POOLS BY YOUNG LTD

The experience was not good. We didn't get what was contracted or what we paid to have done. We wish we had never started the project.

I should have fired this company years ago; my fault for not doing so. My experience with the company's lack of responsiveness and lack of communication over the years in the building and servicing of my swimming pool has been a source of continuing frustration. But I have fired them now, because I placed an order for a winter pool cover at the end of August 2011 and paid a $1400 deposit to the company. Long story short: the cover was never delivered notwithstanding repeated assurances that it would be delivered. When I demanded a refund of my deposit in the spring of 2012, I was repeatedly assured that the refund would be made. And when the refund did not come, I filed a case in Virginia Small Claims Court (Fairfax County) and won a judgment for the amount of the deposit in November 2012. I realize that getting the judgment and collecting it are two different things -- my initial garnishment summons has just failed because the company closed its account at the bank where it deposited my deposit check -- but I will be persistent. One additional piece of information: I placed an order for a pool cover in August 2010 and that too was never delivered. But at least they refunded the deposit for that one. Ah, fool me once. . . . I have ample proof for everything I say here; and, anyone can look up my case in the Virginia General District Courts database. To sum up: in my view, others use this company at their peril.

My experience was VERY similar to the comments made by the other poster... only mine might have been a bit more extreme. It is my feeling that the Angie s List response from Pools by Young to the previous poster implying that the company was unfamiliar with these problems is totally false. My husband and I made numerous complaints (too many to count) about the same sorts of problems(as well as LOTS of other problems) in writing, over the phone and even in person to everyone from the receptionist to the owners. When our kindness failed, then our firmness failed, we had several problems that just required we threaten (in all sincerity) to take some of the problems that we had to our lawyer in an effort to coax assistance out of them, either by threat of legal action or by legal action itself. We did not reach a resolution on a few of our issues but we did reach a point where we can finally part ways with this company and cut our losses once and for all. I am sure they also appreciate not having us fight them daily to get them to do what they say they would but simply can't seem to do as promised... almost ever. Please be cautious before using this company. They are not the same people after they get your money that they were before they got it, I'm so sad to say.

Pools By Young has always been very lackadaisical about when they show up. They never inform us when there have been delays. They will give us a date for the service and then never show up that day. They tend to show up whenever they want too. This year we have them coming once a week, and last year it was much worse because they only came out once every two weeks. They did not seem very responsible or on top of things. The office people seem to be very well intentioned, but the execution is very spotty. Once they come out to do the work they do an okay job, but with all of the other factors they are the less than perfect pool service.

We chose PBY because of their small size, long company history and horror stories we had heard about most every other pool builder; plus their quote was quite a bit less than others we had received even though they use good-quality equipment. We hit some roadblocks during construction, which was more to blame on Mother Nature than the company, and we had some problems with one of the subcontractors, which PBY, to their credit, mediated and absorbed some extra costs that they didn't have to, per our contract. Only real complaints have been for subsequent service calls for opening and closing pool, work orders were misplaced, didn't show up when they said they would, etc. I think they have new employee(s) in the main office who don't seem to be quite as customer-oriented.