Backyard Leisure

Do not do business with these people, they are crooks and are trying to steal my money. I placed a deposit of over $5,000 for a hot tub, and shortly there after my situation changed and I no longer needed it. I called and explained this to the sales manager on October 1, and told him that in NC it is illegal for them to keep my deposit if we don't complete the transaction AND I had it in writing from them that it was refundable. He asked me to email him the documentation, which I did. I have not received a single call back from anyone since then. I have gotten a few employees and the occasional manager on the phone, but no one has provided me with any information. It has now been 37 days since I requested a refund of my money, and despite leaving over 15 messages for the woman named Cindy that everyone has told me is in charge of the refunds, she hasn't once even had the courtesy to return a phone call. I finally had to get an attorney involved today. I hope they don't respond to his letter so we can sue them, because I would love for them to have to cover court fees, attorney fees, interest, lost time at work dealing with this headache, and anything else that will be quite easy to prove.

I very rarely write reviews and those that I have written are meant to compliment a business or service. I make it a point to take one star with a grain of salt as many of them will downgrade a product because, sardonically, they complain about things like; “The box was hard to open.” However, I don’t think I have ever been as frustrated, disappointed or annoyed at a business as I now am at Backyard Leisure in Raleigh, NC. I bought a Bullfrog Spa through Backyard Leisure a few years ago. The ozonator and check valve recently failed- which is what they do and this is simply just a part of maintenance. I called Backyard Leisure (from whom I bought this spa) to get a new part and was told by them they wouldn’t order it and I should go to Bullfrog’s website. That part is not listed on Bullfrog’s parts website. I finally got in touch with Bullfrog in Utah and they referred me back to the dealer informing me that they do not sell directly to the consumer. However they did give me the OEM part number to give to the dealer so they could put in the order.. I again called Backyard Leisure and, again, was referred back to Bullfrog headquarters. Bullfrog once again referred me back to Backyard Leisure and Bullfrog’s technical support personnel promptly called the store in Raleigh to give them the part number. I subsequently called the dealer a few more times without getting any result and had to repeatedly try to get some sort of answer. When I finally insisted to speak with the manager, I felt he was less than forthright with me concerning communications and told me he had the phone logs. —But so do I and they don’t jive. As the customer I felt that I was being being played or outright lied to about any effort on their part to provide any sort of service.especially when I have, what I consider to be, a simple request for service. I fully understand that this is not a brand new spa and I am more than willing to pay for any parts But, at the very least, I would expect some sort of service after the sale. I also had some minor problems with Backyard Leisure’s service when the hot tub was new-and under warranty-but just chalked that up as unimportant. In retrospect, that was evidently a harbinger of things to come as they now have evolved. If and when I might consider buying another spa, Bullfrog would be in the running- but I would not even start to consider one if Backyard Leisure was still their vendor/dealer in my area. I have owned spas or hot tubs since about 1978 and have never had this lack of response from any dealer of any. product. This was just a continuum of the interactions I have had with this dealer and once again was extraordinarily poor. I am now just out of warranty and no longer have to use them - nor will I. It appears that Backyard Leisure is Bullfrog’s exclusive dealer within a reasonable distance of my home in the Raleigh, NC area. Should I have need of a part in the future I would rather spend a small fortune on a new spa rather than give Backyard Leisure a dime of profit. I have learned my lesson. Anyone who reads this can take this poor review with a grain of salt as is anyone’s privilege. All I can say is,”Caveat Emptor.” (“Buyer beware”) and I will never, ever, do business with this dealer again.

