BELLEFONTE — Lyons Kennels owner Gerald Lyons was not too worried when a credit card machine glitch back in March and April caused close to 200 transactions not processing, potentially costing the business thousands of dollars.
After more than 60 years of providing a wide variety of pet services and helping the community in many ways, Lyons said he had a good feeling that people would come back and settle the payments that were accidentally missed.
As of June 7, roughly 90 percent of customers have come back and processed their transactions again, and Lyons thinks thinks the remaining 10 percent will do the same.
He said it all comes back to how he treats his customers and the community.
“If I didn’t treat them right, they probably wouldn’t have come back,” said Lyons. “But, some people even called while they were on vacation and said when they came back they would take care of it. And they did.”
The error occurred when an early-March storm knocked the business’ credit card system offline. Lyons believes that when the system was restored back to “online” status, the system didn’t reset correctly.
“I thought it was going through,” said Lyons back in April, who added with a laugh that at 83 years old, he wasn’t able to realize the mistake before it was too late. “It said ‘successful.’”
Unfortunately for Lyons and Lyons Kennels, it wasn’t. He contacted the credit card company about the issue and was told the company could not reprocess the transactions and the responsibility of collecting any losses falls on the business.
Once the mistake was realized and corrected, Lyons set up a list of missed transactions, asking customers to check it when they came in again. The situation made its way around social media and a story appeared in The Centre County Gazette on April 28 to help make people aware of the situation
A concerned customer asked to set up a GoFundMe page to help cover the losses, but Lyons said he was having none of that. He believed his customers would come back and pay and wanted to save those kind of situations for people who have suffered greater losses than this error.
Since then, Lyons’ loyal customers have steadily streamed to make things right, proving that if you give, you shall receive.
After all, through the years Lyons has been given back to the Bellefonte community in many ways. He donates time and the kennel’s facilities to several local animal rescue and charitable activities, such as Nittany Beagle Rescue, Pets Come First, Centre County Paws and the Bellefonte Food Bank.
Lyons also works with the Spring Township and Bellefonte Borough police departments as a drop-off point for stray or lost dogs. He then works with authorities to return the dogs to their owners and works with animal rescue groups if an owner cannot be identified.
Lyons first had the idea of opening the kennel while serving in the United States Marines Corp. and noticing the number of fellow service members needing a place to board their pets while overseas.
His advocacy for veterans continues as he volunteers with the Veterans Assistance Fund and The Nittany Leathernecks.
That same kind of kindness often goes to customers who might need a little help here and there.
“I just help as many people as I can,” said Lyons.
With each name that gets checked off that list, some of that kindness is getting paid back.
This story appears in the June 9-15 edition of The Centre County Gazette.
