This is a SWIM-LAST / Fred Cook  Consumer Alert

While building our Gulf Shores Alabama small vacation home, we were only cheated by one man:

In the Gulf Shores / Orange Beach area of Alabama there is a man named Fred Cook doing business as Swim Last.

He claims to put new surfaces on older swimming pools and in my case, he claimed to be a concrete acid stain contractor. After signing a contract for $1200 to do a concrete acid stain finish on a 600 sq. ft floor for me, he requested and got (in good faith) from me a $400 deposit. He claimed that he was driving to the south Florida area to the product manufacturing plant to get other products he needed on short notice and could save the shipping costs of my stain if I'd give him the deposit so he could bring back the stain from Superstone, Inc.

He then did not show up on the scheduled day to do my floors, and repeatedly dodged my phone calls, etc. He even hid in his house when I went there in person. Eventually I managed to get about $200 worth of stain product from him by going to his home at dawn on a Sunday morning with a big burley male friend.

I do not recommend that you do any business with Fred Cook. He lied to me repeatedly. I have no idea what his affliction is, but there seems to be a serious problem.

Our home is now finished, I quickly learned how to do my own concrete acid stained floors as it was necessary to get it done in the short window of time available during the construction process--it is fairly easy--if you live in the Gulf Shores area, do your own floors! What ever you do, I suggest you don't give Fred Cook or Swim Last a deposit on work that is not yet preformed. And think you should think long and hard about before doing ANY business with him at all.

Posted Jan 2003 Gulf Shores / Orange Beach Alabama