The following is the formal complaint that has been filed with the Better Business Bureau of Northwest North Carolina regarding my recent experiences with Power By Poole, owned by Olee Poole.
On or about May 30, a verbal agreement was entered into between myself and Olee Poole, owner of Power By Poole, for performance upgrades to a 1997 3500 Series Diesel Pickup Truck. The intent of this verbal agreement was for Power By Poole to perform agreed upon, detailed, and specific performance upgrades to the above mentioned vehicle for a fixed price of $14,800. $7,500 of this agreed upon price was paid in advance, with the remainder due upon satisfactory completion of the agreed upon performance upgrades. The truck was delivered to Power By Poole on June 10 with an expected completion date of two business weeks from the date of delivery July 1.
Continuous contact was established between the two parties throughout the following two weeks, in which Power By Poole provided progress updates and re-affirmed the two-week estimated time of completion.in the course of those communications, I requested additional items to the previously agreed upon performance upgrades, which were verbally agreed to as adders to the fixed price. The total of these adders as quoted and agreed upon by Power By Poole total $2,146, rendering the revised fixed price to $16,946. Upon expiration of the two week time period, I was assured by Power By Poole that final tweaks and tuning were being performed on the truck, and all services would be completed within the week.in efforts to promote a satisfactory work product, I allowed the agreed upon time frame to slip. After a month of this same delay pattern, I made a personal visit to Power By Poole on July 22 to discover that work had just begun on the truck, and all previous correspondences with Power By Poole regarding the status of the work were false. Due to the sunk cost of $7,500, and the torn-down state of the truck, I allowed Power By Poole to continue with the performance upgrades per the verbal agreement. Power By Poole ensured a completion of date of July 25, which then extended to July 28, then July 30, then July 31, and then finally a completion date of August 1.
I arrived at Power By Poole on the morning of August 1 for pick up the truck, and payment of the remaining $9,446. After an additional wait for tweaking and tuning, invoices were provided to me in the total amount of $12,397.05. This total is $2,951.05 above the original agreed upon price of $14,800 plus the $2,146 for added scope. Upon my inquiry regarding the deltas between the invoiced amount and the agreed upon amount, Mr. Poole indicated that various parts had increased from his previous quotations, and that I was responsible for compensating him for additional time spent in implementing multiple strategies to achieve desired end results. Based on our verbal agreement, any changes to these amounts should have been communicated to me and agreed upon by me prior to proceeding with the work.in addition, the primary business purpose of Power By Poole is vehicle performance upgrade work, so any additional time spent on implementation of various strategies should be limited and should be absorbed by Power By Poole and used as a learning opportunity for the future, as opposed to a mechanism for over-charging customers.in the event that my own requests or errors required rework, I would more than willing to compensate Mr. Poole for his additional time, but in the case of his own errors, he should assume accountability as opposed to transferring those costs on to the customer. Upon my communication of these price and expectation deltas, Mr. Poole proceeded to the completed vehicle to begin removing parts that were leading to the increased price. Out of fear for sabotage of the truck, I stopped his actions and rendered payment in full.
I trailered the truck from Power By Poole to my own shop in McBee, SC. Upon unloading the truck from the trailer it was discovered that there were multiple quality issues including fuel leaks, oil leaks due to faulty welding, idle problems, and incomplete boost tuning. I attempted to contact Mr. Poole upon discovery of these quality issues, and was unsuccessful as of Monday morning. Due to my judgment that the agreed upon work was not completed to a satisfactory level, I issued a stop payment on the check to Power By Poole. I notified Mr. Poole that same day of this action, and indicated that this could be mitigated by him verifying in writing that he would correct the quality issues as completion of the verbal contract. Reluctantly, Mr. Poole agreed to the conditions, only to revoke that commitment after communication with legal counsel. The counter offer by Mr. Poole was for repair of the quality issues to be paid at an hourly, with the threat that a warrant would be served if payment in full was not provided prior to completion of this work. Out of these acts of duress, I wired payment in full to Mr. Poole.
Mr. Poole arrived at my shop to repair the above mentioned quality items, and completed his visit within 10 minutes from arrival. Mr. Poole indicated the diesel engine that he had just revamped had a blown head gasket after approximately 7 minutes of drive time by myself. He provided a quotation of $900 and two weeks at his shop for repair of this head gasket. Mr. Poole then requested payment of $220 to compensate him for the 5 hour drive that took me only 3 hours with a car trailer. I did not make the requested payment to Mr. Poole, and received an invoice via fax the next day for $220 with a note that my word isn't any good. I then contacted Mr. Poole to obtain the part number for the head gasket to make the repair myself, which he refused to provide. He said he would provide me with the part number upon payment in full for his travel time. I am currently working to make the repair myself, and hope that my dealings with Power By Poole are now complete.
Finally, Mr. Poole removed various parts from my truck including: a turbo charger, a lift pump, an air box, and a toolbox. When questioned on the whereabouts of these parts, Mr. Poole indicated that he had misplaced them. This was done without my consent, and without reimbursement.
In summary, my key complaints with Power by Poole are as follows:
Default on verbal agreement due to extended completion time 2 weeks agreed upon was exceeded by 4 weeks;
Intentional falsification of work status;
Default on verbal agreement price;
Duress actions taken to secure payment in full;
Poor quality of work;
Lack of contract completion;
Theft of various parts.
0 comments