They paid $80k for a flash outdoor entertainment area. Four years, on they're still waiting
Friday, 12 June 2026
Fred and Sylvia Fuchs paid $80,000 in deposits to Apollo NZ for a louvered pergola to create an all-weather outdoor entertainment area.
The project was beset with delays, the managing director, Mark Kendrick, blaming the overseas suppliers.
At one point, he claimed the goods were in New Zealand, when they weren’t.
Four years on, the couple are demanding their money back, while Kendrick reckons he can still deliver.
Fred and Sylvia Fuchs of Lower Hutt paid an outdoor design business called Apollo NZ $80,000 in deposits for a louvered pergola complete with retractable roof and motorised side blinds. Four years on, they’ve got nothing to show for it, while the company’s managing director insists he can still deliver. Tony Wall reports.
In November last year Fred Fuchs of Lower Hutt called Mark Kendrick, managing director of an outdoor design business called Apollo NZ, wanting to know where his louvered pergola was.
It had been almost four years since he and his wife, Sylvia, had engaged Kendrick and Apollo to provide an aluminium pergola - complete with retractable roof, motorized side blinds, heating and lighting - for their new deck.
They’d paid deposits totalling just over $80,000, but there was still no sign of it.
Cambridge-based Kendrick kept blaming the delays on suppliers and shipping companies.
Now, he was saying there was confusion around exactly where in New Zealand the parts were, and which shipping company had brought them in.
Contact the reporter: tony.wall@stuffdigital.co.nz
“I’m trying to work out what’s going on because even I’m a bit confused around it,” Kendrick said on the call, which Fuchs recorded.
In another call a few days later, Kendrick said it was “all sorted, I know exactly where it is”.
The pergola parts were in Auckland, he said, everything that was needed was there, and it would all be sent to Fuchs in a couple of days.
“We will make sure that it’s in before Christmas, that’s a promise.”
Fuchs later discovered that at the time of the calls, the materials weren’t even in New Zealand.
A shipping consignment form he was later provided showed that the shipment didn’t leave China until late December last year.
(Kendrick told Stuff that when he told Fuchs his parts were in New Zealand he was mistaken, it was actually another customer’s order.)
The shipment finally arrived in January this year but the materials - minus the retractable roof, which Kendrick says is on its way from Turkey - are still being held in a warehouse in Auckland as Customs needs a commercial invoice and the supplier says about $9000 is still owed.
Kendrick told Stuff he was still committed to delivering the pergola and finishing the job.
Stuff has spoken to other customers who claim to have issues with Apollo NZ - some have set up a Facebook group - and Kendrick confirms he has two cases before the Disputes Tribunal.
Fuchs, who owns a business in Lower Hutt, said he and Sylvia wanted an all-weather louvre system on the deck they were building on the front of their house in Maungaraki and in late 2021, began looking online.
“Apollo NZ came up on Facebook, it was a pretty good page, I talked to [Kendrick] a little bit and decided to go with him.”
Apollo NZ is not a limited liability company - Kendrick operates as a sole trader.
Fuchs later quizzed him about why he hadn’t set up a company - Kendrick explained in a recorded call that, “I just haven't gone down that path, I haven't been to the size where I’ve had to worry about it … because it’s only me”.
When Fuchs pointed out that if “things go badly and I’m chasing you for the money” he would be personally liable, Kendrick laughed and said: “I understand, but I have no assets anyway.”
Kendrick supplied an initial quote for $93,000, and in January of 2022 the couple paid half - $46,550 - as a deposit.
He said he would have the pergola made in Turkey, but after delays and design issues suggested it would be easier and cheaper to have it made in China, which Fuchs agreed to.
The couple’s deck was completed in late 2023 and in mid 2024 they added side louvres and privacy screens to the pergola project, paying Apollo NZ another $31,000 in deposits plus several thousand for design fees.
They say Kendrick promised the pergola would be installed before Christmas that year, a deadline that came and went.
Throughout 2025 the couple were repeatedly told there were shipping delays and an installation planned for April that year did not proceed.
Kendrick advised he was looking for a new installer and had found one, but a promised August installation was also missed.
In their November phone call, Fuchs told Kendrick he had almost given up hope, and he should not have let things drag on for as long as they had.
“Prove me wrong, just prove me wrong, because I genuinely don’t believe we’re going to get it,” Fuchs said.
Kendrick replied: “You will, you will. Leave it with me, I’m working on it.”
He said it had been stressful for them both.
“It’s been a headache for me … I haven't slept much either, but we’ll get it all organised, get it in, and happy days for everybody.”
Kendrick said in a telephone interview with Stuff that he’d been in business for more than seven years and had completed many successful jobs.
“We’ve worked with McDonald’s and done louvre systems in Fiji, and everything.”
The Fuchs’ job was complex, “very specialised” and design changes had added to the challenges.
“It’s not an easy job, that’s for sure.”
He accepted it was a mistake to “split the job” and have the roof made in Turkey and the frame and blinds in China. (Fuchs says he did not realise that was happening, he thought it was all being made in China.)
“What I should have done … is not split it up, and done it another way,” Kendrick told Stuff. “That’s when the issues came around.”
Kendrick said the manufacturer in China had been “really good in the past”, but in “the last period of time” there had been issues.
“Just the slow manufacturing of things and saying it was going to be ready by a date and it wasn’t - it’s been really frustrating.”
He said Apollo NZ would stop using that supplier, pause delivering high end louvre systems and move into “sports flooring, like pickleball and things like that”.
Kendrick said he had paid the suppliers in Turkey and China, and believed he could still deliver what Fred and Sylvia Fuchs ordered.
He was “working through” whether he was in a position to repay their deposit.
“It’s all been measured, a lot of work has been put in, by everybody. The ideal situation is to get it in so they can enjoy it.”
But Fred Fuchs said he and Sylvia had had enough of what had been an 'incredibly stressful and exhausting experience” and demanded a full refund of their deposit. They were considering taking legal action.
“Other than our money back, we want no further association with him,” Fuchs said.
He said they were now dealing directly with the Chinese manufacturer to have a louvered pergola delivered, and had been advised that the parts being held in the warehouse in Auckland might not even fit their deck.
“We’re just going to have to buy it again. At this point in time we’re out of pocket just over 80k.”
They’d gone public, Fuchs said, “ to ensure that what has happened to us does not happen to someone else”.