What would you do? AITA?
- Thread starter danzn16
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I didn't tell them not to bring the boat back to the dock or what emergency procedures to follow. I stayed out of everyone's way, and patiently waited for the ambulance to leave at which point I collected my gear, and politely reminded them of the dive that was paid for and not received. They refunded me with no hesitation or complaints and I've dived with them again.
SouthernSharktoothDiver
Contributor
To try and weigh in on some of the contentions here, here's my policy: If I'm the one calling off the dive, then the cost is on me. This covers say, my flight being moved and me not making my appointment on time, me deciding I don't like the weather that day and canceling of my own free will, or me saying I feel a little unwell and don't wanna dive. All three of those cases, it's my decision, and I'm on the hook for the full cost of the trip.
But if the dive operator cancels the trip without allowing me to choose, they should refund me my money. That includes them deciding to turn around due to weather, them having equipment problems, and any health emergencies that are not involving me. I didn't pay for a site-seeing tour. I paid for a dive charter. If I didn't get the dives I paid for, I want my money back.
Now, I'm a reasonable person. If an operator were to cancel a two tank dive after one dive and say "we can't afford to give everyone their money back, but here's a voucher for 50% off your next trip," I would be willing to accept that in the spirit it was given. They're making a legitimate effort to restore the value I have lost. Bonus points if that voucher is transferable, so I can opt to sell it to some else to recoup cash if I prefer. Same if they canceled the entire outing, but rescheduled it to another day at my convenience. Not optimal, but I'll accept it.
A lot of people raise points about safety, but here's my thing. This is a dangerous hobby, and if an operator (ie, the professionals who are supposed to be, well, professional) can't be trusted to take a loss in the name of keeping their customers safe (which they have a duty to do), why on earth would I, the customer, be expected to take a loss in the name of the same? If they don't have the financial margins to be safe in their operations, they should raise prices or stop operating altogether, rather than screwing customers to make up the difference.
Imagine if the situation were inverted. A customer decided not to dive because he felt unwell, and then demanded a refund for not receiving what he paid for. Would you support that customer? Of course not. He had a personal problem, he made a decision, and he pays for what he chose to do. The dive operator had no say, wasn't the cause of his problem, and so owes him nothing. This is the same thing, just reversed.
But if the dive operator cancels the trip without allowing me to choose, they should refund me my money. That includes them deciding to turn around due to weather, them having equipment problems, and any health emergencies that are not involving me. I didn't pay for a site-seeing tour. I paid for a dive charter. If I didn't get the dives I paid for, I want my money back.
Now, I'm a reasonable person. If an operator were to cancel a two tank dive after one dive and say "we can't afford to give everyone their money back, but here's a voucher for 50% off your next trip," I would be willing to accept that in the spirit it was given. They're making a legitimate effort to restore the value I have lost. Bonus points if that voucher is transferable, so I can opt to sell it to some else to recoup cash if I prefer. Same if they canceled the entire outing, but rescheduled it to another day at my convenience. Not optimal, but I'll accept it.
A lot of people raise points about safety, but here's my thing. This is a dangerous hobby, and if an operator (ie, the professionals who are supposed to be, well, professional) can't be trusted to take a loss in the name of keeping their customers safe (which they have a duty to do), why on earth would I, the customer, be expected to take a loss in the name of the same? If they don't have the financial margins to be safe in their operations, they should raise prices or stop operating altogether, rather than screwing customers to make up the difference.
Imagine if the situation were inverted. A customer decided not to dive because he felt unwell, and then demanded a refund for not receiving what he paid for. Would you support that customer? Of course not. He had a personal problem, he made a decision, and he pays for what he chose to do. The dive operator had no say, wasn't the cause of his problem, and so owes him nothing. This is the same thing, just reversed.
In South Florida, many winter dives are iffy because of weather, chiefly high winds. Let's say it looks pretty bad, and diving could be dangerous. If the diver looks at the weather and decides it's too rough, if the diver has prepaid, the diver is not likely to get a refund. So the boat goes out, and it really is very bad. If the boat goes back to shore, do the divers on the boat who got their ride out and back get a refund? Do the divers who didn't go because they could see how bad it was for themselves get a refund?
