Dream pools turned into nightmares for dozens of North Texas residents

Caprice Bor dreamed of a pool. She’s been stuck in a swamp since last summer.

“Very frustrating,” she said, looking at the unfinished pool, which collected rainwater and debris.

She is one of dozens of North Texas homeowners who paid MerLux Pools for projects she never completed.

“The pool is literally collapsing,” said Erica Payton in a video showing a huge hole in the yard. “Looks like a fucking dump.”

Anusha Raavi and Kedar Kunal say they paid MerLux $142,000 to build them a backyard oasis with a pool, waterfalls, fire pits and a summer kitchen. “Everything was fucking perfect,” Raavi said of the plans MerLux had made for them.

Then there was a knock on the door just before Thanksgiving dinner. Their fellow client, whom they had never met, warned them that the company was going bankrupt.

“Someone knocks on your door before Thanksgiving and tells you that you know that your pool company is going under. Do you want to believe it? No, I want to celebrate my Thanksgiving.”

By that Sunday, however, it was official. MerLux filed for bankruptcy.

Frustrated customers, many of whom had spent six figures on pooling plans, found each other on Facebook and started digging. One woman shared a video of herself confronting one of the owners, Jared Hall, in the weeks leading up to bankruptcy.

“I understand that you may be frustrated with deadlines, communication or whatever. After all, the contract is the law. It is subject to execution. We didn’t break it. If you don’t get what you want, I’m sorry. building!” Hall said.

In court records, MerLux says it owes money to at least 35 clients, for a total debt of more than $2 million.
This does not include the Bora family. “They tell us they finished our pool,” she said. “It’s really hard to accept – they think they’re done.”

Court records show that the MerLux may have had up to 62 pools.

“This company wanted to go big right away,” Kunal said.

In a recorded telephone meeting with a bankruptcy trustee, co-owner Ryan Setty-O’Connor acknowledged this.

“We were signing contracts faster than we could keep up and create pools,” he said.

Setty-O’Conner testified under oath that the main reason for the company’s failure was his partner. He claims that Hall stole money, spent it lavishly and deceived everyone, including himself.

“There was about $90,000 for personal expenses. Travel, shopping, vacations and the new Mercedes SUV he bought for himself,” said Setty O’Connor.

Hall, it turns out, was ill. His business partner testified that he died in January from an unspecified illness.

“Now I know that it was an illness that had been present for quite some time, and that I was never told or reported about,” he testified.

Some clients are not convinced that only Hall is to blame. Setty-O’Connor testified that he knew some of the rave reviews about the MerLux were fake. “There were reviews posted that weren’t true and weren’t written by real customers. That’s right,” he said.

Two clients told bankruptcy trustee Sean Brown they were forced to remove negative reviews.

Clients became so skeptical that they even wondered, in the absence of an obituary or public death certificate, whether Jared Hall was really dead.

Maybe two years later they’ll both be sipping margaritas on some beach,” Raavi suggested.

CBS News Texas was unable to independently confirm Hall’s death, but Brown said he was provided with a “scanned copy of the death certificate” that “appeared to be genuine”.

He warned that because the company had few assets left, it was unlikely that the company would ever pay off much of its debt, leaving customers to clean up their mess.