known to pose a great danger to many pets.

I wanted to order some heartworm preventative from this company. I ordered it, it came in the mail, all was well ... or so I thought. A few months later I had a bill on my debit card for $72 from a company called "Travel Values Plus." I called the company and told them I had no idea what I was being charged for and that I never signed up for their services. The first thing he asked me was, "Have you ever ordered anything for Petmeds.com?" I told him I had, and he went on to tell me that a lot of times customers who register at that site "accidentally" sign up for their service. He was polite and refunded my money, but I was upset that I had signed up for something without any real knowledge of doing so.

My thoughts are that even if there was a box that I may have checked somewhere that had to do with signing up for this $72 service, it must have been so small that it was overlooked. I usually read things carefully, so this came to my surprise. I'd like to warn other people who use Petmeds.com to check their bills and make sure they didn't "accidentally" sign up for the Travel Values Plus service too. I don't like the fact that if I would not have been carefully checking over my debit card statements, they probably would have gotten away with taking my $72.