Yelp Reviews
UPDATE (7/13/24): We reported this issue to Yelp a while back. They reviewed what we sent them and consolidated the reviews from the fake businesses that were created into a single site for TriCity Veterinary Hospital and created the new URL below. Note that the other Yelp URLs listed in this document are now redirected to the new URL.
https://www.yelp.com/biz/tricity-veterinary-hospital-fremont-9
This page details the attempts that have been made to hide negative Yelp reviews of TriCity Veterinary Hospital from the public.
SUMMARY
- Threats Against Negative Yelp Reviewers
Dr. Salwan’s issues with negative Yelp reviews were first documented by the San Jose Mercury News in 2010. The reporter had discovered that Raj had written letters threatening legal action against people who had posted negative reviews. He was quoted in the article as saying “It was not the right way to handle it. I regret doing that.”
Indeed, of the over 500 Yelp reviews the business received, over 70 percent are one-star reviews. Some of the comments are highly critical with scathing remarks, with many stating that their pets suffered severe harm and even death.
- When the Threats Failed, Fake Businesses Arose
Faced with hundreds of scathing reviews and having been exposed for using threats to try to remove them, the negative reviews were effectively hidden by moving them to fake businesses located well outside of Fremont.
Yelp does not allow one to remove reviews of your business, but it does allow you to say you changed the name and address of your business.
There is a fictitious business supposedly based in Palo Alto called “Bay Animal Hospital Non-Profit”. The many Yelp reviews from TriCity Veterinary Hospital are now at this business. The address for this building is that of an abandoned building in Palo Alto. There was even a fictitious web site for the business which has since been taken down but is still available in a web archive.
The result of this makes it very difficult to find these negative reviews if one is searching for reviews of his business in Fremont.
If a customer can’t find a business, they can add it as a new business in Yelp and post a review. Since the movement to “Bay Animal Hospital Non-Profit”, someone created a new page with the true name and address of his business in Fremont. Eight reviews were posted on that page, all of which were one star and again contained detailed accounts of harrowing experiences.
Amazingly enough, once again the tactic of pretending that the name and address of this business had changed was used to hide these new reviews. This time, the name was changed to Golden State Vet which is supposedly located in King City. The website for this new business, goldenstatevet.org, is simply a template for an architectural firm. The phone number listed is the actual phone number for TriCity Veterinary Hospital.
On April 12, 2024, another new page referencing the correct business, was created by a dissatisfied customer. There is yet another long scathing one star review there.
The details and some of the reviews are below.
YELP REVIEWS
Yelp has five separate business listings that are tied to Dr. Salwan. These are:
American Animal Hospital
Link: https://www.yelp.com/biz/american-animal-hospital-fremont-3
Dates of reviews: 2006 – 2008
One-star reviews / Number of reviews – 19 / 26 (73%)
American Animal Care Center
Link: https://www.yelp.com/biz/american-animal-care-center-fremont
Date of reviews: 2007 – 2017
One-star reviews / Number of reviews – 147 / 188 (78%)
Bay Animal Hospital Non-Profit (formerly Tri-City Veterinary Clinic)
Link: https://www.yelp.com/biz/bay-animal-hospital-non-profit-palo-alto-2
Date of reviews: 2016 – 2021
One-star reviews / Number of reviews – 209 / 312 (67%)
Golden State Vet (formerly Tri-City Veterinary Clinic)
Link: https://www.yelp.com/biz/golden-state-vet-king-city
Date of reviews: 2023
One-star reviews / Number of reviews – 8 / 8 (100%)
Tri City Veterinary Hospital
Link: https://www.yelp.com/biz/tri-city-veterinary-hospital-fremont-4
Date of reviews: 2024
One-star reviews / Number of reviews – 1 / 1 (100%)
The reviews speak for themselves. A small sampling is below. Additional reviews are provided in an appendix.
“This is the worse place to take your pets.”
“I am NEVER EVER EVER taking any of my dogs to this vet clinic again (Tri City Vet).”
“If I could leave zero stars, I would.”
“Under staffed is the first problem you will see but it gets worse.”
“DO NOT BRING YOUR LOVED ONES HERE”
“after the neurer [sic], my cat got pregnant. so all of this for nothing.”
“This is the worst place to take your animal.”
“I Normally don’t write reviews. If I’m not happy with a business I just don’t go back. The experience I had here was simply awful. I will NEVER Come here again!“
“This has been hands down one of the worst vets that I have found while trying to find a good place to take my dog.”
