The great big, all-inclusive Leisure Pro note

[Dive Source]

LP bought some and, apparently, was duped.

What a shock...if they cared at all I would be totally amazed.

If I was contacted by a "manufacturer" and offered a bunch of sub-standard or counterfit BC's I would tell them to get stuffed.

Not put them on special for a quick buck.

 

[Genesis]

What a shock...if they cared at all I would be totally amazed.

If I was contacted by a "manufacturer" and offered a bunch of sub-standard or counterfit BC's I would tell them to get stuffed.

Not put them on special for a quick buck.

What if you were told that they were genuine and they had a good price?

 

[Dive Source]

What if you were told that they were genuine and they had a good price?

Why don't we look a little closer at the ethics themselves first.

We allegedly have LP buying BCD's from a sub-supplier that were labeled and branded for Scuba-Pro. Scuba-pro did not give the sub-supplier permission to sell them to anyone else and from what was reported LP sold them as authentic.

Further more the retailer (LP) was not authorized to sell scubapro products.

Even if they weren't defective the whole transaction smells of fraud and is one step up from recieving stolen goods.

And to answer your original question it's real simple. I buy the products I sell from the companies that supply them - NOT out of the back of someones trunk.

This way I can promise my customers that product support available not only from me, but other authorized dealers and from the manufacturer.

I didn't realize this was such an old thread but the message seems clear. The only people LP have to answer to is a single diver looking for a bargain and if they are not happy or get a product that is sub-standard, they certainly cannot complain to the manufacturer as they will not support a product sold by someone like LP who did not have permission to sell it.

At least if I buy a bad toaster at Walmart I can also complain to the company who made it and sue both of them if needed. If an un authorized dealer like LP sells a regulator to someone and they die using it, the manufacturer is provided with an additional layer of isolation from the court action, because they will correctly state that LP was not an authorized dealer and should not have sold it in the first place as they were not trained, authorized or qualified to do so...

People should consider this as well when making a purchase from Liesure Pro or any unauthorized dealer as they are giving away some of their options.

 

[Genesis]

Why don't we look a little closer at the ethics themselves first.

Sure, why not?

We allegedly have LP buying BCD's from a sub-supplier that were labeled and branded for Scuba-Pro. Scuba-pro did not give the sub-supplier permission to sell them to anyone else and from what was reported LP sold them as authentic.

Just like all your distributors. Do you have a signed and confirmed authorization on each purchase from the manufacturer for every item that comes through distribution? Of course you don't. Nobody does. You trust (perhaps foolishly) that the distributor got the products "properly" and they are actually what they claim to be.

Further more the retailer (LP) was not authorized to sell scubapro products.

Ever hear of the "first sale doctrine"? Go look it up if not.

And to answer your original question it's real simple. I buy the products I sell from the companies that supply them - NOT out of the back of someones trunk.

No you don't. With few exceptions, you buy them from some distributor. Genesis Scuba products are not sold by them - they are sold by regional distributors to retailers. Apeks is sold by a distributor in the US. So are many other lines. Very few are sold by the actual manufacturer directly to you as a retailer.

How do you know that the distributor is, at that instant, actually authorized to distribute? How do you know what you're getting is authentic?

This way I can promise my customers that product support available not only from me, but other authorized dealers and from the manufacturer.

The manufacturer's responsibilities cannot be disclaimed when it comes to warranties. You might think so, but you'd be wrong. Printing something doesn't make it legal.

What manufacturers can do is refuse to honor their "extended giveaways" on service; e.g. the "free parts for life" stuff. But that's a smokescreen anyway, since to keep them in force you must keep your annual schedule of maintenance - miss one year, and its gone forever.

I didn't realize this was such an old thread but the message seems clear. The only people LP have to answer to is a single diver looking for a bargain and if they are not happy or get a product that is sub-standard, they certainly cannot complain to the manufacturer as they will not support a product sold by someone like LP who did not have permission to sell it.

At least if I buy a bad toaster at Walmart I can also complain to the company who made it and sue both of them if needed. If an un authorized dealer like LP sells a regulator to someone and they die using it, the manufacturer is provided with an additional layer of isolation from the court action, because they will correctly state that LP was not an authorized dealer and should not have sold it in the first place as they were not trained, authorized or qualified to do so...

That is certainly not true.

Among other just try suing a company in another country sometime.

Many of these brands that are "common" (e.g. Apeks, Suunto, etc) are all made outside the United States. Good luck suing one of those companies.

