'He never responded': Pet owners claim they paid for dog grooming services they never received

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBRC) – We know grooming your dog is expensive these days. This can cost hundreds of dollars or more. Some local dog owners are unhappy after they say they paid for dog grooming packages but did not receive the services they paid for.

For the past few weeks, 6 On Your Side Investigates has been trying to track down the dog groomer to figure out what happened.

Until recently, Gennifer Allen had her dogs groomed by Asher Jace at Paws on 5 in Homewood. She said Jace would always do a good job with his dogs.

“One of them is very anxious and has always been very well behaved with Asher,” Allen says.

Earlier this year, Allen said Jace and his team sent out fundraising flyers to customers to raise money for Asher and his dog’s cancer treatments.

“It offered packages like a lump sum of care for a certain price, so I bought two separately at different times,” Allen says.

Allen purchased two dog grooming packages between February and April worth more than $1,000. She says her dog did not receive the majority of the services she paid for. Allen kept receipts showing where she paid Jace via Venmo.

Then, in mid-May, Allen received a message that due to Jace’s health issues, the dog grooming salon located just off Scott Street in Homewood was temporarily closing until July. A few days later, she received another message telling her that Jace had been hospitalized and that the salon would be closing sooner than expected. This message once again asked for donations.

When July arrived, Allen began checking the company’s Facebook page for updates and found that it had been deleted or archived.

“I messaged him first, asked him and got no response, then every day I searched his name on Facebook to see if anyone else had posted and found River’s post and a lot of these girls commented on it,” Allen says. .

Allen made a TikTok video about his ordeal and recently filed a police report in Pelham outlining the allegations. She also discovered she wasn’t alone and met Maggie Hillhouse, Nicola Robson and Kristin Lange. They shared similar stories with WBRC regarding recently purchasing dog grooming packages from Asher Jace.

“It was: buy one, get one. A hundred and fifty dollars and so he said I could use it when he came back in July and then I came across his TikTok, a friend sent it to me and then I realized, oh, he’s probably not coming back and I contacted him on his other social media accounts and he never responded,” Hillhouse says.

For the past two or three years, most women had asked Jace to groom their dogs with no problem. They say the problems emerged over the past few months.

“Both my dogs were groomed once and both had a bath once before he canceled my call a total of three times, he tried to call him multiple times because I wasn’t being heard Said he was closing and didn’t respond. My dogs were never cared for by him again,” says Lange.

After that TikTok video, Allen and others received a message on Jace’s business app and an email from someone claiming to be an attorney representing Jace saying, “His client was advised to remain silent and let his legal team take the necessary action against Jace’s owner. the exhibition building”.

The post also discussed Jace’s health and threatened legal action against people making false accusations against his client. This message was sent by someone who claimed to be “Mr. Spina” but didn’t have a first name, so WBRC contacted local criminal defense attorney Tommy Spina, who says he didn’t have it. sent and doesn’t know who Jace is.

“I don’t know what’s going on here other than someone who introduced himself as my lawyer or one of my cousins or nephew as their lawyer,” Spina says.

WBRC also contacted Spina’s relatives who are attorneys and they say they do not know Jace in any way. Spina asked his IT department to investigate the message, but found nothing.

“With all the technology, if someone has the wrong mindset, I think you can accomplish just about anything you want in a fraudulent way,” Spina says.

Through the investigation, WBRC discovered that Jace also goes by at least two other names and is connected to at least two other businesses out of state. Allen and others we spoke to have tried to contact Jace through his multiple social media pages, but so far have had no luck.

We tried contacting Jace at a dog grooming business in South Carolina. A man on the phone told us he would have Jace call us back. WBRC also sent a letter to Jace hoping to get a response, but we have yet to receive a response.

We found a handful of social media pages for Jace. Her TikTok page is filled with lip sync videos and one of them appears to show a husky being groomed. On Facebook and Instagram we found a few pages connected to Jace and sent messages as well.

The women we spoke to aren’t optimistic that they’ll get their money back, but they want others to be aware.

“I have recommended many people to visit his salon and I feel really embarrassed that I endorsed him,” says Hillhouse.

“It’s scary knowing that he could be out and could potentially do this to other people. A thousand dollars is a lot of money and who knows what he’s saying to these customers,” Allen said.

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