Purchased a pool from Backyard Leisure in Nov. 2022. Payment was made to them through a loan company in full in Nov. They called and scheduled a build for our pool in Dec. and said they would be there Jan. 9th. At the end of Dec. they called back to reschedule for Jan. 16th. They came on the 16th and said they would be back the next day to continue the work. Waited all day, no one showed or called. Called the next day to make sure they were coming so as to not have to wait all day for no reason. I spoke to Nate the contractor for the pool company and he was very condescending and rude with me. He could not give me a straight answer and kept telling me about the water in the ground which I told him I already new about. He proceed to tell me like 5 times "I don't know what to tell you, theres water in the hole". All I wanted to know from him is if my husband needed to stay home and wait for the crew to show up. When they did show up they found out that the hole they dug was not even big enough. They kept saying they would be back the next day and they would only show up half the time, causing us to waste time and lose money as my husband was not able to start a new job. We did have issues with water coming up in the ground but that is no excuse to not show up when you say you will. The workers kept telling us about the other jobs that they were working on on days they were supposed to be at our house. So after 3 months we started calling Aaron to find out what the deal was. They told us that we could either pay an additional 3,500 dollars to get the job done now or we could wait until the ground dried up on its own. I felt this was a shake down because they knew that we needed to get this done. We could not use our yard because it was a mess due to all the equipment. That meant that we could not start working in our yard because they would have to bring more equipment in whenever they decided to come back and try again. So, we paid the extra money for them to come and get it done. We waited another week and they finally showed up to finish, but they never finished. That was the beginning of March. We keep calling and nothing is happening. It is now April and we decided to go ahead and bury the pump and purchase a box for it ourselves at additional cost to us. This is after we paid the extra $3500 to go ahead and get the rest of the build done. We called Aaron at the beginning of March to get the concrete scheduled and he said he would call us back to let us know when they would be there. March 16th and we never heard back from him so we called him again. Again he said he would call. Never heard anything from him so I called the GM Ryan on April 4th and he assured me that I would hear back from Aaron on the following day and even gave me his cell phone number so that I would be able to contact him directly. The next day I never received a call from him so I texted Ryan to let him know. I gave it until the following week to call back. My husband called back and spoke with David and he said he would have Aaron call us back. The next day we never heard back from anyone so I decided to call the store. I called all day long on Tuesday April 11th. I called both the store and Ryan's cell number and could not reach anyone until after 5. David answered the phone and said that he had texted and emailed Aaron and that Aaron would call us back. I explained to him that I did not feel confident that that would happen given the fact that it had been almost a month since we heard from him and we keep leaving messages and still nothing. I explained my frustration and said I really did not know what to do at this point and that I didn't want to contact an attorney and he got all defensive and told me that he could no longer talk to me. I understand that getting something scheduled may not happen overnight but it has been over a month since we talked to Aaron about it and not even heard an estimated time frame as to when this will happen. We can not get Aaron to return our calls and Ryan giving me his cell number did no good if he will not answer his phone. Finally the project has been completed but it was just a complete mess trying to have an open line of communication with any of these guys. Please do not put yourself through the trouble of dealing with this company. The only good thing about this whole experience was the concrete company. They were so friendly and professional.

Of course, we pick the worst time to go pool shopping. Between the supply chain issues and having vetted every pool installer's personal preference on pool type, we were off to a painful start. We met with many pool companies for over a month. Companies of all different sizes, and although each was independently unique, the same stipulations applied across the board. The pool installs were at least 12 months out and getting someone to sit down for a consult was around one month out. It was very frustrating. We stumbled across Backyard Leisure and decided to give them a try. Don't judge the company by the area in which their Raleigh office is located, these guys are legit. Aaron Garner actually sat down with us on the spot and provided us with the information we were seeking. He answered all of our questions and provided us with much needed insight to help us plan our next move. On top of all that, the anticipated install was less than 12 months out. Aaron clearly knew what he was talking about and also helped us realize the best approach to our inground spa. Aaron was there throughout the entire process; he was more of a partner than a salesman and still is. They have some real talent working for them, Alberto leading installs gained my trust and confidence within an hour of him being onsite during the install, he knows his stuff. At the end of the day, we are more than happy with the product and the team at Backyard Leisure. Cheers!

We absolutely love the service and staff at Backyard Leisure’s! Chris and the rest of his staff are so knowledgeable about all their services that they offer and when you walk in they are so attentive to everything you need! From start to finish they were amazing! I would highly recommend Backyard Leisure’s and will buy from them again!

