Father bought pool for special needs child, left with mess. Other customers also complaining

CHARLOTTE, NC (WBTV) - A local pool company is accused of leaving jobs unfinished, not paying subcontractors and completing substandard work. Customers called the WBTV Investigates hotline to raise concerns about Charlotte Fiberglass Pools and warn potential future customers about their problems.

Seth Kolby is one of the customers. The caring father of three contracted with Charlotte Fiberglass Pools to build a pool for his youngest son.

"He was essentially the child that never should have made it," Kolby said.

If you’ve contracted with Charlotte Fiberglass Pools call WBTV Investigates a call at 704-374-3511

Two year old Ivan has been diagnosed with epilepsy, cerebral palsy and stage four chronic kidney disease. The Kolby's heard about how aquatic therapy could help him so they decided to install a pool. Now he has nothing more than a shell in the ground.

"Everyday I walk out here i look at it and think what the heck happened?" Kolby said.

"To date I have approximately $38,000 invested in this pool."

On top of the numerous problems with the pool, like that it's unlevel and needs to be reset, Kolby says Charlotte Fiberglass Pools is not returning his calls.

Kolby isn't the only person who reached out to the WBTV Investigates team.

"They neglected to show up and complete work and I had to hound them nonstop," Kirt Barr said.

Kirt Barr got his pool completed but even though he paid up two of the subcontractors came looking for money.

"You don't expect to get a letter in the mail or basically served to you in your driveway that your property is going to be under lien for something you've already paid for," Barr said.

If you’ve contracted with Charlotte Fiberglass Pools call WBTV Investigates a call at 704-374-3511

Two companies threatened to file liens against him saying Charlotte Fiberglass Pools never paid them. One company dropped the lien but Barr had to pay off the other.

"I'm not the only one that's affected by this," Barr said.

"There's multiple other customers that are having the same issue."

WBTV went to the courthouse to dig deeper. We found that Charlotte Fiberglass has numerous other names like Bananafish, Modern Backyard and The Great Backyard Place and is owned by Niury Otiz.

As of December Bananfish owes more than $46,000 in taxes to the state. Numerous subcontractors and clients have sued them claiming the company hasn't held up it's end of the bargain.

That's how we found Brian Sisson, who's suing the company after paying more than $12,000 to have another company fix the pool Charlotte Fiberglass Pools left.

"I'm not overly optimistic," Sisson said.

WBTV tried calling Ortiz several times and even got in touch with a former employee of the company but she never called back. The company's attorney said they have no comment. Their store location in Matthews is abandoned but Barr doubts this is the end of it.

"They work under multiple names and I feel right now they're getting ready to close down and start under another name and obviously the clock starts again and they will do this again to multiple people," Barr said.

If you’ve contracted with Charlotte Fiberglass Pools call WBTV Investigates a call at 704-374-3511

Kolby is wondering how he was left in this situation.

"I just want the owner to know she took from my son," Kolby said.

“Good people just do not do that and you need to be held accountable.”

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