Leisure Pro bait and switch still happening - warning.

[scubamarketing]

Seriously - I dont care it you were pre-law, a lawyer, or on the supreme court. Legal definition - please site a reference for this 'legal definition' that applies EVERYWHERE. Laws are different everywhere and you actually expect us to believe that there is a universally accepted LEGAL DEFINITION of bait and switch....... Seriously. Federal, State, and local laws all have their own specifics.


Also - I am in sales and have been my entire career - the UNIVERSALLY ACCEPTED working definition of bait and switch is varied and extremely wide in scope. Working definition and legal are two different things and since we are not in court - you can figure which one is more applicable. - advertising a product who generate interest knowing that you intend, or require to change it to something else. YES - often bait and switch involves a higher priced product, but another ideration is when the advertised product was never available in the first place. I am not talking about a situation where charges could be pressed, but one where a clear moral and ethical violation occurs that shows the character of an organization.

Its pretty simple.



I was prepared to let this die and I CANNOT believe that a rep of the company who was "pre law (who cares)" , and who runs a blog.......is actually taking the time to argue what bait and switch is.....


This is clear as day.


ALSO - it has happened for YEARS. It has been posted on this website and others, and I know I alerted LP - as have several others - and it continued to happed.


BTW - thank you for convincing me to be done with LP.


All you had to do is say " it was a screw up, I fixed it and we ar sorry'. Not debate semantics. If that is the culture of LP, then Scubatoys just landed another customer (when my LDS cant get something).

Good luck with your blog.


And as for the mobile browser price difference - that is a known, perfectly legal tactic taken by many organizations. Thought being that if you look it up from your phone, you might be on the verge of buying it in a store and the mobile browser drop bottom price is a last ditch effort to steal the sale.

VERY common.

I'm honestly very sorry I offended you by trying to clarify things. I never intended to explain I was a legal expert, I even made sure not to say my sister was a lawyer (she got her degree, but never took the bar). I was just sharing a definition that was given to me by people I consider to be far more knowledgeable about the legal side of bait and switch than I. I'm also the guy who will clarify when a wetsuit is actually 6.5mm instead of 7mm It honestly wasn't meant to argue, simply to inform. Again, I apologize.

 

[GrumpyOldGuy]

Good luck with Scuba Toy Manni-Yunk!

Seriously, 2 of my last 5 orders with them resulted in a phone call asking if they could sub another part of equal value. In both cases, it was "in stock" when I ordered and "out of stock" an hour later. They were nice and polite about it, called me and did their best to make me a happy camper. On another of my orders, they forget to pack an item. I called and they did ship it next day, again polite as can be.

Everyone is working with minimal inventory levels and scraping by resulting in some imperfect situations. Still, at a 30-50% discount over my LDS I can't complain too much about LP or ST.

 

[k ellis]

at a 30-50% discount over my LDS I can't complain too much about LP or ST.

AMEN!!!! What I paid for my bcd from leisurepro was a bargain. If I even mentioned what I paid for it at an LDS they would have threw me out of the store. I hate to say it but yes LDS need to make money but I got bills to pay and I do want to keep diving and I cant afford to do both buying from LDS. So leisurepro has made it worth while for me.

There are those who warn of the dreaded warranty void but to date I have really got to ask how likely (Though yes it is possible) that a pair of fins would break and need warranty? While all in the same sentence Leisurepro does back their product so all I have to do is send it back to them????

Yep I have to stay afloat just like an LDS so I go where the savings are.

 

[drbill]

Personally I appreciate Nick's participation here and his polite way of handling the comments. However, I still find it hard to believe that an item like the IQ-700 would be listed for so long as in stock without many complaints being received that it wasn't. In the E-Bay listing I commented "Is this item in stock?" and it was removed by the following day.

 

[ScubaSteve]

Heck... they are not different than other vendors. Even Amazon will say "Only 3 left in stock" to get you to order now"

I don't care if they tell me there is 1 or a million as long as they tell the truth and do not lie. Where I have the problem is saying something is in stock that is NOT. That is what we are discussing here IMO.

If I owned a online parts place, I'd prob take orders for out of stock items.

Absolutely I would. The difference would be that I would post accurate information. "Out of Stock - Usually ships in X days". I would not tell the world that I have every item in stock to get their orders to ship whatever I wanted whenever I wanted.

Go look at what Scuba.com does.... they don't stock most of their inventory but just do weekly manufacturer orders based on weekly orders.

This is a great system as long as they are not showing false information to the customer. You are missing the point that it is the posted and public lies that I have an issue with.

 

[mike_s]

Personally I appreciate Nick's participation here and his polite way of handling the comments. However, I still find it hard to believe that an item like the IQ-700 would be listed for so long as in stock without many complaints being received that it wasn't. .

It was listed that long because it was "creative advertising" and it worked. They generated a lot of sales and got a lot of happy customers. so therefore not many complaints.


I personally think the "whining" in this thread is what caused this good deal to be removed. oh well.

