International Academy of Pet Design Pet Design, Hurricane Recovery, Beth Moore Grooming School no longer exists, but email marketer using domain name and website Internet

Slow down, Irish, catch your breath. Pet Design closed, but the subject of my Rip-Off report was the way Beth Moore is using the old website to pretend she has a grooming school, or whatever the heck she's doing.

     Vicki Conley left for Costa Rica in the summer of 2008 leaving Karin Barbato in charge. Karin called herself the owner but it would appear she was nothing more than a glorified manager. Karin sometimes had a little trouble with what the rest of us refer to as "truth." Doesn't matter now because she ran the business in the ground. It closed May 2010. Trying to find the current owner of the building(s) I came across a foreclosure sale notice on the Fulton Co website; the sale was scheduled for Nov 4, 2009. Without paying Fulton Co for the pleasure I was unable to get any further info, and my curiousity just doesn't extend that far. Besides, I repeat, Pet Design is closed and it's the current owner of the domain thegroomingschool.com that I've reported here. I feel sorry that you lost your money, I really do. And even if you were here you couldn't recover anything from Karin, but I don't want her litigious little self to track me down for perceived libel, so I'll leave it at that. No good trying to get anything from Vicki, either.

     And yes, she put her 17 year old daughter in charge. Here's what Emily posted in defense of complaints about the place March 5, 2010:

?????Pet Design is amazing

emily c.

Ok, so I have brought my dog there and I now work there. They are awesome! I mean yea they did increase prices just a bit and they did tell you about it, I mean do you sit there and complain about the price of milk in a grocery store? i think not. The economy is bad and everyone is raising prices and NOT telling people. They told people for a month. Um, if you didn't know that its a school thats your own fault look at the sign INTERNATIONAL ACADEMY OF PET DESIGN! what does your brain think if you see academy? uhhh school. and they have it on there sign in sheet. READ IT! and no we don't " beat" or "hurt" dogs. Seriously people? We take our time with dogs because they do get scared and we dont want to scare or stress them. Yes your dog can get stressed out. So we give them a break every now and then and the process can take time depending on what you want. We want the dogs to look amazing when they come out. Maybe all of you guys should actually see what we do. I mean we don't go to your work and complain do we? no we don't. If you rush us thats your fault not ours.

March 05, 2010

(Complaints about Pet Design make for interesting reading, if you are interested in how to put yourself out of business.) 

This entire school, owners, and anything associated with The International Academy of Pet Design is nothing but a SHAM! I was tricked into attending this "school" to use the term loosely! back in January of 2009 from Ireland. I personally lost a SUBSTANTIAL amount of money in my decision to attend this place on a supposed fast track course! 

Just to tell a little more! Only after my arrival did I then witness how BAD this place truly was! The lack of teacher knowledge, basic curriculum, proper facilities! and the fact the electricity was being cut off due to lack of payment were just some of the problems! Owners who were bringing in their cherished pets where unaware that it was actually a teaching facility and were unaware of what was going on!

I found out through my fight to gain back my tuition paid to Karin Barbato! Not Vicki Conley who was the supposed owner and head teacher at the school! Yet was living in Costa Rica running and internet business!and selling real estate! That is why the site is so well put together! and SO deciving!! It was Vicki and her knowledge of web sales and marketing!! I also contacted the Dept of Agriculture who informed me that all they had was Kennel licences! But that only entitled them to house animals! not act as a teaching facility! For that I contacted the State of Georgia Nonpublic Post-Secondary Commission who had informed me that they were no longer licensed to be a school of ANY description! Since December of 08!! What bugs me is they were proceeding to take them to litigation! But please don't tell me they kept going till 2010?!!!! 

Also! her daughter Emily was only a teenager! how could she be an owner at that age? I think that state needs to crack down heavily on these people and these scams! They were luring people from overseas that lost a lot! not just myself but others while I was there! But unfortunately because we do not reside in the country have an almost impossible task of taking them to court over all of it!  Hope this puts a story to what went on!

You are correct, JustAnotherConsumer. I have been checking every button but Contact Us. This does raise the stakes, doesn't it?
I don't have "insider information" on Pet Design's last weeks in business but when I saw on Yelp! that they were closed I drove by the Marietta location to confirm it; Alpharetta/Johns Creek is too far to drive to satisfy curiousity. Besides, Googling the addresses finds the real estate agents. There are pictures of the empty rooms but I decided not to download them. I do know for certain that the school license was yanked by the GA Nonpublic Post Secondary Education Commission in Sept 2009 but the whole "school" thing was a joke long before that date. You can find another Rip-Off Report by a disgruntled student which sums up the situation. The owner/manager Karin Barbato continued to claim that there were students-- you can find references on Kudzu & other consumer sites. Bad reviews were written by customers; good reviews by employees, Ms. Barbato and her daughter Emily. The actual owner of the business lives/lived in Costa Rica.
HOWEVER the issue now is that someone else is using www.thegroomingschool.com as if it were still in business. None of the information shown on this website has been true since 2008 when Vicki Conley (the owner) left for Costa Rica!
If it is possible for students to apply under Contact Us then this issue is a good deal more serious than someone (Beth Moore, according to my research) selling books under a false disguise of a successful dog grooming school. 

It appears that the new site owner attempted to alter all of the navigation links to point to their "Email Us for More Info" page. However, they missed one (the "Contact Us" link at the very bottom of the list on the home page). This link actually works and, when you get to that page, the old site navigation is there. From there, you can visit all of the site pages. There's even an online application form for classes, a class schedule saying they start the first Monday of each month, pics of the facility, etc. If both of these locations are really out of business, then you are right -- the new site owner is being very deceitful. 

Not only does the site still provide the online registration, they also promise to secure I-20 visas for overseas students through the Department of Homeland Security! Also, the bottom of all pages say the site was last updated in July, 2010 so if they lost their certification in 2009 they are really lying to the public.

I know nothing about this company (your report just caught my eye while I was browsing this site) but here is the "WHOIS" information on the site and site owner if it helps you:

Registrar: FastDomain Inc.
Provider Name....: BlueHost.Com
Provider Whois...: whois.bluehost.com
Provider Homepage: http://www.bluehost.com/

Domain Name: THEGROOMINGSCHOOL.COM

Created on..............: 2000-07-12 18:58:13 GMT
Expires on..............: 2012-07-12 18:58:13 GMT
Last modified on........: 2011-04-12 01:56:46 GMT

Registrant Info: (FAST-15422165)

Haley Brown
2659 Freedom Parkway #135
Cumming, Georgia 30041
United States
Phone: +1.4044197920
Fax..:
Email: rescue.volunteers@gmail.com
Last modified: 2011-04-05 14:17:59 GMT

Administrative Info: (FAST-15422166)

Haley Brown
2659 Freedom Parkway #135
Cumming, Georgia 30041
United States
Phone: +1.4044197920
Fax..:
Email: rescue.volunteers@gmail.com
Last modified: 2011-04-05 14:17:59 GMT

Technical Info: (FAST-12785240)
Bluehost.com
Bluehost Inc
1958 South 950 East
Provo, Utah 84604
United States
Phone: +1.8017659400
Fax..: +1.8017651992
Email: whois@bluehost.com
Last modified: 2010-12-06 18:43:32 GMT

Status: Locked

Domain servers in listed order:

NS1.BLUEHOST.COM
NS2.BLUEHOST.COM