Consumer champion Helen Dewdney, known as The Complaining Cow, helps one cat lover cancel an extortionate vet bill for something that happened while in their care
Cat lover Nic Maber faced every pet owner’s nightmare when one of his cats needed an urgent vet appointment.
But he was left gobsmacked when vets charged him nearly £2,000 after his five-year-old Ragdoll cat Peppa ate bedding whilst in their care.
Nic, who has six Ragdoll cats, contacted the out-of-hours service via his vet based in Cardiff and took Peppa to Newport.
They in turn referred her to Langford Small Animal Referral Hospital, with suspected heart failure. The vets provided a variety of inpatient treatment for Peppa over four to five days, including an overnight stay.
During her time at the hospital, the on-call vet decided she needed to have a gastroscopy after suspecting that Peppa had ingested her bedding whilst in hospital.
The vet found two hairballs in her stomach which was likely the foreign material seen on the gastroscopy.
The vet then carried out an ultrasound which identified some material within the colon, reflecting passage of the foreign body.
They also carried out a CT scan, at a total cost of £1,899.86. The vet told him they would give him a 50% discount – but this was only on the gastroscopy part of the treatment.
This added to the stress for Nic and his wife Charlotte, who has a terminal cancer diagnosis. Although the vets were aware of the situation, Nic felt little empathy from them.
He said: “I trusted them with my cat at a really difficult time for my family, and instead I was asked to pay nearly £2,000 for something that happened while she was in their care.”
He wrote to the vets disputing the overall bill of £12,500, with £2,000 of that due to the out-of-hours service. He told them he was not willing to pay the £1,899.86 because the cost was due to an incident whilst under their care.
The Clinical Governance Manager at the surgery replied, offering 50% discount of £949.93 as a “goodwill gesture” whilst not admitting any liability.
She also said that he must sign a letter including a confidentiality clause, preventing him from discussing his experience.
Nic contacted several solicitors asking them to take on the case. The only one who replied said it would cost him more than he would get back.
But for most consumer cases you don’t need a solicitor, you just need to know where to look for information on your consumer rights and how to assert them.
I helped Nic write an email to the CEO, acquiring the address from the website www.ceoemail.com and explaining how the practice was in breach of consumer law.
Under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, services must be carried out with “reasonable skill and care”. Nic was also entitled to be placed in the financial position he would have been in had the breach not occurred.
In this case the vet should waive all the costs associated with the corrective treatment.
We expressed concern about the requirement to sign a confidentiality agreement and accept the offer within such a short timeframe, placing Nic under undue pressure to accept the settlement. This could amount to an “aggressive commercial practice” under consumer protection legislation.
We stated that we would refer the matter to the Veterinary Client Mediation Service (VCMS) and/or the Small Claims Court. The VCMS only provides mediation services and both parties can walk away from mediation. It does not offer adjudication, like all other ADR providers. The outcome of adjudication would be binding on the business.
This email resulted in the claim passing to their insurer. The insurer responded, stating that the vet is “…prepared as a further gesture of goodwill to waive all fees directly related to the investigation of Peppa’s suspected foreign body ingestion”.
In March 2026, the Competition and Markets Authority published a long-awaited report, examining the veterinary sector and laying down new rules. These mostly relate to pricing, allowing pet owners to make comparisons across veterinary practices. The new rules would not have helped in this case.
Langford Vets is not one of the “big six” vet chains that make up almost 60% of the sector. It is the clinical teaching platform for the University of Bristol Veterinary School.
Nic says that big veterinary practices are only concerned about the bottom line: “Vets have told me they are under pressure to upsell to increase profits.
One of our cats had an ultrasound which cost £984 and took only 10 minutes. How can this be justified as being owner friendly? When this started we had to use an out-of-hours service, this was £302 just to get your foot in the door.”
Peppa has since recovered from her ordeal. Nic has already changed to an independent vet, saying this was “wholly related to the fact that my previous vets kept bumping up costs on what seemed like a monthly basis”.
Nic says of the new animal doctor: “She is totally brilliant, we just know that she cares about the animals she treats. Her prices are what you would expect them to be. With her, the ultrasound would have been £300!”
Neither the insurance company nor the veterinarian practice has responded to our request for comment.