Leisurepro does more business annually than most manufacturers. If they sold me a defective piece of gear, I'd rather have to sue them over it rather than some foreign company! I'd have a crack at those guys - I'd have no chance at suing Suunto, for example.

People should consider this as well when making a purchase from Liesure Pro or any unauthorized dealer as they are giving away some of their options.

By your logic no product manufactured outside the United States is in your dive shop, because its important for a buyer to be able to (effectively) sue the manufacturer for a defective product.

You're not a hypocrite on this matter, are you?

 

[HamsterHuey]

I've purchased a watch and a computer from LP. The watch took about two weeks to get here, and the computer took about 4 days. This is standard shipping. To Japan. Okinawa, actually. Where you can't get UPS shipments.

I've purchased complete SCUBA setups (from regs to masks to gloves, etc) for two people. All from LDS (the on-base dive shops...if that counts as an LDS). I had one salesperson show me a 2nd stage when I asked to see the 1st stage. I had another show my the new Citizen Aqualand Nx when I asked to buy a replacement light. (???) This was the same one that extolled his weekend dive experience where his BC inflator hose broke, but he continued the dive because "...I don't use the inflator, and exciting dives are the best!". Yes, indeed. When I asked about a computer they had on display ("What can you tell me about this computer?"), I was told, "I don't know. I use this one, and I love it." Well, I use Crest toothpaste, and I love it. If you asked me about Aquafresh, I could at least tell you it has stripes.

The dive shops all sell the same selection, and can't order anything other than what they sell. I ordered my Archimede from a shop in Texas...scubatoys.com (my home state, so I sorta supported an LDS).

For some of us, on-line ordering is the ONLY way we can get what we want. I could shop out in town, and get socked with Japanese prices (man, for people that dive, their stuff is EXPENSIVE!). So, I should support an LDS out of what? Loyalty? I don't buy everything from LP. If I have a bad experience with them (which the overwhelming majority of folks here have not had), then I probalby won't deal with them again...and will buy from one of the many other online dealerships.

Finally, MikeFerrara. You said you would love to do online retail. Well, that would take business away from an LDS somewhere. 'tis the karmic nature of scuba purchases. I think the best mix of advice is, educate yourself on the product (and not using LDS expertise just to shop somewhere else...that is wrong), decide how much maintenance a piece of gear will need (regs probably more than fins), and quiz the site or store on their return policy. Don't shop based on a price tag. Shop on your level of comfort with the retailer. If your "LDS" doesn't satisfy your needs, shop at someone else's. Even if it is a virtual "LDS", half a world away.

 

[AzAtty]

Ever hear of the "first sale doctrine"? Go look it up if not.

Sure. It's the legal concept that keeps a person from getting sued for copyright infringement when the person sells a CD the person owns on E-bay. It's codified at 17 U.S.C. §109. It applies to copyrighted works only. It does not apply to merchandise in general.

The manufacturer's responsibilities cannot be disclaimed when it comes to warranties. You might think so, but you'd be wrong.

Sure they can. Article 2-316 of the Uniform Commercial Code--which governs the sale of goods and which nearly every state in the United States has adopted (in Arizona, it's A.R.S. §47-2316)--allows the disclaimer of express and implied warranties so long as those disclaimers are conspicuous and in writing. A warranty is a creature of contract (as is a sale of goods), and generally speaking, a person can place whatever conditions upon the person wishes.

Now, if you want to talk about product liability, that's a tort issue completely separate from a warranty disclaimer (a contract issue), and a different body of law applies to those theories.

 

[Genesis]

Sure. It's the legal concept that keeps a person from getting sued for copyright infringement when the person sells a CD the person owns on E-bay. It's codified at 17 U.S.C. §109. It applies to copyrighted works only. It does not apply to merchandise in general.

Sure they can. Article 2-316 of the Uniform Commercial Code--which governs the sale of goods and which nearly every state in the United States has adopted (in Arizona, it's A.R.S. §47-2316)--allows the disclaimer of express and implied warranties so long as those disclaimers are conspicuous and in writing. A warranty is a creature of contract (as is a sale of goods), and generally speaking, a person can place whatever conditions upon the person wishes.

Now, if you want to talk about product liability, that's a tort issue completely separate from a warranty disclaimer (a contract issue), and a different body of law applies to those theories.

