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Kayak Pools - Sales Practices

Kayak Pools • Installation • Liners • "One Free Move" • Sales Practices --- • Kayak Responds

Kathy of Snellville, GA:
I called to have someone from this company come out and survey are yard for a pool. He also gaves us his sales pitch. Before he left my husband and I had signed a contract to have a pool built.

We then called the salesman the next day and cancelled the order by leaving him a voice mail. Apparently, in the contract you must cancel by letter within three days. Ashamed as we are - we did not read the contract until it was too late. Are we bound to this contract?

I have sent in a cancellation note but it is postmarked after the three days. We have offered them $300 to opt out of the contract because they have not done anything. They will not budge; they say we will have to go through litigation all at our cost. Is there anything we can do? Do we have any rights or did we sign them all away?

We are now stuck with this company and must purchase their pool. We will have to take a loan against our home to pay them.

Contracts are real. They mean business and no one should sign one until they're read it and understood it.

Frank of Oxford CT (6/24/01):
Contacted Kayak and they sent a salesman. Signed contract and was asked for a $1,374 deposit. The salesman informed us the contract was cancelleable and the deposit refundable until the day the pool was installed. We applied for financing and was told we were approved. We kept inquiring as to the installation date, and asked for a breakdown of what we were getting with the pool since the contract wasn't specific. We also decided against the $2000 decking and asked them to take that off. They told us they did, but the price was still $21,500.

After a week or two of this runaround, we called them to tell them that if we did not get answers and a copy of the pool's specifics we would cancel. Dante (at Kayak) laughed and told us you own that pool you will never get your deposit back and then hung up. I called him back and only encountered his wrath. He continually screamed at us, used more profanity than I think I ever heard in my life. He hung up again. We tried to speak with him reasonably but to no avail. He would scream, swear and hang up on us.

We hired an attorney; she and both of her paralegals have tried speaking with Doug S, the owner of that franchise. Dante will not allow them to speak with him. The attorney claims "(he) swears at us, screams at us, and then slams the phone down". The Attorney tried to reach Kayak Corportate HQ in NY, and was told they needed to deal with Doug S at Kayak Pools New England. If we cannot even get help on something like this from Kayak Pools Inc. Corporate, how in gods name would one ever get anything resolved if something went wrong with the pool. As far as the recission of the contract goes, they never informed us of it. We were told to ignore the small print about recission on the contract, because the deposit was refundable, and since the salesperson was not giving us a separate recission notice in 10point type, the contract meant nothing.

Anytime a salesman tells you to ignore the "fine print," you are dealing with a dishonest individual. Contracts mean what they say. Don't sign one without having read every line.

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