“It’s been almost a month since Neffy was killed by them.”
“FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR BELOVED PET, PLEASE BEWARE AND TAKE THE FOLLOWING REVIEWS TO HEART. IT’S LONG, BUT PLEASE READ. YOUR PETS LIFE DEPENDS ON IT.”
“DO NOT GO TO THIS PLACE I REPEAT DONT GO TO THIS PLACE THEY DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOUR PET ALL ABOUT MONEY”
“Very bad customer service … The front desk is very slow and incompetent.”
“This nasty place killed my dog. They let her go home internally bleeding and they thought that was okay.”
“Honestly, Dr. Salwan is a scam artist in every way!!!”
“First and foremost this hospital is dirty really unsanitary”
“I wish I could give this place negative stars. They r horrific. They don’t care about their patients , they don’t care about the families.”
“DO NOT TAKE YOUR PET HERE IF YOU CARE ANOUT THEM.”
“This place is terrible. This is the worst experience I’ve ever had at any veterinary.”
LEGAL THREATS
When Dr. Salwan was being considered for the Fremont City Council in 2010, the San Jose Mercury News had an article mentioning Dr. Salwan’s threats to take legal action against those who posted negative reviews. Salwan acknowledged that he did this and said “It was not the right way to handle it. I regret doing that.“
One of the Yelp reviews shows the email they received from Dr. Salwan:
“*REMOVED* due to threatening responses from American Animal Hospital (Their Owners & Family) remarks.
0 stars not an option so 1 star is given. No more comment.
I WILL NEVER GO THERE EVER AGAIN
**************************************************************************
Dear Melissa:
This is a formal request to remove your review stated in Yelp against American Animal Hospital. We are giving you notice that the information reported by you is libelous and as such we kindly request that you remove your review at once. If you don’t remove your review within 7 days, we will have our attorney begin proceedings against you and we shall seek attorney fees in order to restore our good name and to remove these libelous statements. If you have any bonafide complaint, I would be happy to meet with you discuss that. However, this internet libel will not be tolerated and we shall seek full remedies of the law.
Sincerely,
Dr. Raj Salwan
cc. Dan Koller Attorney-at-Law
*********************************************************************”
Another reviewer noted:
“I find it really creepy that after posting this review I started getting harassed on Yelp. … So, I’m removing the review text so that the harassment will stop, but I stand by my 1 star. I’d give this place 0 stars if I could.”
And three more:
“Wow. I just got harassed by someone I am sure belongs to this hospital. (via messages) I am fairly new to yelp, is this common practice? I did not say anything remotely untruthful and as a reviewer have a right to keep everything accurate in my reviews.”
“I have noticed a pattern with American Animal Hospital. They seem to monitor reviews on here and other places then they call these previous, unhappy customers and demand to have these reviews removed. This is America where we have the freedom to voice our opinions. They should understand that.”
“I left them a bad review on insiderpages.com last year and it was then they started calling my home and harassing me. I gave in and removed my review and told insiderpages.com it is because these people are harassing me with phone calls due to my recent review. I still have ALL the e-mails to prove this.”
CREATING FICTITIOUS REVIEWS
A number of reviews claim that many of the five star reviews are falsely created. Of course, it’s hard to prove these are fraudulent but there are some suspicious reviews. As one viewer noted:
“I have read all the reviews prior to writing my own. It seems that the ones with 5 stars do not have real stories, just that their pet or themselves love this place. The ones with 1 star tell heart felt stories of bad service.”
It’s interesting how many of the positive reviews mention the negative reviews and are there to offer a counter. Why would users feel the need to comment on the many negative reviews?
One suspicious Yelp reviewer is ‘Beamy S.’. This user has only three Yelp reviews, all created on the same day. One is a five star review for Dr. Salwan. This review offers no personal story but does defend the hospital.
“I would not believe any of the other reviews. Everyone I know or have met that goes to this hospital has been very satisfied.”
The link to Beamy’s profile is below followed by another review that found him to be suspicious.
https://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=GGt_kUu3tI01DqApz8xQmg
“One more thing though fellow yelpers, did anyone notice a review written by a Beamy S on 01/16/07. Is this the same Beamy S who requested a review to be removed by Melissa L written on 07/20/06???”
Here is another reviewer whose only goal appears to counter the negative reviews. Their comment and link to their profile with only two reviews is below.
