Some of the things I have found stupid at my LDS (luckily I have a number of other shops I can use now):
-Only club members can rent any equipment. If you want to go along to any club events you have to join first. Who joins a club without checking it out??? (Other than OW students who get a free membership at first)
-On this note I invited a friend along to a night dive with the club. He wanted to check out the club before joining. I was told that he could not come unless he joined the club for liability reasons. Fair enough. I told them I would bring him along but not dive with the DM or instructor. Again I was told this would violate their insurance. I still to this day have no explanation for them as to why it violates their insurance when I show up at a public dive site with a non-club member buddy and dive seperately from their group... I have dived with many other clubs and no one has insisted I join for legal reasons.
-I didn't like their brand of drysuit so I bought one at another store. The LDS owner heard about this and assumed I paid the same price as my buddy (my buddy got the better version $700 more). This LDS owner emailed me to say the other store had ripped me off and he could have done it $500 cheaper for me. This still worked out to be $200 more than what I paid for it
-The owner would make fun of anyone who bought online products and told me once that he owes no loyalty to anyone who doesn't show him loyalty. I remember a monthly newsletter where there was a big article about the perils of online shopping.
-This whole saga where they tried to charge me at least $95 for a five minute check on my regs.
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/basic-scuba-discussions/243044-flooded-first-stage-sigh.html. Later on he did the same thing to someone I know and even after it was checked by another dive shop, he convinced this person to do a full service. I have done over 150 dives at least on my regs since then, with no troubles. They are just about to get their first service actually. When I made a complaint to the store about this they contacted a buddy and told him they offered me a refund if there ended up being nothing wrong with my regs. The owner has also told a number of other people that I was unreasonable as they offered me a refund of my $95... They never did this and even if they had, why would they ask me to pay $95, check the regs, then refund it if my regs are ok? It makes no sense. You would expect them to check the regs, then charge me if something is wrong. I had been a loyal customer prior and if they were worried about securing payment, they could have easily held my regs there until I paid.
I actually was told by an employee of the store a while later that the $95 was to pay for a high pressure seat replacement as it was "Australian Standards" to have this replaced if the first stage was opened in any way. I went and obtained copies of the Australian standards and there is no standard for HP seat replacement.
-Their prices are double what I can get products for online. For example Aladin Tec2g $975 there, I got it for $500 at another Australian store (with the warranty). I have many more examples of this. It is not so bad if they charge a high price (I know many LDSs are constrained by minimum RRP - although this is illegal in Australia manufacturers get away with it) but they would bag out people who went online or to other stores for cheaper deals...
-When I originally started diving I asked about getting a BP/W. I was told by an employee of the store that BP/Ws are only for technical divers and they pushed me towards a BI BC. It sits in the cupboard now, whilst I do non-technical dives with my BP/W... When I expressed an interest in getting a BP/W later on (after being loaned one by a friend for a dive) they were VERY keen then to sell me one. There are other examples with their equipment advice too...
-I bought a second hand Smartcom through them. I was told that I would get free batteries for life as long as I took it into an authorised dealer (I confirmed this on a number of occasions with the store). Well I had left the club by the time it ran out of batteries and took it to another place. I was told by the other shop that as I am not the original owner it would be a few hundred for a a battery change. I rung Scubapro and they confirmed this. Luckily I was able to find out the original owner and I got it changed for free in the end. But still, this could have cost me a few hundred.
-On two occassions I was told by one of the staff there that another store had bad air. I went to the other store and asked to check their air quality reports before I got fills from there again. The store never had air quality problems according to their reports and I have never heard from anyone else that this shop had air quality problems.
Anyway, I just cannot believe that a business would think they could pull such things and retain my business.
I gave them the benefit of the doubt a number of times and stuck around a bit longer than I should have as I found the other divers in the club great, but as soon as I managed to get a full refund for the trip I booked with them, I was out of there...