Unacceptable Instructor Behaviors...

[JohnnyC]

I often refer to things as flingdingers. As in, put the flingdinger in your mouth and push the flingdinger on the front and the water goes out of it and you can breathe. If you're out fo air, I'll give you my flingdinger, it works the same as yours. But remember, if you're really out of air, the button on your flingdinger won't work and you'll have to manually inflate.

Call it whatever you want, most people figure out when they're being fed a line. Most people are not happy when they realize you feed them a line, and will often hold it against you if it's within the context of trying to sell them something.

 

[Neilwood]

I often refer to things as flingdingers. As in, put the flingdinger in your mouth and push the flingdinger on the front and the water goes out of it and you can breathe. If you're out fo air, I'll give you my flingdinger, it works the same as yours. But remember, if you're really out of air, the button on your flingdinger won't work and you'll have to manually inflate.

Call it whatever you want, most people figure out when they're being fed a line. Most people are not happy when they realize you feed them a line, and will often hold it against you if it's within the context of trying to sell them something.

I had that very experience with a dive shop - they upsold me on pretty much everything I went in wanting but as a new diver I didn't realise it (I was the typical new diver "oh look - shiny!). Only when diving with other people later on did I realise what they had done and I have never given them another penny in sales. This is despite them being a lot bigger than a lot of the other shops locally. I would rather travel twice the distance to another shop than pad their pockets.

 

[Colliam7]

I had that very experience with a dive shop - they upsold me on pretty much everything I went in wanting but as a new diver I didn't realise it (I was the typical new diver "oh look - shiny!).

From your perspective what gear represented 'upselling'? Examples might be helpful to newer divers reading this thread.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

I often refer to things as flingdingers. As in, put the flingdinger in your mouth and push the flingdinger on the front and the water goes out of it and you can breathe. If you're out fo air, I'll give you my flingdinger, it works the same as yours. But remember, if you're really out of air, the button on your flingdinger won't work and you'll have to manually inflate.

Call it whatever you want, most people figure out when they're being fed a line. Most people are not happy when they realize you feed them a line, and will often hold it against you if it's within the context of trying to sell them something.

Please, for the love of God, use the correct term! It is thingamajiggy!

 

[Olariuas]

I only bought masks and fins. I understand that buying directly on the dive shop help them in their business and that u might have some solutions for repair and stuff... but some people like to buy online cause its cheaper, you have more options more choice.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Here is a subtle trick that was taught in that workshop I attended. The guy said do not use the standard names for scuba equipment. I can't remember what he said to call everything, but it was along the lines of referring to a regulator as an "air delivery system"--never call it a regulator. He said that the reason was that the odds are that a potential diver's first experience is in your shop, and they will accept your terminology as the way it is. If they then decide to shop around, when they ask questions using the terminology they learned from you and the other people do not know what they are talking about, it will suggest to the new customer that the second shop does not know much about diving.

Interesting. I found SSI's use of their own version of terms (as we all know that's the agency being discussed, why not come out and just say it?) really annoying. I never used it when teaching open water as it was nonstandard, as when students go out to the world, I wanted them to use standard terms. The problem with non standard terms (my opinion) is that eventually the student will come to realize that the vast majority (after all, PADI does certify the vast majority of divers) uses different terms, and they are not going to like getting funny looks. No one likes to look stupid, and I'm guessing people who talk about their "air delivery system" are going to look that way.

 

[Neilwood]

From your perspective what gear represented 'upselling'? Examples might be helpful to newer divers reading this thread.

Good point and I hadn't thought of it.

I went in looking for a BP&W and a set of regulators and mentioned this to the assistant who immediately got their "tech instructor who could advise me better". They had a sale on at the time and I had been looking at an Apeks XTX50 set up (which were on sale). Went in and was talked into a Scubapro set (Mk17, S600 and R190) at quite a bit more than the Apeks set (being fed the line that they really were superior equipment and that " your life does depend on them after all").

The BP&W I had been looking at was a Scubapro Xtek set up which I knew they sold. I explained that I was a new diver, had no intentions of ever going tech or buying a twinset and just wanted the set due to the freedom it provided. They proceeded to show me the demonstration one (which was a dual bladder set up with 80Kg of lift - 40kg in each bladder). It was absolutely massive and I must have looked dubious because at that point they "found" a 40kg horseshoe wing (with a single bladder). I was persuaded that "You can never have too much lift" and ended up leaving with that. Ended up paying £900 for both the regs and BP&W.

Was diving a couple of weeks later and my OW/AOW instructor (who was not part of my group) came over and looked at my new kit and commented on the size of the wing. He spotted me underwater and the wing was so huge it ended up taco'ing round the tank (it was awkward to use because of the volume of the bladder - air could migrate into strange positions) . Chatted about it and discovered that the shop could have ordered a smaller SP donut wing (which might have had to be ordered in but would only have taken a week to arrive) which would have suited my needs better. At no point was this even hinted about as an option in the shop

Worked out later that had I bought the Apeks set and the SP BP&W with the smaller donut wing that my costs should have been below £700. It is quite clear in hindsight that they wanted to shift that BP&W and were getting better markup on the SP regs.

With more experience now (and having discovered Scubaboard), I would have done more research and then stuck to my guns about what I needed and not allowed them to manoeuvre me into those.