“I have been here for many years and i highly recommend it. The wait may take long sometimes but its completely worth it for the care. I believe everyone elses reviews is completely over exaggerating i have never had a bad expierence here. I love coming here and will not be changing my vet anytime soon.”
https://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=y_P_vH9nkbwA7B-tZaIXbw
There are other similar reviews with the general theme of “I don’t know why there are so many negative reviews”.
HIDING TRICITY VETERINARY HOSPITAL
Despite the name change, many negative, very critical reviews kept coming in from 2017 onward at the third business Dr. Salwan has Yelp reviews with – Tricity Veterinary Hospital.
Currently on Yelp, if one searches for veterinarians in Fremont, of course, those in Fremont come up first. As one scrolls down through the results, one is shown locations outside of Fremont on the second, third and subsequent pages. Number 82 on the ninth page is:
“Bay Animal Hospital Non-Profit”
This location clearly contains the reviews that were given for TriCity Veterinary Hospital. The phone number for this location is that of TriCity Veterinary Hospital but the address is 630 Donohoe St., Palo Alto. CA. One fairly recent (2/22) reviewer noted:
“this is TRICITY VETERINARY HOSPITAL – 37117 Fremont Blvd, Fremont, CA 94536 – THEY ARE OPEN, NOT CLOSED, and BAY ANIMAL … is a FAKE NAME. I am not sure how they were able to get rid of their original Fremont location Yelp page, however I am going to reach out to Yelp, the BBB, county health officials, etc.
“ZERO Stars – BEWARE. OTHER REVIEWS (google, etc) Peoples animals have died.
“I feel like TRICITY VET has tried to price gouge me and almost killed my dog. I am almost convinced that their practices (required exams to purport false diagnosis) are illegal and a way to make good $. I am planning to report them.
…
“2nd- I walked out yesterday (FEB 2022), after the male Vet DR. RAJ SALWAN (he is Also City of Fremont’s Vice Mayor) , slammed the door, told me I was being difficult (because I wouldn’t let him get over on me), and tried to convince me that my “dog is sick” with an Esophagus issue.
…
“I am done. The place is filthy and smells. The staff aren’t that great. The Vet is awful and rude and disrespectful. I could go on and on. I had to speak 2 multiple people to ask what vaccines my dog was due for. They couldn’t even tell me, though they saw my dog last at their facility. I will admit that they have been annoying/rude from the beginning. Annoying is 1 thing, taking risks that can harm my dog, false diagnosis, is an entire different thing. I am determined to report them.”
Three other reviewers report the same thing:
“It seems TriCity Veterinarian Hospital has merged their yelp page with Bay Animal Hospital in Palo Alto to circumvent the bad reviews they received for their Fremont location. Also noticed that their Facebook page has been put back up after they removed it to stop bad reviews. And while almost all the reviews are 1-2 stars, they are showing to have 5-stars. … Seems like Facebook and Google reviews were easier to manipulate than Yelp’s, so they just changed entire yelp page to try to escape the honest reviews from customers.”
“This place is beyond sketchy, looks like they are into fraudulent now? Butchers, chop shop, animal killers and abusers. This is for whatever Tri City Vet in Fremont is now masquerading as. Don’t know why their bad reviews have magically been transferred to this place in Palo Alto.”
“This is odd… My original review was written for Tricity Veterinary Hospital in Fremont. For some odd reason it’s now merged for a different veternary clininc (Bay Animal Hospital) in Palo Alto, that I do not have any experience with. Also it is showing as closed, and there is a new business for Tricity Veterinary Hospital without reviews. Did someone pay for a fresh restart to combat the negative reviews?”
Indeed, it appears that “Bay Animal Hospital Non-Profit” is a fictitious business that was created simply as a place to hide the Yelp reviews for TriCity Veterinary Hospital!
The Yelp page shows the website for this business is https://www.bayanimalhospital.org/. This page has been removed but the Wayback Machine does have an archive from this site from December of 2021. This page has a popup notification saying that this location is closed. Clicking past this notification brings one to the web page.
The website is a single page, WordPress site that is very similar to the webpage for Tricity Veterinary Clinic (https://www.tricityvets.com). The page doesn’t show any association with other locations or veterinary businesses. It lists Dr. Salwan as the only vet at the location, just as the webpage for Tricity Veterinary Clinic does. (This site and tricityvets.com also say that Raj has an undergraduate degree from UC Irvine. That is not true.)
The metadata on the website indicated that it was created in February of 2021. There is a definite drop in the number of Yelp reviews for this business after that time.
The phone number listed on the Bay Animal Hospital page is 510-796-8387. This is the same number as Tricity Veterinary Clinic in Fremont.