You can disclaim implied and expressed warranties, but this is not what is being done here. The manufacturer isn't saying "no warranty"; they are saying "if you buy this from someone we don't like, we won't cover it."

Second, you can't violate a contract that doesn't exist. LeisurePro can acquire anything they want and the manfuacturers have no recourse against them. They may have recourse against those who supply them, but that depends on where they are. In the US, laws prohibiting restraint of trade are frequently ignored. They are not ignored in Europe, and since the rise of the EU they have become rather draconian about enforcement. As such it has become trivially easy to source products around the "bans" on resale simply by buying from Europe, where the ban on vertical price restraint along with various other attempts to restrain trade (such as attempting to ban resale of products purchased) is actually enforced.

But such laws are not ALWAYS ignored. "Nine West" was a case very similar in content to the conduct that the scuba manufacturers are engaged in here in the United States. It turned on the practice of the company mandating a retail sales price absent specific authorization for deviations from the manufacturer. They got their hands slapped by the FTC fairly severely for this.

Next, a contract of adhesion is nearly always invalid. That is, if you sell me a product, and you wish to require as a term of doing so that I not resell that product to anyone else, you and I must negotiate that before money changes hands. Sticking a document in the box does not meet that requirement, as you did not have a meeting of the minds on those terms before the contract was bound. This has become somewhat "fuzzy" in the world of computer software (with "shrink-wrap" licenses) but so far that insanity hasn't trickled down to hard goods to the best of my knowledge (and to the extent it has in the "shink wrap license" arena, it is an abomination and contrary to the basic precepts of contract law. It just shows that you can buy whatever justice you want in this country, law be damned.)

I agree that a manufacturer can disclaim all warranties, expressed and implied. However, they aren't doing that. They are conditioning the warranty on purchase from someone they "like".

Whether that is legal is quite a gray area and is subject to state law.

Magnuson-Moss requires very specific language to disclaim implied warranties. Such language is basically never present in the documentation supplied with various scuba gear. Putting up a sign in a dive shop or on a manufacturer's web site does not meet the requirements for sales that may take place elsewhere.

Have you looked through the documentation that comes with, say, a ScubaPro regulator? I have. Did you find somewhere the statutorily-required disclaimer of warranties? I did not. It must be in a very specific, stautory form or its not valid.

Further, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness cannot, in some states, be disclaimed or limited at all (about 1/3rd of the states are this way); they are an inherent part of offering a product for sale in those states. In others they can be, but such a disclaimer must be made clear to the purchaser in some way before the contract to purchase is entered into. The typical ways this is done is by stating that a product is sold "As-is" and "with all faults." Such a disclaimer on a piece of scuba gear would be a death sentence to sales. The statements on placards in a dive shop do not provide this as the venue is in no way connected to where the products are sold. Funny how none of the actual DOCUMENTS in the boxes with said products from these manufacturers make such a statement - that MIGHT be because such a disclaimer would instantly raise the concern in a buyer's mind that the product is junk!

Second, in many states the requirement to take an overt act to "condition" or "activate" a warranty is illegal. There are some states where the requirement to send a warranty card in in order to "register" a warranty is against state law.

Next, Magnuson-Moss makes requiring the purchase of any item from a specific location or, indeed, a specific OEM item, or labor from a specific place or group of places, illegal as a condition of keeping warranty coverage in force, unless such products/services are provided free of cost. While exceptions to this law can be granted, they must be individually applied for, conditioned on actual necessity, and conspicuously disclosed before purchase; I am aware of no such exemptions in the Scuba Industry.

This comes up in other industries all the time; car dealers have tried to refuse coverage for warranty repairs because routine maintenance was done by an independant shop - they have been sued over this repeatedly and routinely lose. A claim that the service or parts were "substandard" and thus caused the failure has the burden of proof upon the manufacturer.

The Scuba Industry with its "grandiose free parts for life" game gets around this because those deals are not a warranty; they are offering something "free" if you buy from someone they like AND do other things they like (specifically, give their "authorized dealers" your service business.)

The ironic part of the latter is that the parts cost is dwarfed by the "required" labor charges, and in many cases, such a maintenance schedule is completely unnecessary - thus, these "free parts for life" deals actually greatly increase your total cost of ownership if you comply with their demands!

In any event, none of this matters in the LeisurePro case, as LeisurePro offers their own warranty that is equal or superior to the manufacturer's where the manufacturer has attempted to "dodge" the issue.

