FAMILY POOLS INC

It’s not often that I write a negative review on a company, in fact, I never do..but due to the terrible customer service I received from Family Pools office manager Nicole, I felt compelled to share my experience in hopes of warning others that may be considering this company. I signed a work order with Family Pools in early March of 2020, and gave a deposit of half down for repairs to be done on our inground pool. Nicole assured us that the crew would be out within a few weeks to do the job. I told her that all that I would need is 48 hours prior notice to scheduling to which she replied, “no problem, it’s a small job, so we’ll just fit you in between bigger jobs.” After approximately 5 weeks of not hearing back from her, I placed several calls in to her office and left several messages to please have her call me back so that we could schedule our work, but got no reply. After several more attempts, I was finally able to reach Nicole and her excuse for failing to return my calls was to quickly shift blame on to the Covid pandemic, even though they were never shut down and continued conducting business. She said she would check her calendar and get right back to me within the hour, but again, I didn’t hear back. It wasn’t until a week later, at the end of the work day, that I heard back from her, calling to see about coming out the next day. I explained to her that I had prior engagements and that would not work, again reiterating that I would need, at the very least, 48 hours notice before coming out. Fast forward to May 11th @ 4:47 PM...I receive a text message from Nicole, seeing if she could have the crew come out the next day. Once again, I had to explain to her that I needed more notice prior to scheduling rather than just a call from her at the last minute to come out the next day! We had guests visiting from out of town and that wouldn’t work for us. At this point, I also let her know that communication from her was less than acceptable and was a terrible way to do business. Her reply was,” that’s twice we tried scheduling a day in advance. I will let you know when there’s an opening.” I replied to her that if she couldn’t give me 48 hours prior notice, then perhaps she should return my deposit. To which she never replied! Over 4 months passed and nothing from Nicole or anyone at Family Pools for that matter, so I called back to inquire about my deposit. Left several messages with her answering service and after about five days of calling, I was finally able to make contact with Nicole. When I confronted her regarding her inability to call me back to schedule my job, which was now closing in on seven months from the day of signing the work order and giving the deposit, her response was, “oh,I thought we sent you your deposit months ago.” She then went on to say she’d look into it and get right back to me...well of course, she never did, same old story, numerous calls made, numerous calls unanswered, so I let a week pass and drove to their location with my wife to see why we still weren’t hearing back from Nicole regarding our deposit. Once we arrived, she started again with the lies saying that the check was mailed out of their accountant’s office in Fort Pierce and that we should be receiving it within a few days. After a week of not receiving my deposit, I once again left several messages with Family Pools without a call back. After the 3rd message, Nicole was finally able to take some time out of her busy schedule to return my calls. She said I could wait some more days for the “check in the mail” or I could come in for my deposit. Yeah, you guessed it, I chose the latter. In all of my years in dealing with different companies and people, I have never encountered such poor customer service and lack of respect by a person representing a company as I have here. With a name like Family Pools, you would think that they would treat people more like, you know, “Family,”... with respect and courtesy.. not in this case, not even close. Terrible customer service and I would never recommend this business to anyone!

I previously reviewed this company. After the review appeared, the owner of the company contacted me and came out to see the problem. He did send his workers back out and they cleaned and repainted the patio. I do feel that it took way to long to fix the problem and the lack of a any attention to my problem until the review appeared would make me think twice about rehiring.

Repair was done in a timely fashion and at a reasonable price

Workers were on time, courteous, professional, and workmanship was excellent.

Thanks to family pools I now have an amazing pool that will last for many years to come. Frank helped me through the entire process, and handled everything in a professional manner. Thanks to Frank I now have the best looking pool in the neighborhood. I would definitely hire family pools again.

unknown

on time, smooth, no surprizes!

Very well. Starting job on a Friday caused extended time with no work Sat pm or Sunday.

We attempted to contact the owner as well as the employees and met with nothing but roadblocks and excuses. I terminated the contract June 1st but was informed by the owner he was keeping my 2700 deposit, also says there is a no refund on deposits on the contract however I am unable to locate the information any where. Do yourself a favor and DO NOT HIRE