A simple Google search for “Bay Animal Hospital” or “Bay Animal Hospital Non Profit” doesn’t yield any results other than Yelp and the website mentioned above. Thus, “Bay Animal Hospital Non Profit” does not appear to exist except as a fictitious business created to trick Yelp into hiding this business from Fremont Yelp users.
Located in an Abandoned Building
Things get really fishy when one looks at the address that’s given for Bay Animal Hospital – 630 Donohoe St., Palo Alto. Google street view shows that this location is a building that doesn’t appear to have been at all operational recently:
Loopnet has additional photos of this site showing it is clearly not the site of an active business.
https://www.loopnet.com/property/630-donohoe-st-palo-alto-ca-94303/06081-063311050/
Property Owned by Other Veterinarians
County records and one website show that this property is owned (or at least was owned) by Joginder Ghumman and Tejpaul Ghumman. The Ghummans are also veterinarians who were associated with Alta View Animal Hospital in Mountain View. Indeed, the picture of the property above shows a billboard for Alta View Animal Hospital.
Tejpaul Ghumman had his veterinarian license revoked in 2020.
The Yelp reviews for Alta View Animal Hospital are similar to those for Dr. Salwan’s business – mostly highly critical one star reviews sprinkled with five star reviews, and very few in between.
https://www.yelp.com/biz/alta-view-animal-hospital-mountain-view
Dr. Ghumman is not the only veterinarian whose license has been revoked that Dr. Salwan may have had dealings with. The lawyer he hired to threaten those who posted negative Yelp reviews (Dan Koller) is also a former veterinarian who has had both his veterinary and law licenses revoked.
What is Bayshore Animal Hospital?
Searching for the address 630 Donohoe reveals many directory type pages (i.e. yellowpages.com) that show this is the address for the Bayshore Animal Hospital. Some of these results are listed below:
There are several other sites like this linking the address 630 Donohoe to Bayshore Animal Hospital. Even the City of San Jose’s Business Directory shows this.
What’s odd is that despite all of the above links, there is nothing to indicate that this ever was an actual operating business. Some of the sites listed above allow for reviews, but there are none for this site.
There is a Yelp page for this business that shows this business as closed, but it has no Yelp reviews at all. There is no web page listed on the Yelp page nor can one be found via Google. The phone number listed on the Yelp page has been disconnected.
Thus, it appears that the 630 Donohoe address is not only being used by Raj Salwan to create a fictitious business, ‘Bay Animal Hospital Non Profit’, but that is was also used to create another fictitious business with a similar name, Bayshore Animal Hospital.
It is unknown what the connection is, if any, between Dr. Salwan and the owners of this property.
GOLDEN STATE VET
With the original Yelp page move to the East Palo Alto location, users wanting to leave a review for TriCity Veterinary Clinic wouldn’t have a place to do so. But Yelp does offer one the option to create a new business. Obviously, someone did that for TriCity Vet in 2023. The original link that references TriCity Veterinary Hospital now redirects to Golden State Vet (https://www.yelp.com/biz/tricity-veterinary-hospital-fremont-7).
Reviews for this page came in from July through October 2023. All eight reviews are one star reviews. Five of these are from Newark/Fremont. As has been seen before, some of the comments are scathing (see two below).
Screen shots from the Yelp page are below.
“Worse vet experience ever, I understand why this vet changed their name from American Pet Hospital. Probably too many negative reviews and complaints. This is the same vet operating under a new name and even the same building. …”
“… Worst experience I’ve ever had at a vet. Incompetent, disgusting behaviors. Before I paid? Nice, friendly, quick to respond. After paying? Won’t answer calls, doesn’t respond to emails, won’t send our records, …”
This is obviously a fictitious business. The web site listed appears to be an ‘Etudes’ WordPress template that doesn’t represent a real business let alone a veterinary clinic. The phone number is the number of TriCity Veterinary Clinic. The address is a shopping mall and there’s no indication there is any veterinary clinic there.
CONCLUSION
It appears that Bay Area Hospital Non-Profit and Golden State Vet are fictitious businesses that were created in order to hide the many scathing negative reviews that TriCity Veterinarian Hospital has received on Yelp.
* Yelp doesn’t provide summary figures other than the number of reviews. The counts for each rank, (one-star, etc.) were manually counted. Sometimes a review is updated by the user. In those cases the latest review was counted as the review’s score. Yelp also has a number of reviews that are ‘not recommended’. They do not include these in the main number of reviews. These reviews were not counted in the above calculations. A quick review showed that these reviews had about the same level of negative reviews as the others.
