HOUSTON — Frustrated customers are calling KHOU 11 for help, saying a local company isn’t delivering what they promised -- custom dog kennels.
Jeannie Gentry was looking for something special for her four-legged friends and she thought she found the perfect kennel on Facebook.
“I was excited, he had his business name up there, he and a few guys that worked for him, it looked like a large shop,” said Gentry.
She ordered a kennel from Designs By Curlee and made two payments, totaling around $1,100. However, the kennel never came and she’s not the only one.
“I would love to get my kennel, but I would love to get my money back,” said Anita Batemon, who called KHOU 11 from Alabama.
We also heard from Eric Faulkner in Oklahoma.
"They told me 6-8 weeks for delivery,” said Faulkner.
Then, we got a call from Geri-Ann Walker in Louisiana, who started a Facebook page to commiserate with other customers.
“We are 69 members now of people who have had issues,” said Walker.
The company’s web page is down and their shop is closed. However, on Facebook, they still have an online presence at Cypress Creek Millworks and Design.
We were able to track down the owner. Mitchell Curlee talked to us for 30 minutes on the phone. He told KHOU 11 he had financial trouble, couldn’t pay his employees and as the orders kept coming in, he just couldn’t keep up.
“We started receiving an influx of complaints in 2023,” said Leah Napoliello, Vice President of the Better Business Bureau of Greater Houston.
She is tracking the complaints against Designs By Curlee and said there are things consumers can do to protect themselves if they are in a similar situation.
“It is important, if you are paying you should try to pay with a credit card, so you can at least go to your bank and dispute the charges that way,” said Napoliello.
Customers like Gentry went ahead and bought a kennel somewhere else. She’s still waiting on her refund.
“I hope that everyone gets their money back, there’s people that don’t have that money to just be gone, they don’t have that, I don’t have that,” she told us.
We asked Mitchell Curlee several times if he would sit down for an on-camera interview, but he declined. He did tell KHOU 11 that he still plans to issue refunds. It’s money some customers have been waiting on for more than a year.
There are several resources for consumers who aren’t getting what was promised from a business.
- Locally, call your Better Business Bureau (https://www.bbb.org/local-bbb/bbb-of-greater-houston-and-south-texas). They work to resolve customer complaints.
- At the state level, file a report with the Texas Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Office
- Nationally, you can notify the Federal Trade Commission. They don’t resolve complaints, but they do share them with law enforcement.