should a customer be charged for dropping and subsequently losing a weight belt?

[underthedeepblue]

Even if it was a faulty buckle the diver who lost it should pay to replace it. A diver should inspect the gear he is using before taking it out. A faulty buckle never should have left the shop.

So let me get this clear: the DIVER is now responsible for the DIVE OP not maintaining their equipment?

Did you say the fun diver is responsible for faulty equip0ment that never should have left the DIVE SHOP? Surely not!

In any event the equipment should be in perfect working order and in this scenario the faulty belt buckle is 100% the dive ops fault and this is why she was very happy to absorb the cost of lost belt. She didn't question it.

Wow. As per the above poster: recreational fun divers are getting a whole heap of responsibility dropped on their shoulders in this thread - including dive gear maintenance of dive op. Next you'll be qasking us to sweep the floors and make lunch!

 

[ScubaSteve]

Who out there can prove there was a faulty buckle once the buckle is lost forever? Nobody. Therefore, you just bought the shop a belt with weights and a shiny new buckle.

 

[ScubaSteve]

So let me get this clear: the DIVER is now responsible for the DIVE OP not maintaining their equipment?

What equipment maintenance is done to a weight belt buckle?

Wow. As per the above poster: recreational fun divers are getting a whole heap of responsibility dropped on their shoulders in this thread

If you are incapable of the very difficult test of knowing if a buckle is holding or not, then you should not be diving.

 

[Quero]

I am very suprised by these answers

Wouldn't one assume that in a sport like scuba dive shops would have their gear insured against loss for *whatever reason*??

I have a dive school with rental gear. Our insurance is designed to protect us from catastrophic loss--if a tsunami comes and washes everything away, if lightning strikes and burns down the building, etc. Both of these things have happened to colleagues' dive shops in my locality. The insurance isn't meant to cover loss due to misuse by individual divers. Even if the cost of replacing items such as weights, masks, fins, etc., didn't fall within the deductible, if I were to file numerous claims for losses of these sorts of items, my premiums would simply be unaffordable.

Would a surfer/waterskier/jetskier/hang glider be charged for loss or damage to equipment and would the operator not be held responsible re insurance in this instance?

Rentals of surfboards, jet skis, and kite boards are common here, and yes, renters are liable at minimum for the amount of the deductible on the insurance policy.

Seems very odd to hold guest 100% responsible given the precarious nature of diving with all the bits and pieces in open water/currents

Bits and pieces? Like masks and fins in addition to weightbelts? So if the diver had stuck the mask on top of his head and lost it on the surface, or if the diver dropped a fin while handing it up to the deck hand, the op should simply have to eat that loss even though it was due to the diver's carelessness?

The weight belt also came off on a dive at depth earlier in the week but the diver caught it and put it back on not knowing why and didn't analyze it as a poterntial future loss on future dive (weak buckle we think)

With this new information, it seems likely that the diver was neglectful when closing the buckle. In my experience a faulty buckle fails rather more consistently than what is stated here (once "earlier in the week" and then again only many dives later when it was ultimately lost). I would venture to say that the webbing was probably not aligned with the buckle before the buckle was snapped shut. When the webbing is a bit off, it impedes the buckle from closing fully and makes it quite easy for the buckle to pop open under a bit of stress such as happens during an entry.

 

[underthedeepblue]

All these answers are great but the Dive Op DIDN'T charge the diver for the lost-at-sea belt so it seems that the KIA's on SB don't get it right all the time.

To the person who professes to run a scuba operation: I don't agree with your premise re other water sportsd and the financial responsibility they put on their customers and guests - they simply cover themselves and absorb small losses out of good business practise and good faith as did my very hosptiable dive op owner.

Diving was fabulous btw

 

[TSandM]

What a business owner decides to do, in the interests of customer satisfaction, is not necessarily what is right. The dive operator may have felt that eating the cost of the weight belt was worth the good word-of-mouth she might get from a customer who felt she went a little out of the way to be nice, and much better than the bad word-of-mouth from someone who would post on ScubaBoard, "Don't dive with X dive shop, their equipment is bad!"

I rented a car in Mexico a year or so ago, and I didn't do a good enough job of the pre-drive check. I know this, because when we brought the car back, it had scratches underneath the rear bumper, where they were difficult to see. Since we had been the only people to drive the car, and knew where it had been every minute we had it, we knew for absolute certain that the scratches were not our fault. But we hadn't spotted them before taking the car, so we were responsible for the cost of repairing them (which was modest, thank goodness, because you and I both know that no one had any intention of actually REPAIRING the car). There was no argument; we rented it, we returned it in what appeared to be damaged condition, we were responsible.

I don't like plastic buckles on weight belts, and I don't know that I'd be willing to rent a belt with a plastic buckle, because of the likelihood of loss. But if I did, and I lost it, I'd pay for it. (I bring my own, pocketed weight belt on trips, and it has a buckle I like.)

 

[Teamcasa]

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