APPENDIX: Additional Yelp Review Comments
“Suffice it to say, my dog was much sicker when I brought him home than when I brought him in. I had to take him to a different vet after picking him up from American Animal Hospital because he was so sick.”
“Honestly, can a veteranian be more unprofessional, rude, impersonal, flippant, carelessness about animals like this place, and can an animal hospital be as irresponsible, money-driven, lack of performance than this place here?”
“When the vet called to tell us the results, she said our kitten had a hyperthyroid. She said we’d have to give him medicine for the rest of his life. I did research the condition, and our kitten has none of the symptoms. … I have since taken my kitten to two other vets … and they have both confirmed that my kitten’s thyroid is fine.”
“My kitty worsened and got very sick; I wised up and brought him to a proper vet, who diagnosed him with hyperthyroid, a common and manageable condition.”
“I received a call about 3 days later from one of their receptionists stating that my cat had FIP (Feline Infectious Perionitis), … I took my cat to another Vet a second opinion. Not only is she healthy, she has very little chance (1 in 5000) of having FIP. Get this… All cats have that chance!”
“My dog DID NOT receive the best care possible. He was caged ALL DAY when his appt. was early morning. He didn’t drink water or eat all day and was covered in his own or maybe even other animals’ urine.”
“i have to call MYSELF at 3pm and find out his surgery hasn’t been done, he hasn’t been fed,given water, and he’s in a crate…which he hates since he’s alreayd trained away from it.They had no decency to call and let me know. no deceny to feed him.”
“When we finally brought our cat home they had left the IV in her leg!”
“It’s just a total lack of organization and caring that characterizes this place.”
“This is by far the WORST veterinary clinic I’ve ever encountered. … Since he would have to be put under, we decided to neuter him and get a dental cleaning. When we got him back, we found that they had botched the neutering, the dental cleaning was so poorly done that I had to have it redone a mere 4 months later, and the cyst was removed, but the drainage tube never was. … I have evidence to back up everything I’ve said here. Dr. Salwan knows this and that is why is trying to pay me off.”
“When we took her another time for a check-up, it was the worst vet experience of my life. They make you decide what shots you want to get before talking to the vet. They convinced us to get shots that I found out later were not only unnecessary, but possibly dangerous. … This place is not really interested in your pet’s health, just taking your money.”
“I decided to leave and take her to another vet. I explained the situation to the new vet, and they actually laughed and said it was typical of American Animal care center. (Glad I followed my gut feeling) … The new vet checked out my cat, and just as I suspected, she was 100% healthy and didn’t require any tests. Apparently American Animal Care Center does this on the regular, and other vets have to deal with fixing AACC’s lies.”
“We just brought her home, and her stitches look like shit, it looks like whoever did the surgery just started stitching anywhere and everywhere..a clear amateur. She couldn’t even lie down because she was in so much pain, even though they said that she was administered a shot for the pain before she left.”
“My dog had an auto immune disease and needed a blood transfusion with white blood cells. We paid thousands of dollars administering these transfusions with no progress. My poor Toby was fainting. Only after we FOUGHT to switch to another vet did we find out that Animal Care was administering incorrect fluids to my dog!!! We were outraged and even had to pay an exiting fee to have his records”
“My dog was kept in a cage in his own urine for hours and awoke before the surgery was even over.”
“The owner Dr. Salwin avoided my family at all costs. We were asking for a refund for the cremation since they cremated our dog before getting the paw print which we will never have a chance to get. AFTER SEVERAL ATTEMPTS IN PERSON AND ON THE PHONE TO SPEAK WITH THE OWNER, in order to get a hold of him we had to set up a pretend appt for our other dog and requested him as our doctor. Of course he showed up but as soon as I revealed why we were really there he got scared and said he had to leave because he had a meeting. (It was 5pm on a Sunday). He also lied and said that he couldn’t give us a refund because he had to check with the “manager” but when I asked who the manager was he couldn’t come up with a name. When I told him that I knew he was the owner, he stumbled over his words and didn’t know how to deny us a refund. He continued to say it was not his fault and said a refund wouldn’t be fair to him.”
“DO NOT trust American Animal care with your pet’s life. Their ignorance, incompetence, bad ethic, etc. has led us to lose a member of our family.”
