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My dog was killed on a walk with a walker ordered through Wag

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Re: My dog was killed on a walk with a walker ordered through Wag

#181

Post by BucketSort »

idontpost wrote: post #99
BucketSort wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, we don't know if this is the truth. Has Wag responded with their side of the story?

Unless the entire story is false it really doesn't matter. Dog died. Wag wanted them to sign an NDA or Wag wouldn't pay for anything. The only correct response from Wag was to pay everything (again, we're talking about a couple of thousand maximum) no questions asked and apologize profusely. Even from a purely soulless financial standpoint, that's the only correct response.

Did Wag confirm this somewhere? You just believe everything someone says? Where is the police report? Why didn't the owner call the police to get that information? Why do they say they don't know what happened? If it was a car accident, certainly there would be a report. Can't believe the HN crowd here is so quick to jump to conclusions from a single unverified source.

Re: My dog was killed on a walk with a walker ordered through Wag

#182

Post by berbec »

ec109685 wrote: post #23
idontpost wrote: post #7

Incredibly stupid decision to respond this way by Wag. How bad to you have to be at PR to screw this up? It's not hard. Liability in the case of harmed pets is extremely limited, so you just pay it all and apologize profusely. There's no way the bad press will be worth saving a couple thousand maximum. Absolute idiots.

Agree. This is extremely cut and dry – something like this is a very rare occurrence, so you can afford to go absolutely above and beyond for your affected customer. For example, AirBnB changed their policy when a house was wrecked and now offers $50k guarantee they will make it right if something horrendous happens: https://techcrunch.com/2011/08/01/airbnb-offers-unconditiona... It’s also the right thing to do.

And think of instantly turning all this negative press positive. If I was Wag, I would have thrown money, time and personnel at this until the clients were satisfied.

Re: My dog was killed on a walk with a walker ordered through Wag

#183

Post by mturmon »

yegle wrote: post #11

This happened recently: Wag! dog walker charged with animal cruelty; customers concerned about industry background checks http://www.ktvu.com/news/wag-dog-walker-charged-with-animal-... EDIT: and the settlement letter sent from Wag: https://www.scribd.com/document/397139013/SNews-Copie1901081...

All that, and the following undated blog post that does not refer to any of these serious problems:

https://wagwalking.com/daily/how-wag-strives-to-earn-your-tr...

It gives the impression that Wag is just telling the rubes what they want to hear and hoping they can sweep any problems under the rug.

Re: My dog was killed on a walk with a walker ordered through Wag

#184

Post by astura »

ajmurmann wrote: post #143
berti wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This made me really mad last year: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/108562071/police-shoot-fami... TL;DR police looking for somebody went to the wrong address, shot the family dog because it "attacked" a police dog (which was "unharmed by the incident"), and casually told the owners on their way out the door that their dog had died.

Well, police training in the US takes on average 19 weeks, whereas in Germany it takes at least 130 weeks ( https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_7709638 ). It takes 12-14 month to become a cosmetologist...

That event took place in New Zealand, not the US.

Re: My dog was killed on a walk with a walker ordered through Wag

#185

Post by dylan604 »

celestialcheese wrote: post #19
idontpost wrote: post #7

Incredibly stupid decision to respond this way by Wag. How bad to you have to be at PR to screw this up? It's not hard. Liability in the case of harmed pets is extremely limited, so you just pay it all and apologize profusely. There's no way the bad press will be worth saving a couple thousand maximum. Absolute idiots.

Seriously. It should have been the easiest decision in the world for them - a persons' dog is more important than most other humans to most dog owners, yet the law treats dogs as nothing more than property. Pay up and grovel to these people. In-action doesn't make these things go away. EDIT: just read the non-disclosure section. I understand the impulse to do that, but it's a MUCH better gamble to just kill the story…

>yet the law treats dogs as nothing more than property.

Reminded me of a highway sign I saw shortly after crossing California state line. The sign listed fines for 2 offenses: littering and animal abandonment (however it was worded). Littering was a significantly higher amount to the point that the fine for abandoning an animal would be cheaper than doing anything the right way with the animal. Maybe the tack on the littering fine too, but it was still a very striking distinction to me.

