Complaint Review: Southwest Spas Ltd Mark Kiriy Paul England

We bought a Bahia spa from Southwest Spas NZ on March 27th 2006, it was delivered on aprox April 6th 2006. Southwest spa employees delivered it on the back of a hired trailer from a local garage, they pushed it off the side of the trailer onto our asphalt drive and then rolled it up our driveway (a good 20 metres) and down our back lawn.

The spa was badly damaged from delivery with scratches on the acrylic, wood cabinet damaged and the base of the spa had been pushed up causing a pipe to be broken and the wood base holding the motor was in pieces. THey told my partner to fix the plywood base for the motor and they sent out a technician to fix the broken pipe and said they would fix the other damage as well. We were not happy but thought they would put it right.

We bought the spa from Southwest spas as they had a promotion on at the time offering a free sauna with purchase worth $4,000, this was delivered 6 weeks later and turned out to be two halves of two different saunas and would not fit together. We had been in contact with Southwest Spas regularly trying to get our spa fixed and so I rang them again about our suana, Mark Kiriy at the Auckland office (manager) told me that we were the problem as we obviously didn,t know how to put it together I pointed out that my partner is a builder and certainly did know what he was doing and that our sauna sould not fit together.

After several phone calls they admitted that they had sent us two halves of two different saunas and that we would have to pay to ship it back to them I told them this was not acceptable and that under consumer law in NZ this was their responsibility as the sauna was to big for us to deliver back to them in our own vehicle.

Mark then told me that the sauna was free of charge and so was not their problem even if it didn;t work. We gave Southwest spas 5 working days to fix our spa and replace our sauna in writing as advised by citizens advise bureau.

On the last day before the 5 days were up Mark sent out a technician but he had none of the required parts to fix our spa which by this time was not able to be used as the ozone had broken down the heating unit was hanging unsupported and the stereo was also not working. Mark then accused me of not letting the technician fix the spa which is not true we would have loved our spa to be working again the technician did not have any ot the parts and could not fix it.

After the 5 days were up we demanded our money back but they refused. We continued to ring and write to them but to no avail, they finally sent two more technicians out and they took a look at it and said they would not touch it. They took the sides off and found that there were big holes in the insulation so it hadn't even been made properly.

We received legal advise form community law centre in Christchurch and we are about to go to court. On January 24th 2007 I received a phone call at 8.30 in the morning from a man saying he was coming to fix our spa the next day, he never turned up. I rang Mark and asked what was going on and he claimed to have no idea who it was. I suggested he sort this whole mess out and replace the spa and sauna and he said lets take a fresh look at it. I thought we might actually get him to do something.

Then he told me it was against company policy to replace spas even if they had been damaged by his staff on delivery. He blamed Paul England the director of Southwest spas based in Australia. I sent 2or 3 emails to Mr England he never replied. Then 3 weeks ago Mark told me that Paul England had said he could replace our spa, but had to get some photos first. I had already sent photos of the damage two weeks earlier and told him this was unnecessary as the photos I had taken was as good as I could get.

Mark sent out a technician on 17th March 2007 to take photos of the damage to our spa he could not take any better photos than I had taken and told Mark this. I rang Mark and he told me that Paul had now said that they would not relace our spa, I asked for pauls phone number and was told I was not allowed it.

I know from talking to the techinicans that we are not the only people in this predicament with this company. I want to stop them ripping anyone else off. Our spa cost $13,000 and we still do not have a spa that works of a sauna that fits together. We have been totally ripped off and they don't give a d**n in fact yesterday on the phone Mark laughed at me and hung up on me. We have had a baby in the time it has taken to try and sort this out and she is now 3 months old and still this is not fixed.

Nyki
Prebbleton,Christchurch
New Zealand