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Report: #1525518

Complaint Review: American Bath Group - Arlington Texas

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  • Reported By: Christian — New Orleans Louisiana United States
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  • American Bath Group 1521 North Cooper Suite 500 Arlington, Texas United States

American Bath Group Their subsidiary brands include ABG Hospitality, Aker, Aquarius, Altrek Products, Aquatic Bath, Bootz, Clarion Bath, Comfort Designs, Dreamline, Florestone, Hamilton Bathware, MAAX Bath, MAAX Spas, Salo Manufacturing, Swan Refused to support their defective product even when I offered to pay to have someone fix it. Arlington Texas

*Consumer Comment: An addendum to this … 

*Consumer Comment: PROTESTER SONG 143

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My experience with American Bath Group has been among the worst customer service nightmares I have ever endured.

I purchased my Daytona tub in 2014 by American Bath Group's Aquatic Bath subsidiary. I purchased it from Quality Bath, an online retailer. This was mistake number one since they were never any help either. I made the mistake of getting something with a two-year warranty. While still under warranty, I began having problems with the blower, and the warranty department sent out Bob's Plumbing, their then-warranty service people. Just a year or so later, I began having issues again, this time with the light and the motor. So, I called Bob's Plumbing because they were the official warranty people that had fixed it so it only made sense to call the people who may know how to work the tub. Bob's came out and, claimed they couldn't get the replacement motor. They didn't say why but I now know it is because they and Bob's Plumbing had a parting of ways. I did not know this at the time and Bob's Plumbing not only put in the wrong motor for the tub, but installed a button without asking me, rendering both the panel and the light useless other than for the air jets. So, after two years of battling it out off and on with Aquatic, someone there named Wendy Waggoner felt bad for me and sent me replacement parts. The tech she sent from Baton Rouge put it all in—and, of course, wired it wrong. I did not find this out until today when, upon opening up the panel on the side of the house to access the tub, I realized that while the heater, blower, and motor are each supposed to be in their own separate outlets, each with its own GFI, the tech they sent had wired it all incorrectly three years ago. At first, all that would happen is that the panel would start to go haywire less than a week after the tech installed the replacement parts that Wendy Waggoner sent. Then, there were times when the water jets would turn on while all I had running were the air jets, and no amount of pressing buttons would turn them off and I'd have to wait ten to twenty minutes to leave the tub lest the motor become damaged by the lower water level from my exiting the tub. One time, my husband had to cut a circuit breaker outside the house just so I could exit the tub after being trapped in it for two hours by the motor not turning off when I hadn't turned it on to begin with. Finally, the motor and blower stopped responding to the buttons at all, and the light would only occasionally work. I decided to subject myself to the crusade that is anything one deals with at American Bath Group though Wendy no longer seems to be there. I finally found someone named Shelee Banfield who was a district manager and seemed eager to help. I explained that I was out of warranty and that I just wanted to hire a tech to come but that the person in Baton Rouge no longer came out to New Orleans. When I told her that I was redoing a bathtub at our other home in Salem, Massachusetts, she suggested I buy an Aquatic Tub there, which nearly made me choke, but I told her we'd see how this all worked out. She kept putting me off for four months, telling me she was working on it. Finally, she said she'd discovered it was out of warranty and couldn't help me, but I had told her it was out of warranty from the beginning but was just interested in paying someone to come fix the tub! She then gave me a number that I've yet to get a call back from or even see that my texts have been "read." By this point, I'm just beyond irate that, even with newer equipment, this tub has been nothing but a lemon, and American Bath Group couldn't care less. I called them rather irate and demanding and now they won't even take my calls. I had gotten one of their equipment suppliers, CG-Air, to send me a replacement panel for $160 or so, but that didn't change anything. Today, I played electrician and opened the panel on the side of the house only to discover that the three units were not on their own separate electrical outlets so that is probably what caused the equipment to fail to begin with. After two hours of trying to fiddle with every wire there, I managed to hear a hum for a few moments but that was it. 

Rarely do I ever give up in trying to get a company to do right by their product. I can't imagine ever treating a customer like this. To later find out that Dreamline is one of their brands, whose tub door I have also had nothing but problems with since, no matter how much you tighten it, it constantly slips. Clearly, this company is bad news.


It would appear that MTI tubs have a ten-year warranty, which almost certainly also means that their parts are much more solid and supported so, at this point, I am having one of their bathtubs put in to replace the one from American Bath Group that has been nothing but a nightmare.

My lessons from this? Do not ever buy a bathtub online from somewhere like Quality Bath. Do not EVER purchase any sort of jetted tub with less than a ten-year warranty. And in the name of your very sanity, do not ever buy anything from any of American Bath Group's subsidiaries.

This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 04/02/2023 10:33 PM and is a permanent record located here: https://www.ripoffreport.com/report/american-bath-group/arlington-texas-subsidiary-1525518. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year. Ripoff Report has an exclusive license to this report. It may not be copied without the written permission of Ripoff Report. READ: Foreign websites steal our content

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#2 Consumer Comment

An addendum to this … 

AUTHOR: Christian - (United States)

POSTED: Tuesday, April 11, 2023

So, after seeing how upset I was after seven years of battling with this company, they send their service director to "help" me. He connects me with someone who he says will need me to access the tub so I take the entire panel off the side of my house only for the technical provider to disappear for two hours as it starts to rain at my house. The director could not understand why I was so so utterly upset after seven years of this and then being asked to play electrical tech in the rain. They finally admitted to me that they've gone through quite a few service providers in the New Orleans area. In that regard, I do emphasize as “service” is not really a thing you can obtain in this city, but then I would make the argument that, if they're unable to service the products in this area, whether they're in warranty or, like mine, have been giving my problems for seven years starting months before the warranty ran out, why sell to this area at all? Why have their regional director Shelee Banfield? What is the point of paying someone to direct a segment of your market that they can't even service without asking customers to play electrician? Finally, realizing how beyond upset I was, the director said they'd send a new tub, but I'd have to basically hire a contractor to rip apart my bathroom and install a new tub. How truly “gracious” of them. First off, why not just replace the parts? Oh yes, their warranty person, Wendy Waggoner, replaced all the parts two years ago and sent the "service" provider they had at the time to install it—incorrectly wiring the three items across two outlets rather than the three that were there—and required by their own schematics. This certainly led to those parts failing. But the point is, the tub is a shell. There's nothing electrical about it. Why would you EVER need to replace the entire thing as opposed to the parts? Of course, that was the other sob story I got—that the people who make the parts for their tubs keep going out of business. Jeesh, maybe they could take a page from Apple—you know, the most successful cash-on-hand company in the world?—and make their parts in-house?

If I'm going to rip apart my bathroom, I'm certainly not doing it to put in a new version of their tub, which their idiot of a director seemed to think was a great option after I said their tubs were crap—as though somehow they've improved since my model when all the parts running it are far newer than the tub shell itself. I'd rather purchase from someone who has a ten-year warranty, something no company does unless they truly stand by their product. 

I've got a mind to invest in hiring a private investigator—which is a perfectly legal thing to do—to find out what else is going on in the land of American Bath Group. I wonder exactly what I'd find.

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#1 Consumer Comment

PROTESTER SONG 143

AUTHOR: Karl - (United States)

POSTED: Tuesday, April 04, 2023

Was submitted again in the comments section at Ripoff Report #1512122 on April 4, 2023 at 10:15 AM EDT. Let’s hope that the ones who are “manipulating” my iPad will allow it to be posted later today.

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