“I bought my cat for vaccine one day, and she got really sick after she came back, and died the next day. … The other vets told us they over dosed her, as they insisted to put too many vaccines on her on the same day (so they can get more money), which they should have separate with a 2 weeks gap.”
“I have also been misinformed about the shots that were required for my cat twice. I swear they do this so that I have to pay for shots twice. They also never remember that I have purchased their puppy plan that covers all his shots. Every time I bring him in, they try to charge me for stuff that’s covered under the plan.”
“Got a call from Vet Tech at night that she was in recovering and seemed to be doing fine and they would call us in morning. In the morning Vet Tech said she crashed and wasnt doing so good. So we rushed down there and she died before we even got there…. The Vet didnt even come and break the news that she past away.”
“Should be 0 stars…a simple cleaning turns into imminent ‘death is coming’ unless a ton of pricey (and questionable) services are performed. … Took my cat elsewhere, and lo and behold, she’s the shining image of health.”
“OK! THIS IS MY VERY FIRST REVIEW! I specifically registered with yelp to give this hellhole a thumbs-down. I’ve had bad service before but this definitely takes the cake. … In addition to all this, I NEVER MET THE VET! NOT ONCE DID THE VET COME INTO THE EXAM ROOM TO INTRODUCE themself! I’ve been there to drop my dog off, pick her up, go for a bandage change and still haven’t met the vet! My $175 visit turns out to be a $368 adventure. This place is a quack!”
“Do not take your pets here. All they see is a $ sign. I took my kitten in for a check up and all of a sudden it turned into a $600 overnight charge! I took the rest of the kittens to other Vet and it was $150 for 4 kittens and some meds. I hate this place. Plus the tech tried to sell me on having my kitten spend another night”
“Negative -5stars I took my dog here for stomach pain n vomiting. The whole time they were insisting my dog ate somethin and had obstruction. Did so many expensive tests but a blood test which he should of got to show that he was loosing blood cells. And could of got his tumor out earlier and wouldn’t have spread. They don’t even know how to read a damn X-ray. All they want is money”
“… Then later that afternoon my son called in tears stating that the vet told him our dog had cancer and had to have an operation to have the mass removed and wasn’t sure he would even survive! who does that?! Who tells someone that without a full examination, i.e., labs and x-rays, if applicable??? one thing for sure, he told him how much it would cost and that he should be treated immediately.”
“IF YOU LOVE AND CARE FOR YOUR PET, DO NOT, BRING YOUR PET HERE. This has to be the worst excuse for a veterinarian that I have ever encountered. These people don’t get it. They are in this business for the money only and don’t care about the animals at all. The only reason I gave them a one star is because Yelp does not have a minus star rating.”
“The exam rooms are updated with nice counters and cabinets, but don’t be fooled…. they are filthy dirty. They too, have urine on the bench and the floor, dog/cat hair all over the place and there was a sticky substance on the countertop where my pet is to be examined.”
“If you value your pets life, don’t come here.”
“I nearly lost my cats life here by giving the wrong medication. The bottle was labeled correctly but that wasn’t what was inside. I asked for the director. Showed her the pills. She wanted the pills back. I said no. I went to a different vet. The new vet was astonished. My cat was near heart attack stage from thyroid medication to speed her up. The new vet got UC Davis involved.
Run away from this place.”
“The clerk accidentally pulled some other dogs record, they placed a wrong shots, instead of giving 3 meds, they accidentally gave my dog 5 meds. They admitted that they where wrong and made a mistake and told us that it will be okay, just look for any side effects of the medication. I told them my dog can die because of your dumb ass mistake and they said everything will be fine, just observe your dog and bring him back if he threw up or started getting weak. … 30 min later, my dog vomitted alot inside my truck. I took him back, they said they will observe him in couple hours and they will call us to check on us if they found out anything.”
“I generally don’t write bad reviews because I like to give businesses the benefit of the doubt and will go back to see if someone was just having a bad day or something. However, American Animal Hospital is so AWFUL that I think it completely warrants the bad review.”
“After analyzing my dog he tells me that she needs a couple of shots and that he wants to keep her over night and do blood work on her and some other tests on her the next morning and that I probably wouldn’t get her back for at least 2 days. WHAT DO YOU NEED MY DOG FOR 2 DAYS FOR!?! I know my medicines and I know what she needed was a shot for the swelling and some medicine for the hives… but why, WHY do you need to keep my dog for two days and hook her up to machines?!”
