On the flip side.. I've never met a bad contractor that couldn't provide at least a couple happy customers for contact...even if they're second cousins.

Lets, your point is extremely valid. If your prospective contractor gives you his BIL or cousin for a reference, how unbiased and true can it be? But even in the case the reference is flawless, what if the pool you see is the opposite of your taste?

If you have the sense to ask/verify the references, then you;ll have the sense to ask more questions if something seems off. "A leopard shows its true colors sooner or later".

All I'm saying is that don't make the mistake I made, which was not to turn every stone, so to speak. Once you get over the stigma that asking questions equals being nosey or being unnecessarily suspicious, your common sense will guide you towards the additional questions to ask.

A pool remodel or build is going to cost several thousands so spending time and a little money doing a thorough background ck is wise. Trust me, I have learned that hard way

I finally figured out how to correctly post a link. It is a very good, eye-opening article,.

Here is a link that might be useful: BBB article

This post was edited by bossyvossy on Sat, Aug 17, 13 at 10:39

Bossyvossy - sorry to hear of your issues.

It's a lot of money (remodel or building a new pool) and it's within your right to ask as many questions as you want, you should never feel bad for asking questions.

To echo something that you said - we walked away from a builder that had a stellar rep but we didn't get the impression they wanted to build OUR pool. They weren't listening and were pushing their ideas over ours. I'm sure the pool would have been well built but I don't think it would have been our dream pool.

Our builder reassured us because he happily provided a list of names and phone numbers of builds, so we got to speak to owners (all were happy - we only spoke to 3 as we thought that was sufficient) and we also know someone in our neighborhood who had a pool built by him a year ago.

I used the BBB to thin out the obviously bad companies and then searched forums and online reviews to narrow it down, then chased up references of the builder we were most interested in.

The other thing I thought it was worth doing was to ask upfront who the main subs were, especially the gunite/plastering company. A couple of PB's said they had a selection to choose from but wouldn't name them which made me suspicious and walk away from getting bids with those PBs as it sounded like the didn't necessarily use the same crews frequently. Of course, they may have just not wished to divulge that information but the PBs I actually got to quote had no issue whatsoever in telling me who their crews were.

I really hope your issues get resolved for you.

when doing 2nd round of PB selection, I also detected a hesitancy by a couple to divulge who the gunite sub was. Perhaps a builder posting in this forum will explain the secrecy. I do know some gunite people are getting into the entire scope of pool building work, but to me it doesn't explain why the potential customer needs to be kept in the dark.

I agree with you that the honest PB will tell all. That will be the deal maker for us 2nd time around.

I will share more of my horrible experience as well as (I hope) my good experience with the new PB. I'm ready to stick my toes in a pool, even as the autumn leaves fall in, lol

Sorry to hear of your troubles....with your particular taste and research, Im shocked you went with them without a single reference. I can say from a builders viewpoint, I find the BBB completely biased the other way. A client of mine had a huge misunderstanding with the BBB and I now have a resolved complaint that the client tried to formally withdraw with the BBB after he realized the truth of what had happened. It's my one negative mark in the 19 years of reporting and accreditation with the BBB.

I automatically give out a preapproved reference list and routinely do "pool tours" for potential clients who want to see my work first hand. Most of my work comes from referrals, but for the home-show and internet leads, they can call a huge list of past clients happy to chat.

To answer your "secrecy" question about a gunite sub, builders can work many years sorting through the good and bad subs. When they develop their all-star team, they can be protective of this list, especially to someone who hasnt signed yet. Once under contract, you're going to see every sub on site and can easily get their names or ask for lien wavers from all of them, but getting the sub name(s) before you commit? I can understand the hesitancy, especially with the owner-builder market being as large as it is where I'm from. cheers!

don't understand your 1st paragraph. Are you saying customer tried to delete complaint against you and BBB would not help? If this is the case, wow! Not too helpful to anybody, consumer or biz.

It has been embarrassing for me to admit to myself and the world that I didn't go all the way w/ my research. We researched for months several aspects of our pool remodel, but by the time we had a finalist, we were so ready to get things going I became more interested in the project itself rather than a final vetting of our selected contractor. FATAL MISTAKE.

As elementary as this is, I doubt I am the only one or the last one who will be too anxious to get things going at the expense of doing a complete and absolute check. I do hope future pool owners will read this and remember it, especially when their head is spinning from all the decisions that are involved.

Anyway, I am impressed that you have a preapproved list of references and do a pool tour. I would have gone with you in a minute! Lol

Thanks for the explanation about secrecy. It makes perfect sense. I will talk to our new prospective builder about lien waivers.

thank you for your comments

bossy-

Yes, the client was extremely pleased with me the contractor, and even though I urged them not to they wanted to actually file a complaint with the interior finish sub contractor of mine. Well the BBB let them know that it would be handled that way but that they had to file the complaint against me as I was the contract holder.

When I got notice of this, it was too late and even at the client's request the BBB would not dismiss it. It's on my record for another 18months or so (I believe 36 mo total reporting period). The complaint was based on the knock off Pebble Sheen being too inconsistent in color. It was my first try with a knock off brand and I made that very clear to the client that the savings, while several hundred dollars, was not worth it. My father happens to be the founder of PebbleTec in the US so I thought our opinion would be substantial. They insisted, I had it installed. By the time the complaint was closed, I had redone the entire pool in real Pebble Sheen at no cost to the client. Does the BBB care? Not. At. All.

Funny side of this whole story is the BBB sent a sales girl into my office to try and get us to advertise on their site. 10minutes into the meeting I warned the girl that while this was not her fault, I was about to vent and give her a clear reason as to why I would not give them a dollar :)

Too bad you couldn't rectify but seems like you are well prepared to explain how it happened, Prospective customers will accept that. I'm becoming more and disillusioned with BBB. I think it is really true that all they care about is business membership fees. I would have loved to see the poor girl's face after you vented, lol.

thanks for your comments,