Posted On: March 23, 2007, 5:10 pm CDT

Posted By: Gina

I think all anyone wants when there is a mistake/situation which involves the public is honesty--in a timely manner. The thing that irks me is when a situation occurs, the companies at fault wait too long to say anything. And for what? Sooner or later the truth will come out anyway and wouldn't it have been the more honorable road to make this unfortunate knowledge public ASAP? I was upset with TJ MAXX and affiliates for not saying anything to the public after their databases were compromised with shoppers' account info--they disclosed the breach weeks after it happened. I guess if that's how you do business, you may not necessarily deserve to get nailed to the wall in every case but you leave yourself open to that possibility.

In this case I would have liked the pet food company to step forward and volunteer to pay the vet costs for those who lost their furry friends. Even if you ended up with a few money grubbers out there the cost would have been a lot less than a class action lawsuit--and possible money grubbers surfacing either way. I think in these cases people are more angry at how something is handled rather than the fact that it happened. One of the first things you hear in almost any basic customer service training is the idea of service recovery when things don't go well. Yes, people make mistakes and sometimes things happen that sren't intended. So, now, how do you rectify the problem? Wouldn't it be a novel idea if the company stepped up before they were forced to do anything?

I sympathize with those who lost their furry loved ones. I have two cats who I also consider to be "my kids". Aside from all the debates, I feel bad for the people who have experienced a loss due to this unfortunate situation.