Uncle Bill's Pet Centers East

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CLOSED NOW - Opens at 9:00am

Uncle Bill's, W 38th St. We've bought cages, bird food and many canaries from them over the years. Last week we bought a male canary which turned out to be female. We took her back to exchange & accepted another that we can only hope is male. The manager informed us that we won't be able to return or exchange this one even if it's female. I asked if they'd just stick the customer with a different bird than they'd paid for.(Males are $30-$40 more than females) Yes, that is their

policy. On at least 3 prior visits, we've bought "male" canaries that were in fact female. They were all exchanged and the only hassle was making 2 trips for each. Now Uncle Bill's will just let the customer lose out because they've already got your money. Also, today and those other times, they put the returned female in the Males cage - so they can dupe yet another customer. And whenever you buy a bird, you must also buy a pound of their seed mix in order to have a 7-day guarantee on the bird: just another way to get a few more dollars from the customer. We will never visit Uncle Bill's again for any reason.

On a random adventure, I decided to pop into Uncle Bills on E Washington St this evening just for fun. What we saw was more than upsetting for the both of us.



Every single dog was lying in feces and urine. Not just from an accident, but from what appeared to be an entire day's worth of being neglected. More than a few had feces on their backs and one had urine overflowing out of his cage. This was strike one.



We then ventured into the aquatic section to find an $80 puffer fish lying on the bed of the tank, eyes cloudy grey, and struggling to breathe. I quickly asked the woman what was wrong and she said that the fish is sadly dying due to the temperature of the tank not being warm enough. It was a wild fish that was caught and brought in to be sold. She said that despite their complaints, the company would not provide the special heating lamps needed to heat the tank. When we asked why this was the case, she complained that corporate doesn't listen to their store and that only the southside gets attention. I stood there with tears in my eyes. Strike two.



Strike three and four come from the large bird that they have on display, Charlie, that had droppings surrounding the carpeted area. It was clear that it had never been cleaned, or that it had been neglected for several days/weeks. The bird's cage was filthy as if it was a bother since he tended to bite. Then came along the stray cat running through the store that no one noticed. It was just chilling.



We were extremely disappointed with the condition of the store. I have never seen a pet store so unkept and neglected either by employees or management. It was one thing that the dogs were lying in their waste, but it was another thing when a wild fish is left to suffer because the company won't even provide the necessary equipment to take care of their pets. I don't know what else I can say other than I am disgusted.

My boyfriend and I just bought a puppy not even a week ago from one of your stores, today he had a seizure we think and after that he started having a jekyll and hyde attitude, we went to a different vet than noah's because we don't live close to one and the vet said he hasn't seen anything like that before. He bit my boyfriend in the face and left a nice sized gash, he may need stitches. We had to pay for that vet visit. My boyfriends been talking through a middle man while trying to talk to someone from corporate. They wouldn't give us their number because they had just went home for the day. Telling us to drive our pup down to their 24 hour vet to wait, mind you we live in anderson so this is a far drive and see if they will put him down or not. We don't want that but we also don't want him to attack someone and hurt them down the line seeing as he is a Siberian Husky and will be big. Also after getting to the vet they are telling us that if the insurance doesn't cover it we will also have to pay that visit as well. We will not be, we will fight them on this and win. This is ridiculous and a very unprofessional. We are livid, this is emotionally very hard and to know that we wasted almost 2,000$ on a puppy to have for not even a week and may not even get our money back is ridiculous. I will not ever return to Uncle Bill's. I would recommend not to go there or to buy a pup or any other animals. The puppies are from puppy mill's and they lie and say they are from a breeder. I wish I could leave a no star rating because this disgusting place doesn't even deserve one star.

UNCLE BILL'S WILL KILL YOUR FISH! THEY HAVE AMMONIA IN THEIR WATER! I purchased RO water from uncle bills while I was doing a tank change for my fire eel and about 10 other fish (including one I rescued from WalMart that was near death with no fins. It took a month of nursing to get him back to health-We called him Tiny Tim). Within 5 hours of adding their water, my fish began to die off... Tiny Tim was the first, my fire eel was the last. IT TURNS OUT THEIR WATER HAD 3.0 AMMONIA IN IT. I thought at first it was new tank stress, until a frog we had in a fishbowl filled with their water on the other end of the house died. I brought this to the attention of the owner, and she said "We don't have ammonia in our water now, we can't do anything for you". It turns out that when they do maintenance on their RO water, they dont flush it out before setting up the barrels of water for sale. THEY ARE REFUSING TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT! BUYER BEWARE! Hopefully I can save another enthusiast or two from heartbreak! Go to the Reef instead! Local small business, GREAT advice!

I do always purchase my fish from here, however for advice on my fish will depend on who I talk to. If you are going to get fish, do your research first, then ask questions.



My husband purchsed a fish for me as a gift, however a week later it died, they took it back without problems but I discovered the fish was supposed to be brackish not freshwater as they advertised it as. The response of 'yerh its brackish but they can go in freshwater, perhaphs it was your water' (I test my water with an API kit weekly, I know my perameters are fine) was not good enough for me. I asked for them not to sell this style fish again under the premise of being freshwater.

I always check online before I buy.



Variety on other supplies are great, we have had several pets and they seem to have food for everything.

Prices are good too.

Staff are always friendly.

I was amazed at how clean the store was. There were so many animals, from the outside the store look small but inside the store had so much to offer. The people working there seem so helpful and knowledgeable. I was used to the regular pet stores. This store was like a well kept zoo, animals of all kinds. There were animals that I never saw out of a zoo except for the time I went to Australia. The birds that were there seemed to be well used to people. Even some of the sale staff had them on their shoulders. I would recommend this pet store to all of my friends, especially those with children as it is a wealth of information on the care and needs of each animal. I notice that there was a space next door to the store and was wondering it they were going to make a grooming center. I would gladly take my poodle there to have him groomed as I saw how well they take care of the other dogs and cats.