My Nonprofit Reviews

I feel somewhat bad leaving a review as negative as this, but I have felt the need to share this story for what I believe is a couple years by this point. Some time ago, I applied to adopt a young Persian (who I will not name, as I believe she now has a lovely family who is taking excellent care of her) and was approved! I filled out all of the paperwork and communicated with the person who I believe was the primary facilitator of adoptions at that point in time.

I was set to travel the hour and a half to Phoenix the next day, with my adoption fee withdrawn and in hand, when I was contacted and told that due to some medical reason, my cat-to-be needed to wait a few days before travelling. I communicated back that of course I was willing to wait until the cat was feeling better, and to please let me know when I could come pick her up. I literally never heard back from AJ's Best Friends again.

After a couple days of silence, I felt like something was wrong, and reached out to my point of contact on Facebook and by phone I was worried that something was wrong with the cat or, more likely, the person, as I figured any professional with the ability to do so would have informed me of an urgent problem with a being I had committed to caring for for the rest of her life.

After multiple unreturned calls and many days of non-responsiveness to online messages, my spouse called my contact at AJ's Best Friends with her phone on my behalf. The phone was promptly answered in a friendly manner. When my spouse explained the purpose of her call-- to check on the status of this cat, the contact herself, and the adoption plans that had been on pause for around a week by that point-- the contact told her that the cat was no longer up for adoption and to never call or contact them again.

Basically, for lack of any evidence to the contrary, what happened appears to be this: AJ's Best Friends reviewed and approved an adoption, asked to wait for a reason that may or may not have been fabricated, changed their mind, cut off all communication, and refused to offer an explanation to anyone. I have literally never been treated so poorly by any entity, for-profit or non-profit, at any point in my life.

I was heartbroken that this cat, this being, who I had emotionally committed to, whom I had told family and friends about, pored over pictures of, and for whom I had been preparing my home for, would never come home with me. I have put off posting about it because I don't want cast a shadow on an organization that does do good things for cats. That said, apart from discrimination of some sort, I can't think of why this would have happened. This may have happened to others. In fact, I find it unlikely that an organization or employee of said organization would treat someone so inconsiderately once and never again. Those others may have the same reservations that keep them from speaking up. And that is not okay. There is no way to describe this experience as anything other than "far below expectations."

I got my two kitties from here, an elderly tabby lady and a young mama who is tabby and white, and they are the lights of my life! The hermitage took such good care of them and made sure that they didn't get overlooked even though they weren't kittens. Whenever I go there the hermitage is clean with lots of places for cats of all temperaments and abilities to be comfortable and safe-- it is truly a unique and wonderful place!

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