As such, LeisurePro goes BEYOND the requirements of the law - they flatly represent that the products are NOT junk, and they back them with THEIR full faith and credit.

I am aware of NO "authorized retailer" that does this AZ.

Indeed, the way a local dive shop here in town lost my business for a Suunto Transmitter was over precisely this issue. They refused to handle potential warranty work as their responsibility - instead falling back on "you'll have to deal with Suunto/Aqualung if there is a problem."

While this is legal, it certainly left a bad taste in my mouth, particularly when LeisurePro does back the products they sell with their own faith and credit!

Given that LeisurePro has more annual sales volume than most manufacturers, and they/Adorama have been around in NYC for a long time, exceeding that time in business of many of these manufacturers, I bet you can guess who I believe to be the more stable enterprise.....

Guess who got the sale?

Interestingly enough, AZ, when I was doing the background research for the DiversUnion project, I called over a dozen major scuba manufacturers and distributors. Every one of them (including the big names that are most outrageous in their claims on mail/internet orders) offered to repair or replace any defective product that I had (defective now - not the "lifetime parts" deal) irrespective of where it was purchased - in spite of their "disclaimers" about sales from people they didn't like.

Now why would they do this if there was no potential problem in their refusal?

Hmmmm....

 

[Dive Source]

They are conditioning the warranty on purchase from someone they "like". "

And what's wrong with that Kerl? They spent the money developing the products, training the service centers, doing the marketing, finding dealers that represent the products professionally and also offer offer other services like training, air fills and service.

Of course some stores could be doing better (not just in scuba but in every industry), however many dive stores do a fine job and aren't trying to get MSRP on every piece of gear they sell. If they charge a little more they often back it up with more service. FYI- When I price a package for someone I look at what I need to make on it to pay the bills and hopefully take a little something home, I DO NOT try and screw them over.

Oh and by the way, some of that so called "big profit" I make also goes to pay four other employees plus seven other contract instructors and their families and to provide local dive club support where we can (Plus the trickle down local economics ).

Ultimately, I have issue with much of what you say, because you lump everyone who runs an LDS together as some evil empire while giving LP a totally free ride even when wrapped in a scandel revolving around selling counterfit product as authentic. ( I actually am starting to think you work for them)

Please feel free to write another 1000 word reply, but I am done for now.

 

[Genesis]

What's wrong with it DS is that you don't back up your product nearly as well as LP backs theirs - simply because you're a hundredth of their size in terms of annual sales - if that.

They also provide a superior warranty - one that results in immediate replacement or repair if there is a problem. The "fallback" of recourse to the manufacturer (including perhaps cross-border shipments, during which time the diver twists in the wind) simply never comes up for those who deal with LP.

I most certainly do not work for them - among other things, I live almost literally half a nation away from them.

And Brian - they are a LDS. Show up in New York and you can walk right into their retail store - just like someone can walk into yours.

 

[Dive Source]

What's wrong with it DS is that you don't back up your product nearly as well as LP backs theirs - simply because you're a hundredth of their size in terms of annual sales - if that.

Your a little off me thinks...that means they would have to do over 60 million a year in sales ...Duh..NO!

They also provide a superior warranty - one that results in immediate replacement or repair if there is a problem. The "fallback" of recourse to the manufacturer (including perhaps cross-border shipments, during which time the diver twists in the wind) simply never comes up for those who deal with LP.

We do this all the time..it's called customer service. If the manufacturer doesn't support my decision they are in trouble with us and if I don't support my customer, I am in trouble with them. ( and I have to look them in the eye, which I do so quite happily)

I most certainly do not work for them - among other things, I live almost literally half a nation away from them.

You certainly lobby for them all the time with big rose coloured glasses on. You just can't or won't admit that a local LDS can be equal or better than them and continue give them a free ride on everything including this thread which was about knowingly selling counterfit Scubapro BC's.

And Brian - they are a LDS. Show up in New York and you can walk right into their retail store - just like someone can walk into yours.

Really? I just called them and asked if I could take a course or get an airfill and was told no. They are Not an LDS, nor can you say they are full service.

They are a simply a wholesale discount clearance center unsupported by most manufacturers. I am not trying to simply vilify them here, I am trying to be a balance to your unbending rhetoric that places them on a pedesal and says the LDS structure is not as good as LP or can't compete as we do so quite well every day.

Happy new year Karl, I admire your passion even though I choose to disagree with what you say.