Complaints

The complaint text that is displayed might not represent all complaints filed with BBB. Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:07/01/2024

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  Southern pools took over a year to build our pool and outsourced all of their workers from different companies. Our pavers have been sinking since day 1. The company was told about the problem and had the company that installed them come back to correct the problem but it has continued to happen and now we are out of warranty. ************** is horrible to deal with and avoids the customer at all costs. I dont know what my options are at this point.

  Business Response

  Date: 07/03/2024

  The customer filing this complaint has not reached out to our company since November 2022 when a Service/Warranty form was submitted regarding a loose housing on her pool pump.  That issue was quickly resolved.  We were unaware of any concerns with the pool until this complaint was posted yesterday...
  
  
  If the desired outcome of this complaint is for the pool deck pavers to be reset, why hasn't the customer called us, emailed us or gone to our website and completed our online Service/Warranty form?  Instead, she has chosen to weaponize social media and the BBB platform.  Why?  Because she knows that her failure to proactively contact us has enabled her warranty to expire -- so she is trying to use a negative review as "leverage" to have us perform service work for free.  She tried this same approach a few years ago with a previous BBB complaint.  In our opinion, the Better Business Bureau should be a resource -- a last resort if you will -- for customers who have first reached out to the company, but are not getting a response or a resolution.
  
  
  Deck pavers, as we educate all of our customers, are prone to sinking depending on lot and soil conditions -- which the company does not control.
  
  
  The customer signed a contract for the pool in February 2021 and took 4 months to provide us with a deposit so that we could begin working on the pool.  This fact does not get mentioned in her reference to a one year build time.  We also built her pool during COVID, so there were delays with materials, etc. (as other industries experienced), but we are proud of our build time -- and more importantly the quality of the pool.
  
  
  Our company uses a blend of employees and subcontractors to complete our projects.  We've been building award-winning pools for 27 years with that model and we share that information with every customer.  Her reference to this fact in her complaint has no direct correlation to pool deck pavers.
  
  
  As far as personal attacks on our staff, we feel this is a form of online bullying and has no place on the Better Business Bureau platform.  Nor does her personal attack have any correlation to the alleged issue she references.  We as a society can and should do better than this.

  Customer Answer

  Date: 07/03/2024

   
  Complaint: 21929385
  
  I am rejecting this response because: there is no attempted resolution to the problem stated only excuses which have been typical from this business which is why I opted this route instead of contacting the business in the first place. The fact that I contacted the BBB in the past just goes to show that this business does not value customer service only when money is owed or a complaint is left. Please let me know how you would like to resolve this issue which is the reason I am contacting the BBB.
  
  Sincerely,
  
  *************************

  Business Response

  Date: 07/10/2024

  Our Service/Warranty team stands ready to assist all customers -- those both in and out of warranty.  If the customer will process a Service/Warranty claim via our website, which is standard procedure, we can actually get detailed information (pictures, videos, etc.) that will enable us to process a price quote and schedule an onsite visit.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:05/11/2022

  Type:Billing Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I was charged 140,000$ and promised luxury service for a pool installation. They consistently missed deadlines, they never communicated and hilt elements of the pool completely wrong. Their job site was messy and they ruined my furnitures and broke my fire table. I have requested items to be fixed and they just abandoned the job site unfinished.

  Business Response

  Date: 06/23/2022

  Business Response /* (1000, 8, 2022/05/26) */ Southern Pool Designs has completed the pool; provided Pool School to the customer and passed the final pool inspection. The project would have been completed several months earlier if the customer hadn't wasted two months by writing bad checks. Under Florida law, it is both a civil and criminal offense to issue a check that has insufficient funds (ie. "write a bad check"). While we didn't pursue criminal charges, we did lose at least 2 months of billable time due to the bounced checks. Here is a timeline of the customer's payment activity with us: 10/26/21 - Customer was billed for tile draw 11/17/21 - Customer wrote the check out wrong 11//22/21 - Corrected check was secured, but bank notified us of customer's NSF (Non-Sufficient Funds) 12/6/21 - Customer wrote a 2nd check to us 12/9/21 - Bank notified us again of customer's NSF (Non-Sufficient Funds) 12/14/21 - Customer emailed us stating they had now initiated a wire transfer for the funds owed 12/16/21 - Customer contacted us to tell us their wire was "returned" and did not go through 12/21/21 - Customer's 2nd wire transfer finally processed The contract that the customer signed with us is a 2-way document. Both parties need to honor their contractual obligations -- which includes making timely payments. Unfortunately, even though we designed and built them a beautiful pool, they are refusing to make their final payment to us. The irony here is that the customer was never interested in the pool. A day after we completed the pool the customer put their house on the market.