Everything went smooth. the delivery and install were timely all of the people were professional

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unknown

The people at Backyard Leisure where a pleasure to work with. I had a small yard with a lot of issues with the slope in my yard and they did a great job utilizing the slope and working it in to a fantastic water feature. One of the main reason I chose to go with them was because they handle every aspect of there build in-house. Even the concrete and block work. They gave me a 3D drawing and a 2D drawing to make sure I had a real accurate understanding of what my pool was going to be like. After we settled on a design they started the job about 2 weeks later. I am pleased. 5 weeks later I was using my pool. I did have one service call about 2 weeks after the installation was completed and they came out 2 days later and got it taken care of. I would feel comfortable recommending them to any of my friends or family.

Backyard Leisure failed to communicate, answer emails or complete work in a timely manner after they were paid. We paid Backyard Leisure in full as required by them to start work a total of $16,879.91. $11,415.93 of that money was paid by credit card which I later disputed and the dispute was found in my favor and credited to my account. They started March 24, 2014 installing a above ground 24 ft pool and were burying it for the underground look. After that initial first day they would only come sporadically and only work a few hours at the time. My yard was completely a danger zone and eye sore. A hole around the pool remained open until May. In April the pool started to buckle so their worker built a retainer wall around the pool. At this point I became really concerned and requested for the head installer and owner, Alan Mosher to come and inspect and oversee the problems. He never came to job site nor did he ever call me concerning this. In addition I had a leak where I was having to fill water back in pool every 3 days, I never got anyone to address this. I have several emails with 3 different promised finish dates and addressing of all issues and concerns, all of which were never followed through with. The last broken promised finish date was May 30, 2014. I finally gave up that Backyard Leisure would ever finish and the integrity of the pool was now at risk. June 2, 2014 we officially fired Backyard Leisure and had no choice but to seek help from another pool installer. With the credit card company finding the dispute in my favor I was then able to pay another pool company to fix everything. The new pool company, Raleigh Pool and Spas, started work immediately on my pool considering we were already in the middle of summer. This was only supposed to be a 2 to 4 week job initially. Francisco Simental, pool installer, immediately started fixing all problems which consisted of firstly finding the leak. After many days of digging dirt to check pipes and replacing pipes that were not fitted properly he had to end up cutting a portion of the concrete to get to those pipes. He finally found the leak and we have it on video along with pictures. Backyard Leisure had hammered a metal rod into one of the pipes and water was bubbling out. Francisco replaced this pipe. With the leak finally fixed he could now address the wrinkles in liner and some if the waves that were in the pool wall. He drained the water June 13, 2014 and as the water was draining the wall literally started collapsing because the water was no longer there to support the wall. Backyard Leisure had filled between the retainer wall and the pool itself with sand which without water will and did collapse. Francisco stated that they should never had used sand. At the time this day was very emotionally as my family had already been through enough and now slowly we watched the pool literally fall apart and tear apart from the brackets. Francisco had to order me a new wall and liner, he had to physically dig all that sand out from the whole 24 ft perimeter and we had to wait for 2 weeks for all this to come in. My yard was still a mess due to Backyard Leisures careless and reckless installation. My pool wall and liner finally came in and was installed, pool filled with water and was finally finished July 12, 2014. My new installer not only replaced basically the whole existing pool but also fixed all the issues that Backyard Leisure left. I now have a beautiful perfectly running pool, with landscape now and a fence. I am deeply disappointed in how me and my family were treated by Backyard Leisure. I have a 14 and a 6 year old daughters and a 2 year old grandson. All of our spring and the majority of our summer was filled with a torn up yard, a hole that was just left for almost 2 months and the emotional chaos due to Backyard Leisures total disregard for our happiness as we trusted them not only with our yard but the safety and happiness of our family. We have all pictures from March 24th to July 12, 2014 to backup everything I have stated along with Raleigh Pools statement. Anyone who would like to see pictures or the video of the leak which clearly shows the metal rod in pipe are welcome to. Thank you, Rebecca Stewart

It took Backyard Leisure a long to time to complete my pool. In all fairness, the delays were not all their fault. The primary delay was caused by Artful Stonework, the subcontractor designated to do the concrete and stone work. This company failed to show up on many occasions or only sent one worker for a few hours. Backyard Leisure worked hard to get them to complete the assigned work. They finally had to create their own in house concrete/masonry group to get the work done since the subcontractor was so unresponsive. Backyard Leisure does work hard to ensure customer satisfaction.

unknown

Start to finish was a great experience and I would go there again if needed.