Scubapro Warranty and Overseas Dealers

[ATL_Diver]

Hi, folks.

It seems that I've had a visit from our good friend Murphy. I was gathering my stuff to start packing for my trip to Jamaica next week and it looks like the non-user-replaceable battery in my dive computer is dead. It's out of warranty (not the original purchaser) and I was sort of looking for an excuse to upgrade to a Galileo Sol anyway so I started poking around for pricing. After a bit of searching, I found a super price at ScubaStore.com. They're an authorized dealer for Scubapro but they're based in Spain which really made me wonder how Scubapro's warranty works in that situation. I decided to email Scubapro about it:

Posted At: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 10:25 AM
Posted To: Ask Scubapro

I have a question about warranty coverage. The FAQ on the website is ambiguous about whether or not the Scubapro warranty is valid if I, living in the US, were to purchase a Scubapro product from an authorized dealer overseas via their website. The FAQ states:

Q: If I buy SCUBAPRO UWATEC products overseas, can I get servicing / warranty coverage locally?

A: Yes, provided you bought the product from an Authorized Dealer.

Q: Does a product purchased from a non-Authorized Dealer have a warranty?

A: ...These non-authorized sources include internet and direct marketing companies, who obtain our products from questionable sources, and do not undergo the rigorous training programs necessary for proper representation of our gear.

So the question is: Would an authorized overseas dealer be considered 'non-authorized' for purposes of warranty coverage if the buyer lives in the US?

And here's their response:

Thursday, June 2, 2008 1:59 PM

Thank you for choosing SCUBAPRO UWATEC equipment.
If an authorized European dealer shipped a product to the US then there would be no warranty as that is a violation of the dealer's agreement with SCUBAPRO. If a US resident went to Europe and purchased product and brought it back then it would be covered under the European agreement.

It was nice to get some official clarification on this and I thought that others might be interested in their response. But now I've got another question - How would Scubapro know whether I had my shiny new computer shipped to the US or bought it from ScubaStore in person in Spain?

Rob.

 

[msg]

What difference does it make any way. SP equipment is suppose to be great gear, you would think that they would want to warrant all of their gear. It would make for better customer service.

 

[ATL_Diver]

They seem much more interested in getting my money than serving their customers. Really, I don't know how they can expect an LDS here in the US to sell their products. The LDS price for a Galileo Sol is almost twice what ScubaStore.com sells it for and I'm told that they really don't make much of a margin on them.

Rob.

 

[deepstops]

Scuba Pro's sales and warranty policies are very antiquated.
It's ridiculous you can walk into DiveInn/Scubastore and have a US Scuba Pro warranty in effect yet if they mail it to you, there's no warranty for the same exact product.

I'm guessing if you live in France and buy from ScubaStore in Spain, you'd have no warranty either. If you do, that's discriminating against their US customer base.

 

[JB]

Also look at Lucas dive store in Holland, on some things they beat the price of Scubastore. the goods generally arrive in 4 or 5 days, very efficient. It does not matter too much about the warrantee, in the unlikely event of a claim under warrantee, the worst case scenario is you post it back to the overseas dealer. (I can only assume for the company to be in business the failure rate under warrantee must be very low). I couldn't agree more that the world is shrinking and one should be able to get global warrantees. As you say the difference between buying from a store while on holliday, bringing goods with you on emigration, and on-line ordering is dubious. Good luck.

 

[deepstops]

They seem much more interested in getting my money than serving their customers. Really, I don't know how they can expect an LDS here in the US to sell their products. The LDS price for a Galileo Sol is almost twice what ScubaStore.com sells it for and I'm told that they really don't make much of a margin on them.

Rob.

That's complete BS, if there was no margin, how could Leisure Pro or the Euro dealers sell for so much less?

 

[hobodiver]

That's complete BS, if there was no margin, how could Leisure Pro or the Euro dealers sell for so much less?

Maybe they charge the european stores less for their products?

 

[zider]

Do any of you know if the parts cards come with regs shipped from thescubastore.com? This is a huge deal as you get free parts for life on scubapro regs, if you have the parts card.

 

[redacted]

Do any of you know if the parts cards come with regs shipped from thescubastore.com? This is a huge deal as you get free parts for life on scubapro regs, if you have the parts card.

This free service parts thing is a lot like a wiggling worm on a fish hook. You pay about $25 per stage in labor and get about $1 worth of parts (mfgr cost) free even though, more often than not, you didn't really need the full service.

 

[OceansideOcean]

You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant

Excepting Alice.