Call Kurtis: BBQ Appliances II
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) -- "This guy must have no conscience, I mean, to do this to people" says Ralph and Dolores Anderson of Turlock.
They say direct-to-home-appliances forced them to pay with a check, $3,800 for their appliances.
But they only got half their order.
"We're left with this hole in the bar that we can't finish."
And it wasn't until we got involved Kimberley Teague of Sacramento also forced to pay by check, got her stainless steel drawers.
We're hearing of more problems with this online company which goes by a variety of names including ChooseHotTubsDirect.com.
Conrad Goeringer of Santa Cruz says when he got his hot tub it was defective, causing a flood!
"They use these cheap plastic Clamps which can't withstand the pressure and just pop off."
We know of unhappy customers as far away as New York.
The BBB has received hundreds of complaints against the company.
Ranging from repeated delays in delivery … damaged or missing parts...and calls and emails unanswered.
The owner, Steve Barbarich, told us in January it's been a tough year and he didn't wrong anyone intentionally.
After we got involved… he promised to refund the Andersons in installments
"He tends to respond to you folks but not to me."
He sent the first two payments, although was late on one... and still owes them $650.
The company's headquarters are in San Francisco.
When a producer stopped by we found it's an apartment building.
This is the company's response to the consumer:
Dear customer,
We have arranged the rest of your payments to fulfill your full refund with our company direct to home appliances llc. As you may already know, our plan is to pay back your refund back in payments. a payment is being mailed out next week, which you will receive first week of April. And we plan on being consistent thereafter in monthly payments based upon our available reserves. The payment plan in some cases may span more than a year, if your refund is large.
As 2010 really hit us hard with the worst recession in 60 years, we found ourselves with significant business losses. Our business losses made us unable to deliver your product. Bank of America withheld more than $160,000 from our accounts and then shortly thereafter our next bank Fremont bank/Trans First withheld more than $180,000. The banks still required us to deliver product, even though they withheld funds.
Now as you may already know, we have been struggling to overcome these events which led to huge losses in our small business. As we barely make it through the rubble, we have found ourselves still standing and pushing forward in good faith in 2011.
We never meant to not deliver to you, and we always had good intentions of delivering. But business circumstances made it impossible.
Please confirm that you have received this, and that also confirm that you are owed a refund and that is not sent to you by mistake.
We apologize deeply and are doing our best!!!! If you have any questions at all don't hesitate to call at any time. You can reach Jeff Meyers at customer service here at 888-611-8827 dial "2" , and if you want to speak to me personally, you can as well, and you schedule that directly through Jeff. I would be glad to do so.
Steven Barbarich
President
CEO
The Andersons don't plan on taking this to small claims and say they'll never pay by check for any online purchases again.
"Life's too short to lose sleep at this point."
As for Conrad although his hot tub arrived defective, at least he got it.