Re: My dog was killed on a walk with a walker ordered through Wag

#186

Post by gnicholas »

Just looked up Wag's Terms and Conditions:

> WAG!’S SERVICES MAY BE USED BY YOU TO REQUEST AND SCHEDULE PET CARE SERVICES WITH PET CARE PROVIDERS, BUT YOU AGREE THAT WAG! HAS NO RESPONSIBILITY OR LIABILITY TO YOU RELATED TO ANY PET CARE SERVICES PROVIDED TO YOU BY PET CARE PROVIDERS OTHER THAN AS EXPRESSLY SET FORTH IN THESE TERMS

Obviously this does not excuse Wag's behavior here. They should obviously have given the owners information about the walker so they can find out what happened and bring suit against him/her if appropriate.

But it's not surprising Wag forces customers to disclaim liability here. I'd guess that we'd need to see several of these incidents in a short period before the backlash gets strong enough for Wag to modify the liability waiver. Hopefully they'll change how they handle cases like these just based on the justifiable outrage (assuming the author is fairly describing what happened) from this one case.

Re: My dog was killed on a walk with a walker ordered through Wag

#187

Post by Fezzik »

masonic wrote: post #163
ddingus wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or one encounters federal police. DHS is out there and on patrol now.

There is no such Federal law . Animal cruelty to a dog owned by a Federal agency would be a state statute.

Exactly. The only Federal Law re animals is the Animal Welfare act, which only has to do with research animals. All 50 states have animal cruelty laws.

Re: My dog was killed on a walk with a walker ordered through Wag

#188

Post by true_religion »

astura wrote: post #114
anonymous5133 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also on the other end. Wag seems to be having issues with walkers committing fraud against the company. I think wag needs to take a more aggressive approach at putting a stop to it. If walkers are committing fraud through the app then they should pursue legal action against those walkers and hold them criminally for fraud. From what I understand...what walkers are doing is signing up for their friends/family and lett…

This is basically a side effect of the "gig economy." One can even just sell their account (and good will) when they decide to quit dog walking. Pretty scary when you really think about it. Also heard of uber drivers hiring illegal immigrants to drive under their uber account, not sure of the credibility of these reports.

Not really. The whole idea of the 'gig economy' relied on independent contractors being independent entities liable for their own issues, and whom reap the rewards for their own work.

Part of the reward is a reputable account as a saleable asset. It's just like selling a company or passing it on to your children. If Joe's Handmans or Joes' Dogwalkers no longer includes "Joe" that's not supposed to be a scary situation, its part and parcel of why people work for themselves.

Now if indies aren't really expected to have owners rights, then they ought to get employee protections.

Re: My dog was killed on a walk with a walker ordered through Wag

#189

Post by [deleted] »

ec109685 wrote: post #23
idontpost wrote: post #7

Incredibly stupid decision to respond this way by Wag. How bad to you have to be at PR to screw this up? It's not hard. Liability in the case of harmed pets is extremely limited, so you just pay it all and apologize profusely. There's no way the bad press will be worth saving a couple thousand maximum. Absolute idiots.

Agree. This is extremely cut and dry – something like this is a very rare occurrence, so you can afford to go absolutely above and beyond for your affected customer. For example, AirBnB changed their policy when a house was wrecked and now offers $50k guarantee they will make it right if something horrendous happens: https://techcrunch.com/2011/08/01/airbnb-offers-unconditiona... It’s also the right thing to do.

[deleted]

Re: My dog was killed on a walk with a walker ordered through Wag

#190

Post by jdietrich »

astura wrote: post #114
anonymous5133 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also on the other end. Wag seems to be having issues with walkers committing fraud against the company. I think wag needs to take a more aggressive approach at putting a stop to it. If walkers are committing fraud through the app then they should pursue legal action against those walkers and hold them criminally for fraud. From what I understand...what walkers are doing is signing up for their friends/family and lett…

This is basically a side effect of the "gig economy." One can even just sell their account (and good will) when they decide to quit dog walking. Pretty scary when you really think about it. Also heard of uber drivers hiring illegal immigrants to drive under their uber account, not sure of the credibility of these reports.

It's a second-order effect of a society with deeply ambivalent beliefs about justice, rehabilitation and forgiveness. Background checks and risk-averse hiring policies have an obvious logic, but they have made it considerably more difficult for people to pay their debt to society and become productive citizens. There's a local risk to hiring an ex-offender, but there's a wider risk of creating an unemployable underclass. I'm not sure how to best strike the balance between those risks, but I think we need a serious national conversation about the system we have created and the second-order effects of that system.
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