Optima Pools

We are so disappointed in ourselves for not doing better research on this man and his company. Now, after doing more in-depth research, we are seeing negative comments, concerns and complaints about Tom Bessette and Optima Pools, LLC.
He and his workers performed poor quality work on the rebuild of our pool.
They repaired rebar that was coming through the pool floor. Well, it is still surfacing through. He is not abiding by the warranties listed in the contract. He is saying he did not repair ‘that particular rebar’ that is showing rust spots. We expected all faulty rebar to be repaired.

One of our biggest complaints about Tom is his customer service and poor quality of work. There are cracks throughout our pool deck. Some are large. We have chunks that are missing around our pool. It is not stated in our contract how long the pool deck warranty is. We are assuming, because of the Arizona heat, only a few years. It was 2 years and 8 months that we made our first phone call to him about our concerns and complaints. It took him an additional 10 months to come out to our house to address these concerns.

We first reached out to Tom about our concerns the beginning of July 2020 (our pool remodel was complete in November of 2017). It took him to the end of April 2021 to finally come to our house to address our concerns. YES, 10 months! It took him 10 months to come to our house to address our concerns! He had excuse after excuse for not coming out (It was too hot, let us wait for the weather to cool down, he was busy working on the other side of town…). When he finally came to our house, he told us that none of our complainants were under warranty. It was 2 years and 8 months after our pool was remodeled that we called him with our concerns. Even if the warranty was for 2 years (which is not stated in our contract), we feel as an “honest, caring, reputable” business owner, that Tom says he is, he should have covered the concrete work, which was obviously done poorly. He told tell us that he did have a guy who could do the repairs at a decent cost though. Have you heard from the guy? Us either.

Another complaint we have, and have had since day 1, is the huge gap between the tile and the pool deck. We have mentioned that to Tom throughout the pool remodeling. He said that the deck would expand and that the deck will eventually ‘meet’ with the tile and that there would not be a gap. Not true. 3½ years later, there is still a huge gap. For that he is continuing to say that the concrete is expanding and contracting and that it will eventually settle. Meanwhile, water is getting behind the pool. That cant be good.

Under the description of his company, he describes himself to be very friendly, helpful, caring and attentive, before, during, and long after the completion of the project…that is an out and out lie. Those are some of our major complaints. He is extremely unprofessional, is reneguing on things that are in the contract, does not follow thru on promises or agreements, does not return phone calls in a timely manner or sometimes not at all, has unprofessional, unqualified people working for him. He literally had an argument in front of us, with one of his employees, and fired him in our backyard.

He also writes about himself that he is a hands-on guy, involved with all operations personally; that is another lie. He hires unqualified, unskilled workers to do his work. He is hands on for the signing of the contract and the exchange of money, only.

After our pool was complete, he asked us to do a yelp review on him. We were not pleased with his service, so we did not. We thought, at the time, that no review was better than a bad review. We have definitely had a change of thought after working with him regarding our concerns at the present time.

Our major complainants now are dealing with his customer service and warranties, though we were completely dissatisfied with his service from the beginning. We let it go. We just were not going to ever recommend him to our friends, neighbors and family. However, with our recent dealings, we find it necessary to let as many people as possible know about our experience with Tom Bessette and Optima Pools, LLC. It took him 10 months to address our concerns then to tell us nothing was covered in our warranties. Again, he was unprofessional, unreliable, rude and disrespectful. He has a million and one excuses on why he could not come to our house in a timely manner.

Learn from our mistakes, please do your research before using a company for a major repair. If you google Optima Polls, LLC, his last post on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram was in 2017 and his websites can no longer be reached. He has 1-star ratings and complaints on revdex, google reviews and yelp. Tom and his business might have been good 50 years ago, as stated that is when he started his business, but that is no longer the case. We did our research a little too late. Don’t make the same mistake we did.

To sum up our working with Thomas Bessette and Optima Pools, LLC, in our dealings with Tom, he is dishonest, unreliable, uses poor quality materials and hires unqualified employees that do poor quality work. We would never, ever recommend him to do any work on your pool.

Thank you for reading this review.

To sum up our working with Thomas Bessette and Optima Pools, LLC, in our dealings with Tom, he is dishonest, unreliable, uses poor quality materials and hires unqualified employees that do poor quality work. We would never, ever recommend him to do any work on your pool.

Thank you for reading this review.