Beware:(

[lord1234]

Dear Cave Diving Community,
This is probably the first negative review of an instructor I have seen posted. And the only one posted after never having taken a class with the instructor.

Let me tell you what occurred. In the early part of this year I started searching for a way to improve myself in an overhead environment. I decided that I would take Cavern + Intro from Nick Leone(who some of you know as caver95) and emailed him with my dates. Unfortunately he was unable to do my dates, but recommended me to . Having heard the names before and hearing good things about them as teachers, I called them, and we agreed upon a class date of June 1st(since I was planning to fly down on the 1st and stay for 2 weeks to get good and waterlogged). I had already booked tickets prior to discussing the class with them and was happy to send them the full amount for the class ($550).

Unfortunately about a month after I booked the class with them, the airliner I had booked with went bankrupt(Skybus Airlines). I called and told them about this unfortunate situation and asked if due to the extremely strange circumstances(who knew that more airliners would follow) if I could have a refund. seemed understanding and replied in the affirmative. This call was made in the 2nd week of April. A few weeks went by, and no check had arrived, so I called again. This time, while I forget which of them I spoke to, I was told something to the gist of “as soon as the next paycheck comes in we’ll get the check out to you”. That was fine by me, I wasn’t in a rush to get it and was ok with waiting. The beginning May came and went, towards the end of the month I started calling them. I think I called 20 times before anyone picked up(and only when using a number that was not the usual one I called from). I once again asked where it was, got the run around, and was told to call back to speak with .

3 weeks ago I finally got in touch with who said she was ready to mail a check, but misplaced my address. I excitedly gave it to her. A week passed and still no check. 2 weeks. Today makes 3 weeks.

I feel lied to and I’m sick of waiting. I hope that in future people will consider who they do business with a bit better and check around a bit more before they go in the wrong direction.

I’m going to cross post this to TDS, the CaveDiver forum and a few others in hopes of perhaps getting some reaction.

Thanks for reading
Lord1234
Leo Laskin


TDS post at: http://thedecostop.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32283