Scuba shop closed before I finished my training! Now what?

[ohmdiver]

I am gonna go out on a limb here....

I suggest you contact another shop in your area. (with no profile info filled out I am not sure this is an easy solution) Explain your sitituation, chances are other shops know the owner, this may at least get you your records, and try to complete your dives with another shop. If you can prove the academics, perhaps demonstrate skills one time in apool, they may allow you to finish with them. (Kinda of a referal process).

It may cost you a few bucks more, sorry. But it would be cheaper than taking the whole course over or small claims....

Best of luck.

 

[AbyssalPlains]

I'm sorry to hear that. I hope you might be able to still get your money back or some other form of compensation. But apart from the money issue, given that almost a year would be in between your check-out dives, it might be a good idea to start over anyway. That's a long time in between and you might have forgotten a lot of you were taught. Don't want to jump to any conclusions, just a friendly attempt at pointing out the positive. Good luck!

 

[Web Monkey]

That is a long time between charges for a dispute, but certainly can't hurt to try.

The purchase isn't completed until the merchant delivers the product/service. From my perspective, the clock hasn't even started ticking. If you tell the bank that you signed up for a SCUBA Certification and the shop never finished the class, I don't think you'll have any problems.

The bank probably has a bunch of the merchant's money on hold to handle CC claims.

Terry

 

[ba_hiker]

i was in the process of finishing my basic open water diving course. i completed one checkout dive last summer and was counting on finishing up this spring. i went by the shop the other day and the store is empty with a for rent sign on it. i was never notified of it's closing and i can't get a return call. the class was paid in full. it was a naui, btw.

any suggestions on what to do when this happens?

this happened to me when i got certified the first time (i got re-certified after a long period of not diving). Shop closed on friday, reopened under new ownership on monday.

new shop owner was NOT legally liable -- he had specifically not bought any of the shops liabilities. The sales contract said those remained with the original owner. by the time it got to court he, and all of his assets, were no where to be found. further
he was not an instructor (they were all employees) and had no way to issue a certificate.

i found another shop, in a near by town) that would do a 're-certification' for me if i could pass the written on the first try. I did. they did an in-the-pool skills check and then two ocean dives. cost was about 1/2 the cost of full certification, but i had to do the ocean dives with one of their classes. the dives were at a location far from where i normally dive, but good.

later on, i found the instructor of the original class was teaching in socal. I talked to him and he said he would have finished the course for me -- if i had found him earlier -- by letting me do the final dives with one of his classes. a good offer, but useless as i had no way to find him (except by accident as it happened) and driving 500 or so miles for the two OW dives was out of the question.

 

[mike_s]

this happened to me when i got certified the first time (i got re-certified after a long period of not diving). Shop closed on friday, reopened under new ownership on monday.

new shop owner was NOT legally liable -- he had specifically not bought any of the shops liabilities. The sales contract said those remained with the original owner. .

wow... talk about a screwed up past and new owner.

he didn't want to honor any students already paid, and had it covered in the contract.


He might have saved a few bucks by not teaching the student, but chances are he lost any chance of ever selling you gear over the next few years.

Good thing you went across town to another shop.


We had a sportings good store do something similar. closed one day and opened the next with a new owner. Under the same store name. (Play it Again Sports, a franchise for used sports gear.) The new owner wouldn't honor past gift certificates. Many people I know won't shop there again because of that.

 

[ba_hiker]

wow... talk about a screwed up past and new owner.

he didn't want to honor any students already paid, and had it covered in the contract.

Well my lawyer said that this was actually standard operating procedure for sales like theses. Only well documented liabilities are even considered in the sale. Other liabilities, that can not be fully quantified (how many 1/2 off scuba training certificates were issued?) generally remain with the issuer.

and you are right, i bought all my gear elsewhere, until the shop was sold again.

 

[OldNSalty]

I can see the shop owners point of view in not honoring previous gift certificates and classes. I might not agree with it but the old owner already took the money, new customers are showing up expecting to cash in on some goods/services. If the old owner was a poor record keeper, as many small business are, he might not have had any real way of letting the new owner know about liabilities and so they could not be considered in the purchase.

In the perfect world, they should honor the stuff but technically what happened does not sound much different then if a Target purchased an old Walmart building. Target simply isn't going to honor the old gift cards.

 

[Primus67]

thanks for the info people, except for the one about the k-y!

i signed up around last april, but these clowns were really lax about scheduling classes and dives. hence, it took so long to get to my first checkout dives. and there is probably no paperwork as the instructors kept asking ME what i had done so far. bad sign. i'm going to check with my bank and see if i can't get a refund.

 

[ScubaSteve]

I would also do a couple of other things:

- Tell people here where you are from
- Tell people here what the name of the shop was
- This does not have to be in a deflamatory way but SCUBA really is a small world with a tool like Scubaboard so it is possible that someone else knows something that can be helpful.

This way they can maybe help you with tracking people down. They can also point you towards some really good instructors or shops. Some of them are members here as well.

 

[--tom--]

I still think the key is the instructor you started with if you have is name or cert #. If he is still an active instructor with NAUI, then NAUI may have a contact e-mail or phone number. NAUI will probably not give you that information, but they may contact the instructor on your behalf.

It's not a high percentage bet, but at least it's a shot.