It seemed fine when they did the pool. It looked good. Tiles are now falling off the step and there is a big crack in the step. We found out, as the new tiles were falling off, that they didn't remove the old tiles on the step they just put the new ones on top of the old ones. That would have been fine, IF they ground the old tiles to make them rough enough that the material they were putting over them would stick. There is also no sign of a bonding agent, that should have been put on the old surface to make the new surface adhere well. Unfortunately they cut corners to make a buck. I tried to contact them on March 12th. The woman at the office told me to call a guy named Mark. I had left messages for Mark and had not received a call back. I got no answer at the office after that. When I called from my cell phone, the woman picked up but when she heard my voice and my name she hung up on me. I started calling again December 3rd after dealing with my mother's passing and once again I am just getting the voice mail. When I did get a hold of someone, they said a guy named Frank would be here on Dec. 5th at 1pm. 1pm came and went and I called the office. Got the voice mail. Called again and spoke to a woman, who said that she had called and left me a message, that they had to reschedule. I said that I never got a message. She gave me the number she called. The last number was wrong. When I got off the phone, out of curiosity, I called that number she said she left me a message at. It was a fax. I called her back and asked her how she could have left me a message on a fax number. She sounded dumbfounded. Dec. 6th @ 1pm was the new date. That came and went as well. I called the office once again and got the voice mail. I wanted to know if Frank was coming. I had not gotten a call from Frank, her or anyone else, that he was going to be late. I said that maybe she called the wrong number again. I asked her to please call me and left my phone number again. This company does not treat their customers with respect. I don't know what other reason why they wouldn't want to come out and take a look at my pool and make things right, other than they know what kind of a job they did in the first place. Buyer beware! February 18th 2013, Frank came to look at the step. He said that it was a prep problem on their end. February 26th they came and fixed the step and replaced the tiles on the step. The color is a bit off from not using the same product as when it was first done, but I was told that even if they did use the same product it wouldn't have looked the same because of fading and wear. I am just happy that they came out and fixed the problem at no charge. Frank also told me that he hired a new person to handle the phones, because he was getting a lot of complaints about whoever was answering the phones before. Over all, I am happy that my pool is back to normal again. updated 1/09/2017 - This is an extention of a review I did a while back. My third step started to crack and loose tiles, just like the second step. I once again called them and as usual got the run around. I called Frank himself and he told me to call the off to set up a day for them to come out, at their expense and fix that step and tiles. I called and some lady said that someone will get back to me. I never heard back from anyone. I decided I am not going to aggravate myself and play their games, so I am done with them. I will have to redo our whole pool to make it match. When they fixed the one step, it looks aweful, because they can't get the same color that was originally used. Tha could have all been avoided if they would have just opened up a new container of bonding agent to do the steps. They were the last thing done on the pool. They obviously ran out of bonding agent and decided to cut costs and not do the steps. Frank, don't bother calling me and if you decid to answer this with with some excuse, let my picture speak for itself.

My 20 year old pool was in desperate need of some TLC so I got some quotes and chose this company to do the work. The work was completed March of 2011. While the work was done on time and without too much hassle, I have to say that I was not impressed with the way the job was left. In order to repair the skimmer a large part of the deck was removed for access. That piece still sits in my back yard. It's much too heavy for me to move on my own. In addition when they were spraying the inside of the pool someone must have lost control of the hose and ended up spraying the product on the side of my newly painted house. No one ever apologized for that or offered to touch up the area. About 9 months after the work was done I noticed some tiles that had cracked so I called the company to have them replaced. Someone showed up, asked me if I had any extra tiles laying around because he didn't come prepaired with replacement tiles. Luckly I did have some spare tiles, that I found left out in the grass by the way, and he was able to do the job. I got the impression that he had better things to do then fix the tiles and he must have been in a hurry because he left chunks of tile adhesive on the pool deck as well as in the pool itself. Again I was left to clean up the mess these people left behind. BTW when the guy come to replace the tiles I asked him to also remove the large piece of deck that was left behind from the initial work. But since he couldn't be bothered to clean up his own mess he wasn't about to remove the old piece of deck and it to this day it sits in my back yard. So today, two months out of warranty, I called them to let them know the pool is losing 5 inches of water in a 24 hour period. I was informed that it would be $250 to do an inspection and any repairs would be extra. I asked about the warranty and was told that it's over. I told her I would call her back. After thinking about how I've been treated in the past, and they way I was treated on the phone I decided I would rather spend my money elsewhere. I called her back to let her know that I did not want them to come back to my home to do anymore crappy work and that I would take my business where it was appreciated. She told me fine and that she thought it was funny that I was only complaining now that I would have to pay a leak check fee and then she hung up on me. I had to call her back from another phone number, one she didn't know, just so she would answer. I then told her that I was going to write a review on Angie's list and that she was a nasty woman to deal with. Beware of this company! Good customer service and happy customers do not seem to matter to them. Just to be clear the pool came out nice. It looks brand new. I just have a problem with how I was treated after the work was done and I don't like being hung up on. And one more thing...I wasn't looking for a free leak repair. I understand the warranty period was over. I had only hoped they would have worked with me on the price if it turned out to be something related to the work they had done. As it turns out it was related, but I had it corrected by another company. One that treats me with respect and values my business.

I called the Port St. Lucie phone number 0n Friday 7/10 and spoke with the lady that answered the phone. I explained that I wanted an estimate to re-grout and re-surface my spa. She took my phone number and said she would have someone call me back. Later that day I received a call and an appointment was set for Monday 7/13 at 12:00. I waited around the house Monday until 2:00 and no one showed up. I called the lady back that I had first called and asked her how long did they expect someone to wait. She hung up on me. I really wasn't sure if she hung up or if I was just disconnected by mistake. So I called back and no one answered the phone. I left a message to no avail for no one ever returned my calls.