 

[Colliam7]

Went in and was talked into a Scubapro set (Mk17, S600 and R190) at quite a bit more than the Apeks set (being fed the line that they really were superior equipment and that " your life does depend on them after all"). . . . They proceeded to show me the demonstration one (which was a dual bladder set up with 80Kg of lift - 40kg in each bladder). It was absolutely massive and I must have looked dubious because at that point they "found" a 40kg horseshoe wing (with a single bladder). I was persuaded that "You can never have too much lift" and ended up leaving with that. Ended up paying £900 for both the regs and BP&W. . . . With more experience now (and having discovered Scubaboard), I would have done more research and then stuck to my guns about what I needed and not allowed them to manoeuvre me into those.

Interesting post. Thank you for sharing your experience with other newer divers!

You also offered a good example of how an instructor exercised professional responsibility, in making the observations that he did, and alerting you to the issue.

I imagine it was a challenge for the instructor - unfortunately, he was not in a position to advise you at the time of sale

 

[Schwob]

Similar but different here:
Edit: This got a bit lengthy about questionable gear purchase advise, no teaching behavior described in here:
The shop I started out with in the US / did my OW with was is an all scubapro shop, focussing on recreational divers. To me they did well getting me in the door (the deal was right). The owners are nice people, the class was as expected for a lowest cost class I could find... no complaints. I supported them by buying my basic gear as my 25 or so year old snorkeling mask was a leaky beast (although the fins were scuba fins and just fine, my son still uses them), I went for the SB nova fins, knowing full well I pay well north of 30% more in the US than in my country of origin... (more with VAT return). I made up my mind to support the nice local guys. Then I looked into regs. wanted the most basic seald and cold proof ones and felt they tried a little too hard to sell me the $-wise top of the line ones with the sole reason besides fluff talk given "it is the best and it is live supporting". When I tried to find out from them why it is etter or in doing what it is better I started to realize I am being marketed to heavily and started feeling the whole friendship good guy / family thing may not be as trie and wholehearted as it really appeared at first... Whatever the reality, how things appeared started to change on me and my trust vaned. But I still tried to look at a BP&W, not because I knew then that's what I want, just because I saw no reason to not to go there for in case I later want it. Well, they tried very hard to talk me into a BCD... took me a while to reslize that no bp&w in the sales room in this case meant they really do not stock tech gear do not or tarely ever sell it and were heavily twisting the truths to sell what they had. The latter part, trying to sell what they had, did not bother me. The truth twisting was the death sentence. I bought my hear elsewhere.

That sort of taught me about "the kind of advise an LDS gives". (that likely is an unfair genetalisation, it also is likely not true that used car sales people are less than honest, but any first hand experience that breals trust, anywhere, usually causes ripples that maybe reach further than they need to).

Anyway, I avoided that alltogether and went to the web to buy our first gear (for son and me) Except I was not sure enough of what I wanted, so I looked further and found that it was quite costadvantageous to buy that gear in Europe (at the exchange rate then and 20% VAT return...
And I found a place that gave me what I thought was good advice too. I may have thought partially wrong on that as well, but I certainly did not / still do feel like any truths were twisted.
(Did I manage to buy all the with hindsight perfectly right things over the web as a diving newbie ... NO., but I felt good about what I got overall (still do) and I know i was not being had.... E.g. I bought an Apeks black ice BCD, because it is "tech like" & the adjustability range worked for my up and down weight struggle and because I was given a good deal ... In retrospect I should have stuck with BP&W ... but I made that decision making twist on my own... partially educated ignorance at work... and I bought a then brand new Suunto Eon, even so a $200 ... 300 DC definitely would have been the better choice until I knew more. The guy on the phone was perfectly honest about me not needing it... but it was shiny and just under $900 with sender in the end and I fell for it. My doing again, not the shops. A year later I would have gotten a shearwater... and I learned why sometims buying the lesser thing at first is the right move, even if it means you buy twice...
... but I am very happy with the Apeks regs I bought and the BCD I got for my son is perfect, because it fits two more family members...).

These days I found a considerably more distant local shop, which I like despite the distance because they are also a web dealer, deal in tech stuff to and are not really biased towards what's in stock.

I also find myself a bit surprised in retrospect how much I thought I knew what I wanted when I started out (because I am a smart guy and I read a little), but that thin layer of read up knowledge really was not the right foundation to try to predict where my diving and needs might be years down the road ... and it was easy to discard potentially good advise as bad LDS advise by (as a precaution) lumping it (unjustly) in with that initial bad LDS experience . My advise to newbies having to i.e. decide between "buy the best or near to and buy just once" and go cheap and buy what you really need when you really know is. It is rarely or only choice, the spectrum us broader (rent a while, used geat...) ... but to consider that latter, the go cheap option more seriously if there is any doubt at all about the first (best of) option. Very often the "lesser" gear really is just plenty good for what it's actually used for.

 

[Sam Miller III]

It was John Reseck, the great pioneer diver and an early NAUI instructor, author of the 1975 dive instruction book SCUBA Safe and Simple who often stated:

"There are people in the SCUBA diving world who can speak indefinitely with great authority about a subject they have never experienced and have only minimum knowledge"​

The posts are not only entertaining but an eye opener as to how much diving history has been lost in short period of time and delegated to I think, I suppose, I heard....and a few I experienced

These post provide insight as to the modern diver's thought process and interpretation of dive history as they have been exposed to diving -With great sincerity when I state I am certainly enjoy reading these post every morning -

A big thank you to Pete for establishing the thread.

Please continue

Sam Miller, III