Don't pay to Dr. Kelly in Mexico directly, if you change your mind, it takes forever to get your money back

[iekara 0]

Hi,

I paid for my wife's VSS to Dr. Kelly instead of using the US coordinator and since my wife changed her mind we have been trying to get our money back for two weeks. Apparently, Dr. Kelly needs to go to the States personally (??) to send/wire our money back, which makes no sense. What's more, the US coordinator, Sandy, is apparently no longer working with them due to things they have been doing and which have been damaging to Sandy's reputation. We were told our money would be sent back to us within a week. We called after a week and were told it would be sent back to us over the weekend. When called on Tuesday after the weekend, it was now going to be another week. Had we paid the US coordinator, we would have had our money back on day one: Sandy refunded to us even the non-refundable portion of the deposit paid to her. As of right now, Trish's phone is "temporarily unavailable," there is no voicemail option and we are also waiting on Sandy to try to get a hold of them. I am so glad my wife did not go down to Mexico to be operated on by these people. If this is how they handle your money, who knows what they do to your body.

I wish I had better things to say but this is completely unacceptable and unprofessional behavior. Maybe Dr. Kelly is not a complete scam but here is my advice which hopefully will not end up costing me $3600:

1) Always pay monies to a US coordinator, you will have recourse if the deal goes sour.

2) Don't use Dr. Kelly. Maybe he does perform good operations but this is completely unacceptable behavior and does not make me want to recommend him to anyone. I would not mind using Sandy from alighterme.com for my wife in the future: she has been nothing but courteous, professional and prompt.

I'll update this post as I find out more but I am done being jerked around and lied to. Hopefully Trish and Dr. Kelly will come to their senses and understand they can not treat their customers like this if they want to continue being in business.

[NewLife2011 13]

Dr Aceves takes only a $500 deposit up front and you pay the balance when you get down there.

Hopefully you get your money back!

[Fat4now 7]

Me and my friend went through the same thing...I sent my money to sandy (so i had no problem getting it back) and my friend sent her money to Trish through paypal. First of all, Trish was not supposed to be doing business with us directly because they were under contract with sandy--but she was going behind sandys back and getting money from the patients directly. Second--when it was time for my friend to get her money back--she went through hell. BUT I think the paypal thing saved her because if Trish wouldn't have finally returned the money--she would have disputed it through paypal. Trish ended up taking some of the money EVEN THOUGH according to the contract--she cancelled well within the time limit to get a full refund (over a month before surgery). I really hope you get your money back! I honestly felt like she didn't have great morals....But constantly talked about how Christian she was...That was all I heard. Once again--just my opinion and my friends experience.

[momokev 0]

Hi,

I paid for my wife's VSS to Dr. Kelly instead of using the US coordinator and since my wife changed her mind we have been trying to get our money back for two weeks. Apparently, Dr. Kelly needs to go to the States personally (??) to send/wire our money back, which makes no sense. What's more, the US coordinator, Sandy, is apparently no longer working with them due to things they have been doing and which have been damaging to Sandy's reputation. We were told our money would be sent back to us within a week. We called after a week and were told it would be sent back to us over the weekend. When called on Tuesday after the weekend, it was now going to be another week. Had we paid the US coordinator, we would have had our money back on day one: Sandy refunded to us even the non-refundable portion of the deposit paid to her. As of right now, Trish's phone is "temporarily unavailable," there is no voicemail option and we are also waiting on Sandy to try to get a hold of them. I am so glad my wife did not go down to Mexico to be operated on by these people. If this is how they handle your money, who knows what they do to your body.

I wish I had better things to say but this is completely unacceptable and unprofessional behavior. Maybe Dr. Kelly is not a complete scam but here is my advice which hopefully will not end up costing me $3600:

1) Always pay monies to a US coordinator, you will have recourse if the deal goes sour.

2) Don't use Dr. Kelly. Maybe he does perform good operations but this is completely unacceptable behavior and does not make me want to recommend him to anyone. I would not mind using Sandy from alighterme.com for my wife in the future: she has been nothing but courteous, professional and prompt.

I'll update this post as I find out more but I am done being jerked around and lied to. Hopefully Trish and Dr. Kelly will come to their senses and understand they can not treat their customers like this if they want to continue being in business.

Wow, so sorry this happened to you! This reinforces my decision to switch to Dr Aceves. I detailed it in my blog if you care to read about it, but I just had a bad feeling because Trish was very inconsistent. When she told me they'd lost the ability to take credit cards due to "disputed charges", but go ahead and wire the $1500 deposit, she was sure it would be worked out by my surgery date. I just couldn't take that chance. After reading your post, I know I made the right decision.

