SCOTTSDALE, AZ — The Arizona Attorney General's Office has opened a criminal investigation into Sun State Pools, a Scottsdale-based pool company, after multiple customers say the business took their money and never finished their projects.
The Arizona Registrar of Contractors is also conducting its own investigation. The ROC revoked Sun State Pools' license in June, after the agency says it received 85 complaints against the company.
Investigator Christel Bell sat down with Tom Cole, director of the Arizona Registrar of Contractors, to talk about the complaint process.
The first thing she asked, what is the message he would like to say to the customers impacted by Sun State Pools.
“First of all, we hear you. We understand that there are… might be some frustrations out there, and the ROC is here to answer your questions and to and to help,” Cole said.
Since April, the Let ABC15 Know team has heard from 8 different people dealing with issues and delays from the pool company. We also asked why it took 85 complaints before the ROC took action against Sun State.
Watch Christel's full interview with Tom Cole in the video player below:
"It's important to understand where the ROC sits as far as the service we provide to citizens of Arizona. We are not purely a consumer advocacy agency. We perform an important role in that we sit in the middle of that equation, so it's important for us to be advocates for consumers and to fully investigate complaints against licensed contractors and unlicensed entities in construction. But we're also here to make sure that our licensed contractors receive due process," Cole explained.
Director Cole said Sun State Pools was on the ROC's radar at the beginning of the year.
"In this instance, without getting into specifics, I can tell you they became on our radar early on in this calendar year, and once they got into… and again without getting into specifics, if you look at the curve on when the complaints came in, the bulk of the complaints have come in long after we took action," Cole said.
But Sun State Pools customer Edgar says he filed multiple complaints with the ROC against the business last December, and they were all closed without any action taken against Sun State.
RELATED: Sun State Pools fallout: Contractor and customers push Arizona ROC to improve investigation process
"If someone - I don't care if it's the ROC, state's attorneys, Better Business Bureau - would have said, ‘Hey, let me look into this a little bit more,’ These people would not have given their money to Sun State, you know, in May or April, and it would have saved them all this headaches, 10s of 1000s of dollars," Edgar said.
We asked Director Cole how Sun State Pools was able to keep operating and taking money from customers, and how many families could have been saved if complaints had been more closely examined.
"5% of our contractors get a complaint. Less than 1% of our licensed contractors get more than one complaint. The vast majority of licensed contractors in the state of Arizona are competent, and they are doing the job day in and day out that they're contracted to do. In the instance where a company starts to have problems, it's our job to size up the situation to make sure that both parties are heard, and that due process is followed, and that again the goal is to get to that customer satisfaction. There are times where companies get in over their head, and that tends to snowball," Cole said.
When we pressed Director Cole on whether the situation with Sun State went beyond a company simply getting overwhelmed, he pointed to the active investigation.
“I'm not going to be able to answer those questions because this is an active investigation. I will tell you that we we have cooperated with the attorney general's office and continue to do so," Cole said.
Cole added that, in hindsight, the timeline shows how the situation escalated.
"When you look at the timeline, you know 20-20 hindsight. Look at the timeline. It's pretty understandable how things snowball, and so that's really all I can say about that," Cole added.
The Let ABC15 Know team has reached out to Sun State Pools by phone and email multiple times, including before this report. The company has never responded to us.
Now customers will have to wait for the investigations to play out, and with many saying they feel justice may be coming too late, we asked whether improvements need to be made with the ROC to better protect consumers.
"I don't want to downplay the complaint process or the fact that there are bad actors out there in the construction industry, because like any other industry, there are folks out there who aren't very good at what they do, but that doesn't equate to the vast majority of contractors in the state of Arizona. I think we can always get better, but I. I think we've also got a very experienced team at the ROC who know what they're doing," Cole said.
When we told Director Cole that the families who suffered financially and emotionally feel they were failed by the ROC and want accountability, he pointed to both his agency's efforts and the need for stronger laws.
"We have empathy for anybody that feels like they were wronged by a licensed contractor, and we're working hard every day to enforce the law. If there's something in the law that needs to change, then again, we can be a subject matter expert in helping define the current law and offer recommendations for improvement on the law. But at the end of the day, lawmakers need to put bills forth that put teeth into the law where it may be lacking," Cole said.
If you are a customer of Sun State Pools you can still file a report with the Arizona Registrar of Contractors and the Arizona Attorney General’s
Office.
Do you have a consumer problem? Let ABC15 Know! Email Consumer@abc15.com.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
