I created an account on Yelp just to tell everyone about this shop. If you read a couple of the other reviews you'll see one about how they act like they don't need your business, and think that they know everything. This is completely true. I gave them 3 chances and all 3 times i had such an unpleasant experiance that I swore the I would not go back.
The first time I went in was to get some of my gear the yearly inspection. At the time I wasn't diving a whole lot and I had some older gear that met my needs. When I set it on the counter the guy told me no less than 5 times how old it is and that I need to buy some newer stuff... It makes sence, in my mind at least, that the older gear was adequate and safe for the number of dives I was doing. Ok, so the guys an a**hole trying to upsell me, whatever. I turn the gear in to get it services and I am told that it normally takes 2 weeks to get it back to me, but that since it was off season they would have it back to me in 1 week no problem. 6 weeks later after calling them 4-5 times and just getting told, "they're working on it," it was finally done. The gear after being serviced was acceptable and safe.
Strike 2. A couple months later I am in the market for a lower end wetsuit. I avoid Oceanside Scuba because of my experiance there, but I'm having trouble finding exactly what I want in my size. I end up stopping by on my way home just to see what they have used, and lower end new ones in stock. Immediately the salesman will not leave me alone to just look around and won't stop showing me and telling me about the absolute most expensive wetsuit that they have in the store. Hey I'm sure its a great wetsuit but unfortunately I just do not have that kind of cash. Even after explaining that to him he won't let it go.
Strike 3. This was the last straw that really made me angry. I took a computer and regulattor in that I am buying off of a friend at work to get serviced up, and get a new battery cause the battery is low. The guy takes one look at it, pushes the button and says, oh no, I hope you didn't buy it yet, its broken man. And trys selling me another one. Something doesn't sound right, well theres no way you can do a factory reset, reset the battery, replace the battery, or even send it back to the maufacturer for repair? "No, since you arn't the origional owner they will not even look at it." So there is no way at all to get this fixed? "No." I took it down the road to another shop in Encinitas and ask the same question, can you service up this regulator and computer for me? "Yeah not a problem, the computer looks good other then that battery being low, thats $45, and then the costs for replacement parts for the reg....." So the guy at Oceanside Scuba tried to get me to drop $1000+ on a new dive computer over a $45 dollar battery replacement.
In general it seems like an over confident, under qualified staff, that cares about nothing about the sale and up sale. read more