I don't care if they tell me there is 1 or a million as long as they tell the truth and do not lie. Where I have the problem is saying something is in stock that is NOT. That is what we are discussing here IMO.

Absolutely I would. The difference would be that I would post accurate information. "Out of Stock - Usually ships in X days". I would not tell the world that I have every item in stock to get their orders to ship whatever I wanted whenever I wanted.

This is a great system as long as they are not showing false information to the customer. You are missing the point that it is the posted and public lies that I have an issue with.

Business have a tendency to "bend the truth" in advertising all the time.


We have a car Dealership that sells Honda's. right next to it is a dealership owned by the same person that sells Acura's. They are both from the same "family" of car manufactueres.

The Acura Dealership does an oil change for $49.99 FLAT FEE for synthetic oil change. The includes all oil/filter, taxes, fees, BS fee's like "shop supplies",etc. all one line item. They also rotate your tires and wash your car for this. Not a terrible deal for what all you get.


The Honda Dealership will do an oil change for something like $25 bucks. Same oil, same exact filter.
However, they charge you a $4 "shop fee", an $3.50 "environmental disposal fee", a $4 work order fee and then charge you taxes etc... Ends up in the long run being about the same price. however, they advertise theirs as cheaper trying to get people in there. But they have lots of "Hidden charges" that you never know about until you're presented with the bill. To me this is WRONG. It's deceptive advertising to have a big sign out front that says "we'll change your oil" then charge you twice as much.

 

[ScubaSteve]

Business have a tendency to "bend the truth" in advertising all the time.

Yup.....Nick asked what we felt should be done about the problem.....I answered honestly.

I said in (I think) my first post in this thread, I like LP and will definitely buy from them again. It is not them I have an issue with. It is certain business practices and that applies to my work, my in store purchases and online purchases for ANYTHING.

 

[k ellis]

The Honda Dealership will do an oil change for something like $25 bucks. Same oil, same exact filter.
However, they charge you a $4 "shop fee", an $3.50 "environmental disposal fee", a $4 work order fee and then charge you taxes etc... Ends up in the long run being about the same price. however, they advertise theirs as cheaper trying to get people in there. But they have lots of "Hidden charges" that you never know about until you're presented with the bill. To me this is WRONG. It's deceptive advertising to have a big sign out front that says "we'll change your oil" then charge you twice as much.

Kind of sounds like airlines to me. We can get you from Point A to Point B for $99.99 so you buy your ticket then youll have $30.00 in taxes 25 dollars for the first bag and they convienently forget to tell you you can not bring in outside drinks (As others would argue who share stocks in airlines you should already know) but once you pass the sexual assault points you have to pay sometimes 5 times as much for water.

 

[scubamarketing]

Personally I appreciate Nick's participation here and his polite way of handling the comments. However, I still find it hard to believe that an item like the IQ-700 would be listed for so long as in stock without many complaints being received that it wasn't. In the E-Bay listing I commented "Is this item in stock?" and it was removed by the following day.

As others have pointed out already, my best guess as to why it hasn't been reported (I just checked ebay feedback going back quite a ways and didn't see any neutral or negative regarding this specific item) is that people thought "oooh, new shiny model for the same price, awesome!" At this point, since this is the first time I've brought this information to upper management, I have no reason not to believe it was a bug and that we do have 2 used ones in stock that showed up as new. The "bug" may be more of a human bug in the form of "creative sales methods" (I used to be a sales manager, I've seen and come up with quite a few), but when it's brought to managements attention, it seems to be "fixed".

I don't care if they tell me there is 1 or a million as long as they tell the truth and do not lie. Where I have the problem is saying something is in stock that is NOT. That is what we are discussing here IMO.

Absolutely I would. The difference would be that I would post accurate information. "Out of Stock - Usually ships in X days". I would not tell the world that I have every item in stock to get their orders to ship whatever I wanted whenever I wanted.

This is a great system as long as they are not showing false information to the customer. You are missing the point that it is the posted and public lies that I have an issue with.

You're definitely right on this one. Again, not being in the actual office, I'm not sure exactly what happened and who knew about it, but the general lack of complaints (not to diminish the number of people expressing their distaste here by any means) indicates to me that most people found the "upgrade" (which I understand to people who really know this computer model isn't) to be a great deal. And now they don't get it anymore

For anyone already participating on this thread and for anyone who reads this via a search later, please use me as a resource. In some cases, I'll have to redirect you to someone in the office ("how much would this package cost?"), but ESPECIALLY if you have any issues, I have direct access to THE BOSS to get problems fixed.

 

[Rhone Man]

Companies like LP are a total life saver if (like me) you live in a part of the world where there is very little available by way of over the counter purchasing for dive gear. I used to have it on my sig line, but I'll say it again for the record: in my opinion Leisurepro have done more to encourage recreational diving than PADI ever has!

From time to time things do go wonky -- as they will do with any online retailer that stocks huge numbers of items. But I have always found that if you pick up the telephone you can usually work out what has gone wrong pretty quickly with one of the guys up there.