Spa serve/trade price group review: Hot tub scam 1

Trade price group, 3 Bunhill Row, London EC1Y 8YZ tel: [protected] - Stuart Cox Sales manager - [protected]@thetradepricegroup.com

And

Spa Serve 117-118 Anglesey Court, Towers Business Park, Wheelhouse Road, Staffordshire WS15 1UN
Tel: [protected] [protected]@thetradepricegroup.com [protected]@spaserve.co.uk

Both companies are owned by Mr Stuart Cox, Mr Simon J Foster and Mrs Kate Foster

April 14 2009 Site visit with Leon - purchased Oklahoma hot tub paid £5770.00 by bank cheque. Informed a maximum of 12 to 20 weeks to installation, ideal as we had booked a holiday of a lifetime to Florida from the 15th July 2009 with our son. and planned a surprise 40th for my husband on the 5th August 2009.

Following numerous phone calls and emails with Michelle Graham, being told a bigger order had come in and we had been pushed back, I began to regret the order. I managed to ascertain a delivery date in September and we finally received our spa on the 21st October 2009 a full 28 weeks after ordering. We did not receive the full order missing parasol, winter cover, and cover lifter. The keypad was sealed by Lee and Tim to avoid water seepage as this was a common fault!

Within 4 days the spa was not running right, not maintaining heat, telephone calls to the engineer Rob, always ended with me rebooting the spa and him talking me through the fault.

Again I complained to Jonathon Husselbee the General manager and he was very prompt to offer a compensation package of £488.00, chemicals for three months and a Free 3 year extended warranty programme from the 26.11.09.

We eventually shut the spa down in December due to the weather and lack of usage as we did not trust the spa. We rebooted the spa on the 1st February on instructions from Spaserve to ensure warm water was passed through the pipes etc. It ran ok for a week then the heat light on the keypad continuously flashed even when rebooted, spoke with the office and Rob rang and talked me through yet again the issue was never resolved. I spoke to Rob on numerous occasions, loss of heat/overheating sometimes up to 46' burning the cover to the spa and eventually he suggested I shut the spa down as the light flashing meant that the heat was not being controlled and it was drawing electric continuously. I immediately did so on the 21st May 2010.

I had alarm bells in my head and rang the meter reading through to Scottish power who informed me that my usage was over £1000 in excess of £740 to normal usage, we monitored this from when the spa closed down and it has returned to normal usage, I enclose bills for your perusal. I am paying £221.00 a month to Scottish Power to clear this debt and they agreed that the usage was too high. On the 11th May I had had an electrical Minor works assessment done on the house and all other appliances and circuits were correct.

I eventually had Rob on site on the 7th June 2010 and he ascertained the key pad was faulty and needed replacing, he stated this could affect electricity input but was not prepared to put it in writing as he was scared he would lose his job. To date I have had one email asking me to photograph the key pad so they can check if they have it in stock received on the 29th June. I have telephoned to state that Rob knew what was required and have heard nothing since!

My ideal is to return the spa and claim a full refund and I believe they do not think I would contact a solicitor so a claim maybe enough to push them to offering this to get rid of me. The customer care and service is diabolical from this company and I want it out of my garden and monies returned, I have aged and my stress levels are intolerable because of this one thing. I do not regret asking my husband to treating me to this following our traumatic time I just wish I had gone to a different company with excellent customer care and service. It is a lot of money to shell out on one luxury but it would have been such a joy to use now I detest looking at it as it has caused no end of anger and stress within my household. I do not want to throw good money after bad but feel I need some legal assistance to end this matter.

Kind regards

Mrs Polly Macdonald