“That is when things went very wrong. After the neuter the clinic put the wrong size cone on his head so during the middle of the night he pulled out all of his stitches. We took him back expecting them to stitch him back up and give us a new size cone. Well they refused to stitch up his wound and instead used glue to close the wound and gave us a second cone. The cone was still too small, and the glue they used to close up his wound irritated his skin making my poor golden very uncomfortable. He reopened the wound again. We took him back to the vet for a 3rd time hoping they would stitch him up. They refused again and use the same glue to close it up. By this time we had spend over $500 in vet bills with no fix to the problem. Most vets do not charge for follow up visits, this one did. Finally my husband and I decided we would take the golden to another clinic for a second opinion. We took him to the All About Pets Animal Hospital and they were wonderful. The stitched my golden back up and gave us a proper size cone. He was healed in 2 days.”
“DO NOT TAKE YOUR ANIMAL HERE. YOUR ANIMAL COULD BE INJURED WORSE OR DIE. … My dog had surgery here and came out much worse, with a horrid infection. Took us a year and multiple surgeries to repair the damage done to him during surgery. I am suing them and have no doubt I will be compensated for the cost to repair my dog.”
“FOR YOUR OWN SAKE FIND A BETTER QUALIFIED AND MORE COMPASSIONATE VET, WHO ISN’T JUST OUT TO GET YOUR MONEY! YOU WILL BE GLAD YOU DID!”
“This is the most horrible bunch of people to ever walk the face of the earth. These people have no morals or common decency. They see every potential customer as a mark. They bleed you for every possible penny they can, and never once feel bad about it.”
“I posted my review on the other name on Yelp regarding my pet who passed away and they couldn’t tell me the cause of her illness. Anyway update on the story. After all the pain I went through, I wanted to get my dog’s medical record to see what they did to her. They charged me $5 for paperwork fee and they made me pay for the day that she died because she was still in the hospital. The manager “Sam” hung up on me on the phone and the paperwork wasn’t even ready when I got there.”
“Seriously, this is my very first review on Yelp and I was so disappointed and angry at this place I had to write something.”
“The surgeon that docked my poor babies tale botched the surgery and now my dog has a flat short tale, when it should be one vertebrae longer and rounded out the end.”
“This office is an absolute joke. Given the level of service they offer and the other reviews of this place as low as they are, it is obvious that this is not an isolated incident. I have no idea how this office is able to function and stay operational, but rest assured I will NEVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES BRING ANY MORE OF MY PETS TO THIS LOCATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
“After I brought him back to my car and removed him from his carrier to hold him, I noticed that his collar was off, and he reeked of urine and feces. My cat has never smelled even remotely like urine in the entire time I’ve owned him — (I thought, “Cats constantly groom, so imagine how saturated he is to STILL reek!). Then I realized why the tech took so long to bring my cat out – he had to dry off all the feces and urine before daring to give him back to me. … This makes me believe they regularly leave animals without checking on them, which means they are also covered in urine, feces, and who knows what else, requiring a clean-up before pickup. … he drank continuously for two minutes and fifteen seconds before even looking up at me, … it is clear that this animal “care” center failed to provide my cat with even a minimum amount of water.”
“My most recent disaster was getting a ‘sanitary clip’ and ‘grooming’ for my 22 lb. Ragdoll. Dropped him off at about 1 – couldn’t pick him up till 5 only to find him still wet and matted. They claimed their ‘dryer was broken.’ And? They left him in a cage for 4 hours to air dry? I’m still cutting the mats off him which are things he didn’t have when I dropped him off.”
“Anyhow, he stayed without his shots & my other two dogs got theirs…& the same exact spot where the shots were administered, BOTH dogs broke out in some sort of really nasty looking infection.”
“At first they didnt even want to give him any treatment until I pay the bill up front. Okay that’s fine with me, but when I went to pick him up today he looked really scared and at the time I thought he was just missing me …. so about an hour later I was wondering why he was crying so I realized there is a red spot on his body. So I somewhat open it up and see there was a piece of skin missing and it looked really painful. OF course I was pissed off so i took my baby back there and they said he did that himself and they are not responsible for it because I didnt see the wond when I pick him up and I must had done it myself.”
“Without being overly dramatic, I can say that my experience with this vet was the WORST I have ever had with a veterinarian.”
“this is the worst hospital EVER!!!!!!”
“Barbaric service. We left our cat for grooming. We requested grooming only, no nail cutting or bath. When we picked our cat we we got a gruesome surprise. Some nails were broken, others were cut or ripped off to the meat (bleeding). Not only that, for some reason our cat’s gums were bleeding and bruised. Also, they washed our cat with a shampoo that had a strong fragrance. The cat seems to be in shock, I have no idea how bad they treated him.”
