I've seen some sad scenes in my local petco/petsmart stores. Petsmart seems to be a little better about it, I once saw a tortoise that had flipped itself upside down. I told the girl at the register and she just kinda shrugged and said she'd send someone over, no one came. I found another employee hanging out by the fish and when I told him, he literally came running to the tortoise to help it out.

At petco, I had sent a long e-mail to corporate about their savannah monitors. Basically stating that their employees at the store had zero knowledge about the animal and they shouldn't be selling it if they can't provide correct information on the animals. The care they were providing for the monitors in the store was completely off, I even sent links to monitor sites that explained their care lol. They sent me an e-mail back and apologized, I was surprised I even got a response. It was probably 2 years ago but I haven't seen any savys in the store in a while.

I mentioned the petco experience on another site and one of the members said they were a petco employee and honestly, the store has set standards (though low) the employees have to follow. If corporate says to use the cheap-o thermometers and place them at the top of the cage, its what they have to do. If corporate says to keep the temps at 70*, they have to do it.