Skydive Hollister (aka, Adventure Center Skydiving) utilizes Groupon for promotional offers on a semi-frequent basis. Some friends & I decided to purchase one of their offers several months ago. The deal was $99 for a tandem skydive of 10,000 feet. The groupon offer stated it was good "7 days a week!"
In the "discussion" portion of the Groupon offer someone pointed out that Skydive Hollister's website stated that the 10,000 foot jumps were only performed on weekdays. Multiple people asked if they would be able to do the 10,000 foot Groupon deal on weekends. The owner of the business (Mako Igarashi) as well as the office manager of the business (Joe Guilmette) both responded in the discussion forum that the Groupon 10,000 foot jumps would be available on weekends.
When my friends & I called to make our reservation for a weekend jump we specified that we had Groupons & were reserving slots for the 10,000 foot jump. The girl answering the phone said "sure, no problem, all set.". When we arrived for our reservation (after rescheduling when the business cancelled on us last second for unexplained reasons) we were asked if we wanted to upgrade to the 15,000 or 18,000 foot jump. We said we would like to stick with the 10,000. We were then told that they don't run the 10,000 foot jumps on weekends and we would HAVE to upgrade (at an additional cost of $30 - $60).
My friends & I all questioned this & pointed out that Mako & Joe both stated the 10,000 was available for Grouponers. We were simply again told "we don't do 10,000 on weekends & you MUST upgrade." When we asked to speak to Mako or Joe we were told both were unavailable. It should be noted that even with our reservation we were made to wait nearly 7 hours before finally jumping, during which time Mako & Joe were never available to talk with us.
Since we had already paid for the non-refundable Groupon, and had driven nearly an hour to get there, we ended up giving in to the extortion/bait-and-switch. Afterwards, in reading the reviews for this business on Yelp, it became apparent that this is a standard scam perpetrated by Skydive Hollister... Sell discounted Groupons, tell people it's valid 7 days a week, then force them to pay for an upgrade upon arrival.
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