“This is the worst run business I could ever imagine. They have no regard for their customers or your pet. I waited 2 hours to pick up my dog this morning from boarding. They said they had to give him a bath??? for what?? Laying in his own crap and piss. If you go here…you are a fool.”
“I boarded my dogs there for one week. They came out reeking of urine and obviously stressed – so no more boarding there.”
“Do not go there for bording, because your pet will come home with fleas and wet paws with your dog own urine!!!!”
“Absolutely horrible place to take your animal. They swindled me out of thousands of dollars for my min pin Remy. They gave her an infection, over medicated her. The vets and techs are all fraudulent. If you want your pets to thrive…do not go here!!!!!”
“Reconsider using American Animal Care Center if you value the health, even the life, of your pets. We brought our cat in for stomach issues and he was kept overnight for observation. To our horror, the next day, we were told that he had a bruised tongue and a bloodshot eye. They related to us that he might possibly be rabid because he was foaming at the mouth. Huh? We told them that he is an indoor cat and has not been exposed to other animals in the 6 years that we’ve had him. We then asked them to explain the bloodshot eye. They had the nerve to say he came in like that.”
“Our dog has had several surgical procedures done there and they never turn out the way they are supposed to. We always have to take him back for infections and open wounds that were not properly stitched.”
“I wish I could give negative stars. Don’t ever bring your pets here. The people that work here are completely incompetent and couldn’t care less. My horror story with this place started when I bought one of my my cats here to be boarded for a week while I went on a vacation. … When I picked them up, I was told that my male cat tested negative for the worms and did not need to be treated. The next day I noticed a worm segment crawl from his rear. I called the vet and was told that he ACTUALLY TESTED POSITIVE BUT WAS NOT GIVEN THE MEDICINE.”
“They gave me medication and asked them to check if my cat was allergic to it, since I told the Dr. in the room that my cat was allergic to a certain type of antibiotics. They said it’s fine without looking, but I insisted that they check. It was the wrong medication.”
“The doctors will run every test in the book to get as much money out of you as possible, even when it isn’t even … They will try to keep your pet as long as possible to “monitor” them so they can charge more boarding fees.”
“I NEVER write reviews but this place is so incredibly incompetant that I had to share my experience with others.”
“I had to wait 45min before they brought my dog out after boarding her. She had feces caked around her butt, even though they had obviously just given her a bath to try and hide the terrible state she was in before giving her back to me. She acted totally freaked out for days after picking her up.”
“Let me start by saying that this place is a joke along with the owner Dr. Raj Salwan!”
“I took my puppy here to get her booster shots. A few days later she developed a pretty big bump where the shot was administered. I made an appointment to bring her back in. The doctor took a look at her and said that it looked like a cancerous cyst. … Before I could even get over my shock, she hands me this invoice for a bunch of charges totaling $850 bucks. … I found another vet in the area (which by the way has almost 5 stars) and they told me that my puppy grew a bump where she got the shot because the initial doctor DID NOT administer it correctly.”
“Horrible, Disgusting, and basically everything that is Bad!”
“This place is filled with incompetent people; they killed my cat drawing blood from her; she was an older cat but did not deserve to die at the hands of these incompetent people.”
“They also said that they would have him bathed and ready to go by 9:30 a.m. yet for some reason when I picked up my dog he smelled like urine and his paws were yellow…clean huh?!?”
“Our experience has been exactly the same: we boarded our pet for one week and she lost 10% of her body weight. It cost hundreds of dollars to get her healthy again. Even if the Vets were right in the cause of the weight loss (none of THEIR tests proved they were right), why did we have to pick up the animal and point out her condition before they did anything! She was in their care!”
“Told him we can pick her up at ten the next morning. Next morning they beat me to the punch, call me and say my puppy died!! Mind you she has been there for three days and they would NOT let us see her. Said we weren’t able to go to the back and couldn’t bring her out to just in case. I completely understand they dont want to expose other animals but I cant even walk back there to see her?? My dog is dying and I cant even say goodbye??”
“They told us to come back because he had worms. GUESS WHAT, I went to a great vet in Hayward AND NO WORMS!”
“i am giving this place no stars its horrible i took my dog in because she got bit by a pitbull she was doing really fine and then he called my mom and said she was doing fine and less than five minutes he calls and tells me she crashes they didnt even call and say my dog had passed”