So here's a question about this "out and back safely" philosophy.
A couple years ago, a South Florida dive operation took a group of divers out for a day of diving. It first went to a deep wreck diving site and dropped a group off. It then went to another shallower wreck site and tied off for the rest of the divers. As the first group descended, one of them felt ill, and the group aborted the dive. When they surfaced, of course, there was no boat to help them, and the person who felt ill was looking pretty serious. They were able to get the attention of a fishing boat and that eventually led to them getting the distressed diver to shore. It was too late. He died of a heart attack.
As I read what you wrote:
You see nothing wrong with this.
Yah thats criminal negligence.
Maybe I look at this differently than most as we don't really do charters for the money. We'll it is for the money but its not how we make our living. If my objective was to make money I would go into my shop on a Saturday and probably make more money by lunch time than I would all weekend on the boat.
With that established, we have a short summer and run small boats to unique destinations.
We are divers and have a young fiamily so we have better things to do than spend a weekend with some entitled Karen.
We have a good book of busness that are mostly repeat coustomers. And the only new clients we pick up are throughly vetted and ofter come with a referral from another operator or client.
If you want to dive some of our more advanced sites you need to come dive our less challenging dive sites first. This practice allows us to varify your ability and allows our clients to build trust in our ability to safely provide our services.
We have refused our services to clubs, shops, and divers who lack the inwater skills or personal conduct standards we require.
You pay us for the boat ride . If we get blown out you get a credit.
We rarely have an issues with medical distress because we are picky about who we allow on or vessels.
Our weekends are to valuable to spend with people we don't like .
And your safety is more valuable than your money or your feelings
With that established, we have a short summer and run small boats to unique destinations.
We are divers and have a young fiamily so we have better things to do than spend a weekend with some entitled Karen.
We have a good book of busness that are mostly repeat coustomers. And the only new clients we pick up are throughly vetted and ofter come with a referral from another operator or client.
If you want to dive some of our more advanced sites you need to come dive our less challenging dive sites first. This practice allows us to varify your ability and allows our clients to build trust in our ability to safely provide our services.
We have refused our services to clubs, shops, and divers who lack the inwater skills or personal conduct standards we require.
You pay us for the boat ride . If we get blown out you get a credit.
We rarely have an issues with medical distress because we are picky about who we allow on or vessels.
Our weekends are to valuable to spend with people we don't like .
And your safety is more valuable than your money or your feelings
SouthernSharktoothDiver
Contributor
Nope, they didn't (in this hypothetical, anyway). The dive site being the location underwater that I'm paying to go to. If they reached the spot on the surface above the dive site and turned around, they never took me where I was paying to go, now did they?
So....if you offer a credit in return for a cancellation....why are you arguing with everybody who says you should give a credit or a refund? I am now thoroughly confused as to what you're even saying. As for your point of "you're paying for a boat ride" I assume you don't call yourself a guided tour or a lakeside cruise or anything, you call yourself a dive operator. Ergo, I'm paying for a dive. I could care less if I get out there by boat, plane, helicopter, or what. I'm paying to dive at this dive site. The boat ride is a component of that, but it's a means, not an end.
To use an analogy, what you're saying is similar to if a restaurant said "you're paying for us to cook the food, so if we drop it on the ground, you still pay for it, because we cooked it." I'm not paying for the restaurant to cook food. I'm paying for the restaurant to give me the food to eat. Cooking is only a single part of the process. If a dive outfit cancels a trip, that's like the waiter dropping your food. If you cancel or no show to the dive trip, that's like you dropping your food. One of them you still have to pay for it, the other one the restaurant does.
@boulderjohn I feel like the operator would only have to refund the people who showed up, top down if that makes sense. And yeah, maybe there are places where the weather is bad enough to justify the diver paying part of the cost, like Oriskany, which is a very long ride in very unpredictable water, but I feel like any business that fully puts that cost on the customer is just not doing it right. As I've said before, you gotta give people something, even if that's just a credit toward the next trip, or else they're fully justified in not wanting to do business with you any more.
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