Paddock Pools - Spa

I purchased a spa (floor model) from Paddock Pools on April 15, 2007, working with a salesman named Chad Smith. He was quite a good salesman, but once I left the store, nothing went as promised and it ended with Paddock Pools arbitrarily INFLATING the final payment against my credit card, only notifying me after the fact and claiming I had authorized the transaction. I did no such thing.

Wendy – the scheduler – was supposed to call me the day after I purchased the spa. I didn’t receive a call but waited a few days. Still no call. I called the salesman; he said she’d call. She didn’t. I called the salesman the next day. He said he’d get her to call, and she finally did later that day. She’s been less than impressive throughout the entire experience, quite honestly. The day before the delivery, she said they’d give me everything I needed to get the spa up and running and then I could schedule the orientation a week after that, once I’d had an opportunity to get used to the system.

No one collected money from me even though the delivery was COD. I waited about two hours and then called Paddock to say, “Hey, don’t I owe someone some money?” The salesman fell all over himself thanking me for being honest and letting them know. The person who works in the office with Wendy called and said Wendy would have to handle it when she got back to the office.

Wendy called the next day, took down my credit card information, never said “thanks for letting us know about this oversight” by the way, and confirmed the amount. I was paying for it via my Visa Debit card and we realized that it would probably exceed the daily maximum. She agreed to split the payment in half: $2,972.13 one day, $2,792.13 the next.

On the second day, I received a fax from her with an “addendum” to the contract saying, “Per Chad, customer agrees to pay an additional $55.00.” I NEVER AGREED TO ANY ADDITIONAL FEE! There’s no indication anywhere what the fee is supposedly for, but they did modify the total amount at the bottom of the contract AND charged my account for $3,027.13 for the second payment.

I called the salesman but was always put on hold, so I emailed him. I left a message for the infamous (and incompetent) Wendy, but got no return call or message. I left a message for their Vice President for Retail Sales – Bill Trocki – and have not heard from him. I finally notified my bank of their unauthorized modification to this transaction.

If you’re looking here on this site to see if you want to do business with Paddock Pools, I’d urge you to go elsewhere. Sneaky is a nice word for what they did, but I’m sure you can fill in your own blanks.

Cheryl