Clear Blue Swimming Pool Service Inc

This customer called my office requesting my company provide a swimming pool opening for her.  I put her on the schedule and did not require this customer to submit a deposit, which is required of all other customers.  I spent 30 minutes on a phone call with her, explaining everything...

we do when we open pools. Then, a day before her pool was scheduled to be opened, I met her at her home to go over her pool opening again and went through all her pool equipment with her.Her claim is that my crew did not provide a complete swimming pool opening as described on our website, which is completely false, and decided that $50 of her $324.05 charges was all she was going to pay.  My crew logged in at her home at 2:00 p.m. and logged out at 3:30 p.m.  That's an hour-and-a-half spent at her home.  Most pools can be opened in less than an hour.Please refer to the attached letter I sent to the customer for a full explanation of all events.I can be reached at [redacted] with any questions or further information.Thanks you,[redacted]

See attached document

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2015/05/21) */
Contact Name and Title: [redacted] Owner
Contact Phone: XXX-XXX-XXXX
Contact Email: [redacted]@gmail.com
We have been servicing the swimming pool located at above-referenced address for the family since July, 2011. We received...

the family's request to open their pool the week of May 4-8, 2015. Opening their pool was the ONLY service they requested. They did not request to have their pool cover cleaned and stored, and it clearly states in the mailer that if the customer does NOT request to have their cover cleaned and stored, it will be folded, tied up and left on-site. The family did NOT request to have their pool deck cleaned. My crew arrived at the home to open the pool on Tuesday, May 5, 2015 but was unable to begin opening the pool because they had to put an electric pump on the pool cover to drain 2 feet of water off the cover. They returned Thursday, May 7, 2015, removed the cover, folded it to leave on-site, and opened the pool (including assembling the equipment and shocking the pool so it would clear up enough to clean the pool). The crew informed the wife that there was not enough water in the pool to start up the equipment and asked her to fill the pool and we would return once full to start up the equipment. I personally returned on Monday, May 11, 2015, to start up the equipment and begin cleaning the pool up but the pool still needed four more inches of water to reach the skimmer, so I still couldn't start up the equipment. There was a huge pile of leaves in the deep-end corner of the pool so I used a leaf net to remove the leaves until the water clouded up to the point I couldn't see to continue the clean-up. The wife arrived home while I was there and I again asked her to fill the pool to the top se we could clean the pool. I asked her then what she would like me to do with the cover and her reply was "oh, we'll take care of the cover". I returned the morning of May 12, 2015 and the pool was now full so I started up the equipment and turned on the salt cell (the pool was still cloudy). [redacted], one of our vacuuming crew (who has been working with us for 5 years - he just appears to be young), arrived at 11:30 a.m. on the 12th to clean the pool. It was too cloudy to vacuum so he shocked the pool, tested and balanced the water and added 6 40-lb bags of salt to bring the level up for the salt cell to produce chlorine. He back washed the filter and left the filter in "normal" mode to clear the pool up. On May 13, [redacted] returned to clean up the pool and found water in the yard from the back wash line. The multiport on the filter had malfunctioned and drained some of the water from the pool. I spoke with the husband on Thursday, the 14th, and he gave me the go-ahead to fix the problem so I installed a new valve on the back wash line when I was there again on Friday, the 15th. Elliott, a new hire in training, arrived at the home the same afternoon, Friday, the 15th, to clean the pool. He experienced some problems with his vacuuming equipment, so he used our "deck level" system to vacuum as much as he could until the pool clouded so much that he couldn't see the pool floor. That evening, while I was attending my daughter's ceremony to receive her Master's Degree, Elliott called me to let me know he couldn't continue vacuuming, so I excused myself from the auditorium and called the husband and explained to him that his pool should have been opened several weeks earlier than the week they requested if they wanted their pool clean and swim-ready for their party on Saturday, May 16. I absolutely did NOT "cuss the husband out" as the wife claimed in her complaint. I was at a graduation ceremony, for goodness sake, surrounded by many other people and certainly conducted myself in a respectable manner. The wife's claim that I didn't return their calls is a blatant untruth. I spoke with the wife face-to-face on two different visits to their home and talked with the husband at least 3 times on the phone. I and my employees did everything possible to have the family's pool ready for their party on the 16th. Contributing factors to our inability to do so were 1) the family's request to have their pool opened far too close to the day of their party, and 2) the fact that on several occasions myself and my employees showed up to vacuum the pool after requesting the family fill the pool the day before, only to find that the pool had not been filled. Unfortunately, the wife felt the need to file this complaint with blatant untruths about myself and my company after we went above and beyond to clean up her pool for her party. The family still has an open invoice with a balance-due from our attempts to remedy the issues with their pool.

A response has already been submitted for this complaint, initially submitted by her husband, [redacted].  [redacted] lives at the same address as [redacted], so this is a duplicate complaint.  Please refer to the attached letter sent to this customer outlining exactly what happened and why we are continuing to bill them.  They are first-time pool owners and know nothing about how a pool is opened and closed and have inaccurately accused my crew of not performing a full pool opening service when the customer has no idea what they're talking about.  Thank you very much for your assistance.