Six families claim a salesman is tricking Spanish-speaking
residents into signing English contracts that saddle them with
$5,000 bills for water treatment equipment they thought they were
getting for free. The salesman, however, said he did nothing
wrong.
BY Christopher Quirk and Emily Alpert
Gilroy – Six families claim a salesman is tricking Spanish-speaking residents into signing English contracts that saddle them with $5,000 bills for water treatment equipment they thought they were getting for free. The salesman, however, said he did nothing wrong.
The families claim Raul Granados of Investment on Financial Capital Inc. – a contractor based in Sun Valley near Los Angeles – told them they would get a free water softening system because they qualified for a special program as they were low-income families with children.
They were then surprised to get bills in the mail on the order of $5,000 plus 18-percent monthly interest.
Granados said he explained that only information and installation – but not equipment – were free, gave the families Spanish copies of the contract, and that he has never heard any complaints in the company’s many years of existence.
However, one couple – Agustin and Maria Sanchez of Mantelli Drive – submitted a complaint against the company to the Santa Clara County Office of the District Attorney’s consumer protection unit in January.
The complaint alleged that the company had billed them for a five-foot-tall silver water tank and connection pipes that Granados said was free.
The tank was sold to them after Granados made claims, using color-changing dyes, that their water was contaminated and dangerous for children, they said.
In addition, Granados only presented them with an English contract, which he called a “permission to install,” they said. He did not give them a copy, they added.
The protection unit replied by letter saying they closed the case because they could not mediate.
“If we say we can’t mediate, it’s not necessarily that we won’t,” said Santa Clara County Supervising Deputy District Attorney Ken Rosenblatt. “A mediation requires two willing parties.”
The protection unit, which has not received any other complaints about Granados or his company, rarely recommends individual complaints to its enforcement division, which makes the decision to file charges against a party, Rosenblatt said.
However, if a number of complainants come forward with similar stories, the unit – which receives thousands of complaints per year – could pursue a case, he said.
“The more people who have observed a particular practice, the better likelihood that we’ll be able to prove that’s a voluntary or willful practice,” he said. “One complaint by itself does not show as much as ten complaints.”
If the attorney’s office does not prosecute, the families could also sue in civil court.
There are at least five other parties in Gilroy with similar stories about Granados, including Graciela Rubio, a daycare worker at Los Arroyos’ GoKids.
“(Granados) convinced me that they were going to pay for it,” she said. “He said it was a program for low-income families. I asked, are you from the county? He said, ‘something like that.’ ”
Soon after installation in October 2006, Rubio received monthly bills for about $127 and a notice of a $5,000 charge, neither of which she expected. She has not paid anything to the company and her debt has shot up to nearly $7,000.
Contacted by phone, Granados denied that he ever said he was a government representative and said he explained a contract in Spanish to his Gilroy customers in full, then provided them with a copy.
The monthly bill is for soap and salts and the initial charge was for the tank, he said.
He told them the system could reduce their overall costs because they would use less water, but he never told them they would not have to pay the monthly charges, he said.
The company – which says they give customers three days to cancel their service and get the equipment uninstalled for free – agreed to take out Rubio’s system today at no charge after Rubio informed the company that there would be a story in the Dispatch.
Ed Sanchez of the Gilroy Citizenship Program, through which some of the involved families are pursuing their citizenship, will be monitoring the company’s work today to make certain the company does not damage her property or try to engage her in another contract, he said. Ed Sanchez has become the de facto advocate for the families and said he plans to take the complaints to California’s Contractors State License Board.
The board has not received any complaints against the company, a representative said.
Feeling confused and betrayed, the families support Sanchez’ effort. They want to stop Granados from peddling any more of the water softening systems, they said.
“He told us our skin would be smoother, we wouldn’t lose our hair, that it was a blessing of God,” Rubio said. “He said people who were using oxygen to breathe no longer needed it. He said it was priceless. I’m very annoyed with this company, and what they told me. We have to put a stop to this.”
