Beware of The Pool Man - He's armed

As many of you know we are building a pool. Everything was going according to plan until about 2 months ago (November 10th 2006 to be exact). That happens to be the date that I wrote a check for about $13,000 - one payment before the final payment. Since that date - everything changed. The pool guy stopped returning our phone calls; he promised that his workers would be at our house to work and no one showed up. It was getting pretty ridiculous.

Finally, I stepped in a made a few phone calls. FINALLY, Kevin Murphy of Murphy's Pools called back. I guess Kevin didn't appreciate my phone calls because Dave told Kevin that I would back off and stay out of it and that he could deal with Dave going forward. However, Kevin AGAIN stopped returning phone calls. Finally Dave had had enough. I was very concerned that he had run off with our money, so Dave did a reverse look-up to find out where Kevin lived to see if his house was for sale or something. He found the location (about 2 minutes from our house) and went over to pay Kevin a visit. Dave knocked on the door, and he could hear movement, but no one would come to the door. So, he knocked a little louder. Eventually, Kevin opened the door and pointed a gun (that's right I said a GUN!!) at David. He told him to back up and to go on the curb. (At this point had I been Dave I would have called the cops).

Dave remained calm and did as he was told, but stated that Kevin needed to come out and speak to him. Dave laid it out on the line and told Kevin that he felt that he was going to steal our money and run off with it and the like. Kevin said that he felt ashamed (sure he did that’s why he continued to make poor decisions like pulling a gun on his client). Kevin's only excuse is that he got behind in his business and used our money to finish the job of someone else that he had left hanging and was going to do the same to us. He planned on using the money that someone else was going to give him (on Thursday) to finish our pool. He said he WOULD finish, but it would take longer than expected (uh...yeah...ya think…the pool was supposed to have been completed the first week of December). Dave made it clear that if he did not fulfill the contract that we would have to access our options which most probably would include legal action. Kevin gave some kind of story that he could barely feed his family, and can't seem to get any loans. Not sure if any of this is true, but to be honest…not my problem. I fulfilled my end of the bargain…I paid him. All of the people who work with him (the contractors from other businesses) have stated that he has NEVER left a project unfinished.

At this point, we are going to wait and see if he finishes...if he doesn't...well then stay tuned....

P.S. Can you believe he pulled a GUN on Dave? What kind of businessman does that?