Local dive shop in Venice CA, refuses to fill tanks

[Seabear70]

Sport Chalet is $4.50 if you by the air card of 10 fills for $45.00. Just 3 years ago when I first dared to cross the to the other side and started sniffing compressed air it was $25.00 for a card of 10 fills. My habit just gets more expensive and like all habits, a single fix no longer last me as long so now I am using more an getting a fix 2 or even 3 times a week. Currently my habit is running about $50.00 a month.

Ok, you may want to look into a compressor if you are diving that much.

Personally, I fill up at the fire station for free.

 

[drbill]

Gee whiz, I don't even want to think about how much my diving is costing (> 55 dives last month). All I know is I have to keep filling up my checking account with money from maturing CD's. Hmmm... buy my own compressor? Not sure I'd trust my fills!

Doc

 

[dazedone]

Just to be clear. I am talking about a totally separate incident that is not even in CA. I merely offered it as an example of similar treatment to that of the original poster.

James

Ah. Glad you cleared that up.

 

[RichLockyer]

And Malibu Divers is in the lead by "2" for training!

Carter is a great guy and did a super job measuring me for my new TLS350 Cave Cut. Fair price too.
http://www.linkline.com/personal/rlockyer/newTLS350.jpg

 

[PhotoTJ]

From Venice, I would go to Malibu Divers for training. Not quite in town, but not far away and they have among the most knowledgable instructors I have met.

Carter and the staff at Malibu are a class act. Knows his stuff, but if he doesn't know something, he won't try to BS you.

 

[RichLockyer]

There is also one a block from my HB office. I got no problem with SC. None.

How's HB been treating you in recent months? My buddy hasn't been able to get his HP120 filled to over 3200, and they will no longer Viz "while-u-wait"... it's an overnight stay.
This has all happened since the dive shop changed managers.
Used to get the 120 pumped to 3600 and a Viz took 10 minutes.

Another rant with these guys... last year, he took his kids in for SASY. No problem, kids had a great time.
This year, he got there and was informed that he had missed the orientation at 2pm and his kids could not participate.
The hours for both SASY and Bubblemaker were posted as being 2-4pm. Nothing indicated that there was a mandatory "orientation" at 2pm.

The store manager had no clue that people were being turned away.

He hasn't been back since then. I haven't used them for air since I quit using air

 

[kidspot]

not meaning to intrude in the SoCal forum, but I had similar troubles with a LDS here locally on Maui. Had a shop owner give me a long lecture about the evils of internet shopping, and basically refuse to sell to me - so I happily took my business elsewhere (along with about 6 other friends who are about to start diving)

 

[headhunter]

Ok, you may want to look into a compressor if you are diving that much.

Personally, I fill up at the fire station for free.

So thinking out loud...

It would take 5 years at $50 per month to pay for a $3000 compressor. That's just air of course and no maintenance costs.

If you had 5 people that lived near each other and dove about same amount, your payback would be one year if you all split the costs.

Something portable in a truck and you'd could split the costs with everyone on each large group dive at maybe $3 per tank. As long as it was just offsetting costs with your "friends", you could probably claim that it was not a business.

Just some rough round figures, but it does make you think.

Christian

 

[Quarrior]

Not kidding at all. I had gone on a Cozumel trip with this store, taken rescue and cavern there and sent them 2 new OW students just a short time before. I emailed them because I wanted to take the DAN DEMP course and they told me I would not be allowed to take it. Called and asked why and the owner told me it was because of the class I'm taking with the other shop and since he's had "some problems" with the other shop I would not be allowed on the premises...

The owner is a nutjob, plain and simple.

James

I suspect I know who that "other shop" is. Probably the same one that took 3 weeks to overhaul my reg that I bought used and then showed up to teach my Nitrox at Rolla but "forgot" my BC that he had not finished the overhaul on since it was used too.

I've been in most of the shops in the St Louis area and only had one treat me like dirt. Guess which one? Not the one that told you not to come in anymore.

Point I'm making, everyone has their problems with various shops and shop owners. Really not nice to slam a shop by name, especially when the owner of the shop you support has been witnessed by me to be the only LDS owner to openly slam another shop in front of not only customers, but students in a class.

 

[Deb In Venice]

Well Aerodog,

I would appreciate knowing the name of the shop that did you wrong. As you can see from my name, I live in Venice and am planning to take my certification classes in the next few weeks. 3 of the dive shops closest to me have been mentioned in this thread. One of them is the place I have chosen but if they are not treating current or potiential customers well, I would like to change my choice.

If you don't mind, please PM me, if you don't want to say the name of the shop on the board. You can save me from making a mistake with a big ole wad o' money.

Thanks!