Originally Posted by
jimfish98
They have plans on screwing people over. First is show them something visually amazing and out of their budget, then build them what they can afford. Within their contractor articles, they note it as giving them a taste. The concept is to get them hooked on a smaller system so they come back and ask to have it made bigger later. Instead of selling them what they want at first, they get customers for two builds. Once they build the pond, step 2 for them screwing people over is with the service costs. Locally a woman was paying $250 per month for filter cleaning and chemicals, along with $500 a year for her annual clean out/up. Getting customers to shell out that much money is mind blowing. A local keeper took on that lady's service for $50 a month mainly for his drive and gas. That being said, step three is up selling your pond when it fails. The system doesn't perform, fish get sick, etc and you call for help. They tell you how you can bandaid it by getting rid of some fish etc or how they can upgrade your filters or build a bigger pond. It was not functional from the start and they know that.
For a bit of a side by side comparison, here is what they quoted me. For a 10 by 12 they wanted $14k-$16k with a skimmer and waterfall filter. I have since built my first pond that I did wrong and my rebuild. Combine those two builds, add in all of my over filtration, and I may have spent a third of their original bid. Aquascape sells an idea that looks great installed and turns into a nightmare.