A LaSalle, Ont. pool company is closing for good and customers are left wondering if they will ever get their pools or their money back.
Two families paid thousands of dollars last year for installations from LA Pools, but the business shut down before the company fulfilled their orders.
Jennifer Pedro says she paid $4,200 last fall to have a pool put in this April.
"I want to cry every day, every time when I come out it's a reminder, every day, that I got ripped off," says Pedro. "Excuse after excuse, oh this and that and finally I asked him 'you know what, just show me proof that you ordered my pool' and that's when his story changed to I need to contact a different supplier."
Pedro took to social media with her frustration and found she wasn't alone.
"It's a little comforting knowing that I'm not the only fool. At the end of August [2019] he told me his installer broke his leg, and I was supposed to be first in April this year," says Lisa Steed, who paid $8,000 for a pool in May of 2019.
A year later, with no pool and no refund she went to the store to complain but it was empty.
Dan Boow owns LA Pools and says COVID-19 put him out of business, but admits he was already five months behind on his rent.
"I did get behind a little bit on my rent and now I find out everything's gone, apparently everything's been sold and my inventory is gone," says Boow.
The landlord Anna Czernyu tells CTV Windsor she was too lenient on Boow as a tenant and had enough in March, so she evicted him.
Owner of LA Pools Dan Boow in LaSalle, Ont., on Thursday, June 11, 2020. (Michelle Maluske / CTV Windsor)
Boow recognizes he owes Steed and Pedro their money or their pool, but neither will be easy to fulfill during the pandemic.
With no income and no business, Boow says he's going to have to try and get a bank loan.
"A lot of the pool [suppliers], they're only running at 40 per cent capacity, so everything's backed up," says Boow. "I feel bad for my customers, I really do, but I will take care of them; It's just going to take some time."
Steed hired a lawyer who has sent a letter to LA Pools asking for compensation, but the lawyer says her only legal avenue is small claims court and it could cost her more than the $8,000 she's owed.
"Sell your car, sell your house, sell your belongings; whatever you have to do to pay people back," added Steed.
— with files from CTV Windsor's Michelle Maluske.