Lisa

[iekara 0]

So we received our money back today and in full. The thing is, we researched Dr. Kelly and his team before committing to going through with his team. Obviously, he is a good surgeon and most of the time things go smoothly. What I think has happened here is that they are overloaded and didn't think it was a big deal to hold a client's money, maybe even didn't realize how long we had been waiting. I still insist that dealing with Sandy is a lot easier because she is not dealing with patients and surgeries at the same time. I think it may be an injustice to Trish to expect her to be Dr. Kelly's assistant AND coordinate patients. But that's their operation and I don't know enough to tell for sure what the problem was. Also, in Dr. Kelly's defense, before the above reply came in I had spoken to him the same day (Friday) and he did tell about a patient who disputed the charges after receiving the surgery. That's why the Dr. is trying to figure out what to do with credit cards. Unfortunately, those are the things that happen to every business which take credit cards. And if you don't take them, it looks bad towards your customers. He did get his money because he had proof that he performed the surgery.

Anyways, I don't know how much longer it would have taken for us to get our money back had we not posted here. That's the bad part. The good part is that I still think Dr. Kelly is a good surgeon. He just needs to get his operation more streamlined. And if your case is just a regular case, you will probably be happy with him and his work. After all, we only canceled because my wife changed her mind but he was our choice for the surgery.

[NewLife2011 13]

Glad that things worked out for you guys. Sounds like a back office glitch and not a reflection on Dr Kelly.

[SeattleSue 25]

In full disclosure, I used Trish for my surgery and then referred my friend to her. Where I spend my money is enough of an endorsement I guess. I'll take expertise over bed-side manner in my surgeon, and boots on the ground in Tijuana over a slick operation with printed materials at the ready and a sketch 3rd party payment system through a website that doesn't give you any warm fuzzy feeling when you get a single line response, "...your payment is received..." but no confirmation, no summary, no surgeon name, etc.

I happened to be in Tj this last week for the "drama" which Dr. Kelly and Trish tried to hide for the most part from patients. But here's my understanding...and a lot of it was confirmed in the statment posted by Sandy that I read advertising her website and company.

Trish no longer works for Sandy and so she's now "competition". This boils down to money...or losing money. It's all about the commission. The coordinators work for Dr. Kelly, not the other way around...and no one is "exclusive".

Dr. Kelly worked at Angeles Hospital, a part of a large staff. He's now building his own private practice and pay's various outlets for their referrals. Now that patient referrals are coming in, some businesses are losing money because patients are going directly to Dr. Kelly or to Trish. It seems that some or a, coordinator(s) feel that it is unethical of Dr. Kelly and/or Trish to accept clients that another coordinator didn't send them without paying a royalty to her...even when the referring patient never went through her either. It boggles my mind. Anyway, my advice is to remember that not everything that glitters is gold.

A slick web page $10000

Guarantee's of lowest prices $400

Boots on the ground in Tijuana = Priceless

Just my 2 cents...

[Sunny702 2]

Where is the LIKE button ... no make that the LOVE button?? lol I agree whole heartedly with everything Sue posted. What it all boils down to is the all mighty dollar!!! Sandy seems to be pretty annoyed that it's not all coming to her and that patients are going directly to Dr. Kelly without paying her a fee.

I was sleeved by Dr. Kelly on 8/17/11 and went directly through Trish. I had no issues with payment or anything that happened once I was there. To the original poster I'm HAPPY you got everything situated.

In full disclosure, I used Trish for my surgery and then referred my friend to her. Where I spend my money is enough of an endorsement I guess. I'll take expertise over bed-side manner in my surgeon, and boots on the ground in Tijuana over a slick operation with printed materials at the ready and a sketch 3rd party payment system through a website that doesn't give you any warm fuzzy feeling when you get a single line response, "...your payment is received..." but no confirmation, no summary, no surgeon name, etc.

I happened to be in Tj this last week for the "drama" which Dr. Kelly and Trish tried to hide for the most part from patients. But here's my understanding...and a lot of it was confirmed in the statment posted by Sandy that I read advertising her website and company.

Trish no longer works for Sandy and so she's now "competition". This boils down to money...or losing money. It's all about the commission. The coordinators work for Dr. Kelly, not the other way around...and no one is "exclusive".

Dr. Kelly worked at Angeles Hospital, a part of a large staff. He's now building his own private practice and pay's various outlets for their referrals. Now that patient referrals are coming in, some businesses are losing money because patients are going directly to Dr. Kelly or to Trish. It seems that some or a, coordinator(s) feel that it is unethical of Dr. Kelly and/or Trish to accept clients that another coordinator didn't send them without paying a royalty to her...even when the referring patient never went through her either. It boggles my mind. Anyway, my advice is to remember that not everything that glitters is gold.

A slick web page $10000

Guarantee's of lowest prices $400

Boots on the ground in Tijuana = Priceless

Just my 2 cents...

[NewLife2011 13]

I was sleeved by Dr Aceves so this doesn't apply to me directly but based on everything I've read here I'm rooting for Trish too