Last week CBS 17 talked with Rachel Cummings. The North Carolina mom spent nearly $14,000 on a service dog for her 11-year-old daughter with autism. She says it was completely untrained and attacked their family dog in front of her daughter. Cummings returned the dog and asked for a refund. She says Mark Mathis, owner of Ry-Con Service Dogs, refused.
Later she found out that same dog was re-sold to another family with a special needs child. Mary Matthews is the mother of the child who received the dog. She also filed a complaint saying she "received a dog that was not a candidate for service dog work." She went on to say the dog tried to bite multiple children including her own.
Stein says his office is taking all of the allegations very seriously.
“We’ve heard that the dogs were not trained,” Stein said. “They’re not quality service animals. Some of them aren’t even housebroken. So you can imagine a family that sometimes took out a second mortgage on their home in order to come up with the $14,000, $15,000 to buy this animal, how devastating that could be to invest all this money because you’re desperate trying to help your child and it’s not what you were promised.”
Mathis responded to many of the complaints, telling Stein’s office: “This massive rush of complaints is part of a coordinated effort by a political Facebook group. …
The group was started by two opportunistic families who do not have dogs from Ry-Con Service Dogs and have now pulled many other families (including this one) into a web of misinformation and lies about the non-profit.” Stein says the investigation is ongoing and he encourages any other families who believe they may have been victims to call his office.
SOURCE: CBS17
