How did I know this would become a standard Tobin internet response? I have no desire to get into a he said/she said with him, and rebut the comments below which are not correct, beyond the following points:
- His comment that I authorized the repair via phone is a straight up lie - Tobin, post the recording of the call if you have it.
- I never mentioned any dive trip issues in my post, I did in direct email with them, but I was pretty upset when I received the box of parts on Wednesday and feel much better today after I received my HOG wing via expedited shipping.
- The only compensation I asked of DSS was to refund the $16.76 shipping fee since no one informed me that I was getting a box of worthless parts for it
- I also wanted to make sure others understood what "inspecting" a wing means when offered the service from DSS. I will certainly not be sending in my Torus 26/35/49 wings for "inspection" in the future and will consider them "retired" once they sustain any damage
- I am very glad that you will require "signed authorization" in the future before you disassemble a wing, it would have saved mine!
We don't record calls, you of course know this because the law requires notification during the call. Asking for something you know we don't have serves what purpose?
We do log calls. Our phone carrier does it automatically.
Boris,lets again examine the facts.
1) You had a wing that you were concerned about using, so concerned that you elected to return it to us shortly before a pending dive trip. This clearly indicates that you thought this wing required repair prior to further use. I agree.
You returned a wing to DSS that was unsuitable for diving. Ultimately you were returned a wing unsuitable for diving. Not sure how you were harmed in this transaction. I certainly hope you weren't planning on selling this wing to an unsuspecting new diver.
2) Any wing has to be disassembled to replace the shell and fully inspect the bladder. You were well aware that this style of wing requires factory disassembly to access the bladder and fully inspect all the components. You have acknowledged these *facts* How exactly did you expect DeepSeaSupply to fully inspect your wing without disassembling it? Please do be specific.
3) We promptly provided you all the information at each step of the process, and acted only after receiving your approval. Why else would we need to make multiple out going phone calls on the day we started your repair?
4) The box we return is far from worthless. It contained many usable parts. A functioning power inflator. A useable corrugated hose. A wing elbow. 2 complete sets of bladder fittings, i.e T nut, gasket and hex outer nut. A complete OPV. I haven't added up the retail price of these parts but's probably over $100. You claim to have "$2300" worth of DSS gear. All of these parts are worthwhile spares for other wings and specifically DSS wings. We don't throw out customers goods without specific instructions to do so. One can only imagine how you would have reacted if we had done so.
We see very few returns, and most are easily handled by my staff. We have long taken pride in having the fastest turnaround time in the industry. We work hard at it. Your wing sat for *gasp* 2 days before we inspected it. It's winter, it's the holiday season and our repair tech was out sick for a couple days. It's easy to find multiple stories of goods returned to various dive manufacturers and the diver being without them for weeks or months. You won't find such stories with DSS. To reduce the turn around time we have relied on phone approval for repairs. Most divers are reasonable, and can be trusted. Boris you have now brought that policy to an end. It will no doubt create needless delays and added expense. Apparently we have been foolhardy in trusting, at least some people at their word. I'm thinking we will call it the "Boris repair authorization form"
I personally get involved in very very few returns. I had to in this case after my operations manager came to me saying we had a customer who was now lying about what they had authorized. Sad, but apparently it's the world we live in.
Tobin
---------- Post added December 18th, 2015 at 12:04 PM ----------
Excellent!
At least something good will come out of this.
Ya adding delays and complexity and expense to the repair process is always a good thing, right? There is just so much value added here. Sadly because of a dishonest customer all will suffer.
And, it will not be hearsay on what was said on a phone since I clearly recall never authorizing the disassembly for the repair cost estimate, just as your operation manager clearly seems to recall that I did.
Nonsense. One more time. We provided an cost for replacing the shell, $100 + return shipping.
You approved this, and provided your PayPal address, boris@xxxxxx.com If you approved no repair why did you provide your payment details?
We started the repair
*based on your approval* Obviously replacing a shell requires disassembly of the wing. There is no other way to replace a shell.
Once the wing was disassembled,
as required to do the repair you authorized it was discovered that the bladder showed signs of impact damage. A bladder cost $50. Shipping the wing back and forth costs about $35 plus the effort to do so.
As a courtesy we again contacted you to see if you wanted to replace the bladder now vs sometime in the future. The net cost would have been about $15 and would require no additional effort on your part. I consider this excellent customer service, trying to save you time and money and future inconvenience.
This is when you blew up and demanded we return your wing, and informed us that you had purchased another wing from another vendor.
We stopped all work on your wing, and as requested returned your wing after you used Paypal to transmit the cost of the shipping.
I also love how you state I am "claiming" I have $2300 of DSS gear, cannot you easily verify that with your sales system? I came up with that number by just searching for emails received from
websales@deepseasupply.com.
Did you not make this claim? Have you not posted here that you have other DSS wings for which the spares returned could be used?
Sure I could research your sales history, but what's the point? I never base my decisions on the $$ volume what somebody has or has not purchased. I base my decisions on the merits (or lack of merit) of the individual facts before me.
An honest person that's purchased a single set of gear is just as important to us. We don't have a caste system for our customers.
Again, you contend that you sent in a fully serviceable wing apparently just to get a free estimate, declined to have any of the work performed and expected your wing to be returned in the same condition.
One has to wonder, if your wing was fully serviceable as you claim, why would you choose
a few days before a dive trip, and 10 days before Christmas, to ship out a wing for a free estimate.
I'll let the readers decide who is creditable.
Tobin
