What is the worst "pool store" info you have heard?

[matt4x4]

There was a woman in the local highend ritzy poolstore, I was in getting some feherguard clips for my reel, this woman had a shopping cart full of stuff, I asked her why she had all this stuff (I think it was hundreds of $ worth), she showed me her water sample printout and their recommendations.
I told her to put the stuff back, go to walmart and get the 3 B's as well, I pointed her to this forum, don't know if she ever signed up here, but she left without dropping a cent - and i don't feel bad about it!
I've stopped many from making that recommended purchase, converted about 20 people at work to the 3b's, and almost all my neighbours, so the moral is that together we can stop the poolstore madness!!!

[CarlD]

Anybody remember The Rockford Files?

There was an episode where a scam corp. is selling phony retirement homes in the desert and have a lake as part of the plan. Rockford finds an old scam artist acquaintance working as a salesman who says to him: "but Jim, I didn't invent pigeons!"

Later Rockford sends his father to be a buyer and he comes back and says "And there we were, in the middle of desert, nothing but sand and cactus, and this feller tried to sell me a boat!"

Don't be a pool store pigeon!

[sailork]

The clerk at my local pool store tested the water and said that my Ca hardness was worryingly high. His test showed 300 and it's a plaster pool so I'm not too worried about it. Then he sent me home with a Cal Hypo shock to clear up the CC. I had already dumped it in the pool when I realized that I was adding yet more calcium to the pool at the suggestion of the guy who had just told me I had too much calcium! I suppose that makes me a fools accomplice.

[PhantomAndy]

All pool stores are in the business to make money -

If you walk in the door with your pants around your ankles and your wallet out, you deserve to get taken to the cleaners.

If people would A) Do a little homework B) Quit being so lazy and looking for a chemical fix for their failure to just check their water balance daily then the pool stores would change their ways.

However that's not the world we live in. So those of us that do our homework, and take care to stay ahead of our water will always get a good laugh watching the person in front of us at the pool store stroke out at their total as they reach deep into their wallet to pay 'the man'.

Pool stores are the Car Dealership of the water lesiure world. . .

[waterbear]

My worst 'pool store info' (and YES, I DO work part time in one. some of us actually try to help people!) was when I took a water sample to be tested at a local store (not the one I work at, but it's closer to my house). I have a SWG and they tested my salt at 3400 ppm and my TDS at 4100 ppm and told me I had to drain and refill the pool because the TDS was way too high! I pointed out that part of what they were measuring was my salt and therefore my TDS was only 700 ppm! The young girl testing my water looked very confused by this and started to argue that those were different tests and had nothing to do with each other. I thanked her and bought the muriatic acid I originally came in for. IMHO, the biggest problem with pool stores is that many of the people working in them just don't really have any real knowledge of the chemistry of pool water and just buy into everything the manufacturers tell them in training and seminars. When I owned my first portable spa several years back (I was a complete newbie!) the dealer, who also sold all types of pool and spa chemicals and equipment, had me using bleach to chlorinate my spa and baking soda for alkalinity (unfortunately, he DID have me use sodium carbonate to raise ph and recommended test strips)!

[smokeygrl]

Today, I was in a Leslie's to see how much their 12% sodium hypo was. I told the guy I had to use an unstable sanitizer because my CYA was way too high. He said with complete confidence........ (true story) I have exactly what you need.....a minute later he came back with a bucket of dichlor and trichlor tablets. I smiled and said - I think that might be what caused the problem....but I'll take the wall whale over there.
My husband said tonight...What qualifications do these people need to have?
......I think they just need to know how to run the register.
BTW I LOVE my wall whale!!!
I know this might sound sick to some...but I spend a good part of the afternoon using Ben's trick to drive off CO2 to bring down the total alk. (180) I was actually enjoying myself. I'll let ya know if I was successful.

[smallpooldad]

Sort of.

My next door neigbours have a pool person.

Recently we had very heavy rains and a great deal of soil washed into their pool turning an already very severly iron stained pool dark brown.

The lady of the house asked me as (thanks to Mbar) my pool is now nice and stain free and sparkly to come over and make some suggestions. The reading for CYA was 95! (after very heavy continuous rains for 60 days) and the Cl 3. I informed her she needed to drain down the pool so that her CYA was within acceptable limits. I also said I would help get the stains out.

She told me her hubby said the pool person said their CYA was within acceptable limits and that constant filtering would solve their problem. This pool person uses one of those little home Taylor kits to measure the ppms, etc.

Three weeks later their pool looks like the "Brown" Hole of Calcutta and hubby is secretly peeking over the wall but as a retired pilot he cannot bring himself to ask for help.

The pool person told them after 12 years of being paid, "It is him or me."

The worst part is she swims with her dogs in this "acceptable pool" and heaven knows what bacteria is waiting to make them all sick.

The pool person also told them draining the pool will damage or make the pool walls fall off!

What should I do, they are both very nice people?

[CarlD]

You cannot help people who don't want to be helped (a lesson we have humbly learned as moderators here... ).

I'd build a 7' high board-on-board fence between your property and theirs....

[kevincad]

Thanks for such a great forum I can proudly report the water flows through the filter and has not blown the liner off the pool. Now if I can just find something to do with my bleach bottles.

jennifer

Glue the caps on, and throw them in the pool if you have kids. My two kids 7 and 11 like playing with the two gallon bottles better than most of their pool toys! Oh, and if you do a lot of handy person type work around the house, they make great funnels.

[PopcornGirl]

All pool stores are in the business to make money -

If you walk in the door with your pants around your ankles and your wallet out, you deserve to get taken to the cleaners.

If people would A) Do a little homework B) Quit being so lazy and looking for a chemical fix for their failure to just check their water balance daily then the pool stores would change their ways.

However that's not the world we live in. So those of us that do our homework, and take care to stay ahead of our water will always get a good laugh watching the person in front of us at the pool store stroke out at their total as they reach deep into their wallet to pay 'the man'.

Pool stores are the Car Dealership of the water lesiure world. . .

At risk of sounding argumentative, I have to disagree with this sentiment. I'm not saying that you don't make a good point, but it shouldn't have to be this way.
Call me a Pollyanna, but I think ANY time a business takes advantage of a person's ignorance or lack of knowlege, it is just plain WRONG.
We can't all be *experts* at everything.
Using your logic:
*It's perfectly acceptable for the auto mechanic to charge me for a bunch of repairs I don't need. After all, if I'd only bother to learn more about how my car works...
*There's nothing wrong with my doctor prescribing a bunch of pills I don't really need... Hey, the internet is there and I should be familiar enough with my body & my illness to know what is really necessary, right?

I totally *get* that this is the reality, but it shouldn't be. And I *DO* believe that pool owners should become educated about their own pools (as I recently did). But just because every pool owner hasn't come to that same realization just yet, does not morally or legally justify fraud.
And you never know... that "sucker" you just sold $200 dollars' worth of unnecessary chemicals to MIGHT just turn out to be the doctor holding your test results or the mechanic handing you his bill...
Just my .02