SC mother not alone in what families say was a scam that sold untrained ‘service dogs’
What one South Carolina mother thought would be helpful partner for her daughter turned out to be a bad dog.
WCBD reported on the story Mary Matthews, a Charleston mother who bought what she was told was a service animal from a dog training company. The dog was meant to be a companion for her 9-year-old daughter who is autistic.
But when they got the dog home it was untrained and aggressive, Matthews told WCBD. The dog bit her children and others, the station reported. The pet would bark and scratch at her children and other pets as well.
The dog cost Matthews $4,000 and she spent another $2,000 trying to train the dog.
She bought the dog from Rycon, a Raleigh, North Carolina company owned by a man named Mark Mathis that said he trained service dog.
Matthews filed a complaint with the North Carolina Attorney General’s office concerning Rycon Service Dogs. Forty-one other families have also filed complaints against Rycon, WCBD reported.
“We’re hoping with the help of the AG and the other families involved, we might try to find a way to get more regulation with these companies that are claiming they are doing a good job by training service dogs,” she to told WCBD.
The owner of Rycon filed for bankruptcy shortly after lawsuits started piling in, according to WCBD.
“If these allegations prove to be correct we’re going to do everything in our power to hold this guy accountable,” the North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein told WCBD.
Other news outlets reported about Mathis and Rycon, also spelled Ry-Con or RyCon, providing untrained dogs to family at high prices, including a Massachusetts family who spent $14,000 on a dog. Another family in Virginia Beach reported a similar experience with a Rycon dog in January.
Earlier in January WNCN tried to speak with Mathis but he refused to comment on the allegations against him.