Posted by Just another diver on October 26, 2001 at 16:05:22:
I have a little story to tell about the owner of Blue Escape in Mission Bay, San Diego. I mistakenly got one of my fins mixed with another diver on 9/22/01while diving off one of Blue Escape's boats. I contacted Blue Escape and they put me in touch with the diver who had my fin. After speaking with him, I shipped his fin back to him first thing that Monday morning. In return, he took my fin to Blue Escape where they offered to ship it to me, but at his expense (he gave them the money for the shipping).
After a couple weeks, I tried to contact Blue Escape to check on the status of my fin. I was told the owner was unavailable at the time, but that he would return my call, which he never did. After calling every day for an entire week, the people at Blue Escape finally fessed up and told me that the owner had forgotten about my fin, but they would ship it immediately. A few days later still no fin. The next time I called they claimed he had shipped it out on Wednesday.
After once again receiving nothing, I called first thing this Monday morning for a tracking number to find out the status of my fin. They gave me the run around again, telling me they needed to talk with the owner and they would call me back. When I called two days later, Wednesday, they told me it had shipped it out Tuesday. But, in order to make sure I would have my fin by the dive I had planned for the weekend, they said they would
call the shipping place and asked them to hold it so they could go down the next day and have them overnight it to me. They said I'd have it in two days. Two days later, still no fin, no return calls with a tracking number, just a bunch of blatant lies. Are you following this yet? I got so fed up that I called the guy who's fin I swapped with, just to let him know what had been going. And to let him know of the caliber of people that had promised him they'd ship out the fin, with his money.
He called me yesterday to tell me that he personally went down to Blue Escape and chewed everyone out. He asked if they had my fin and guess what? There it was. They NEVER even made an attempt to ship it. They were just holding his money, my fin, and telling more lies. They did however go to a lot of trouble to have everyone in the store (I've spoke w/a few different people in the past few weeks) lie repeatedly to me. He took matters into his on hand and personally shipped it overnight to me. I received my fin today. You have no idea how grateful I am to him.
The sad thing is that I had a wonderful experience with them up until I tried to get my gear back. I am aware that I'm ultimately responsible for my own gear, but what they did was just bad business. They obviously didn't give a damn about me or my business. There is a lot of trust you put into a dive company. To think, if you can't even be truthful about the shipping of a simple personal item, do you want these people taking you out on their
boats? I'll never dive Blue Escape again, nor will I ever recommend them to any fellow divers.
Blue Escape Dive & Charter
Email - Dive@blueescape.com
Website – www.blueescape.com