A Lubbock couple is warning others after they said a local pool company stole thousands of dollars from them.
It’s something that Janet and Jerry Oldham had talked about for years but could never justify purchasing.
“When the grand kids came along it kind of changed, they were taking swimming lessons, and Jan grew up with a pool so she wanted one,” said homeowner Jerry Oldham.
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That’s when they hired the owner of “Pool Time” Bruce Smith and agreed to pay him $31,600 for the pool.
That included a $5,000 dollar deposit, then another $10,800 at the time of the contract signing and three payments of $3,950 as Smith made progress.
The Oldhams said the first payment was made when Smith dug the hole for the pool.
“So we had a hole the ground so we made another payment. After that from then on it was, we’ll be out tomorrow, we’ll be out Monday, we’ll be out Monday for sure,” said Jerry Oldham.
“I ended up with almost 30 pages of text from him with excuses of why he wasn’t here,” explained Janet Oldham, Jerry’s wife.
Finally Janet said she found out the truth. “He came over and told me that he never even ordered any of the equipment that he had just taken the money,” Janet Oldham said.
Leaving the couple with not only had a hazardous hole in their back yard, but a $19,750 hole in their retirement.
“That’s not how we intended to spend our retirement,” said Janet Oldham.
It was in court that the Oldhams said Smith confessed again and worked out an agreement with the judge to pay back the money taken. A glimmer of hope, that is until the first payment was due.
“January 20th came first payment was do, no payment, no nothing anything,” said Janet Oldham.
To this day they have yet to receive money and that’s when they contacted Hansen’s Help. Then after doing some digging of our own we found out that the Oldhams weren’t alone
According to Lubbock County court records Smith’s been arrested twice for theft of money. We also found another two people have filed a lawsuit against Smith for similar pool problems.
We did speak with Mr. Smith but, he would not agree to a recorded phone interview. However, he did mention that the reason he hadn’t paid the Oldhams back was because of medical difficulties and payments.
After our initial investigation another “Pool Time” customer came forward saying they had the same experience and lost around 19-thousand dollars to Bruce Smith.
But, while talking to Smith he said he would hopefully start paying back the Oldhams next month.
It’s something we will be checking in with the Oldhams in a couple months to see if it is happening.
