MONROE, Mich. – A Metro Detroit family is battling a Monroe pool company after their pool project turned into a nightmare.
What's happening to the Federer family could happen to anyone who hires a contractor. Local 4's Help Me Hank investigated the problem to help protect others from suffering a similar fate.
The Federers didn't get the pool they were dreaming of when they signed a contract with Ray's Pools last fall.
"They've had water delivered three or four times and it's still leaking out," Jill Federer said.
They were left with a long list of unresolved issues, and the battle with the contracting company has lasted months.
"The return lines need to be hooked up," Federer said. "The leak needs to be stopped. The pool needs to be cleaned and filled. All of the pieces that are laying in the yard are slides and our ladder that need to be installed. They still owe me fencing and a trampoline-type pool cover."
"When they came back in the spring they were to finish it, and again, same kind of thing," Todd Federer said. "(They were) not prepared, not showing up."
When the contract was signed with Ray's Pools last fall, everything was moving forward. But when an employee with Ray's who helped close the deal left, the Federer project and several others allegedly fell apart.
"He wants me to talk to Jerry, who actually doesn't work for him anymore," Jill Federer said. "But he won't actually support Jerry in helping him fix the pool, so that's very frustrating."
Local 4 consumer expert Hank Winchester spoke with the employee, Jerry, on the phone. He confirmed he no longer works for Ray's, but the contract is with the company, not a particular employee.
"It doesn't matter whether a sales person, or the person who sold it to you, or another employee is still there, is on sick leave or has left," Local 4 legal expert Neil Rockind said. "Your contract is with the company. It leaves you in exactly the same place as you were when that person came to your house and you signed the contract."
The contract is key in any case involving the hiring of a company to complete a job.
"Contracts are designed to be a safety net if things don't go the way that you expect them to go," Rockind said. "So it's important that you have the protection you think you have, as opposed to the protection that you end up having, and there is sometimes a difference. Read the fine print."
Hank went to Ray's to learn why a former employee was left to manage jobs that aren't complete.
"Has anybody ever had an issue with this pool company before we had Jerry?" an employee asked Hank.
"But that's irrelevant," Hank said. "Whether this person is representing this company, the contracts are with you, and there are several families that are having problems.
"I know that," she said.
"So you or Ray or somebody has to make it right, because what's happening is not right," Hank said.
"We have made it right," she said.
"No you haven't," Hank said. "You have not made it right."
"Oh yes we have," she said. "You don't know what we've done."
"I know this family is not happy," Hank said.
Since Hank's visit to Ray's, others have sent emails with pictures of their problem pools, saying they're stuck like the Federers. They claim they're being pushed off to a former employee.
Ray's Pools maintains that the Federers requested changes, such as a larger patio, after the deal was signed.
"At some point, the customer is going to have to decide whether they need to go to court or not," Rockind said.
Before signing a contract, homeowners should take the time to read an entire contract and include a date on which everyone agrees the project should be completed.