An appalling story, which I regret I knew I knew nothing about till now. I've investigated, and whilst there are some mitigating factors the gist of what Jason says is true. I'm glad he enjoyed his experiences in the water, but I can find little good about what surrounded them.

Due to the general hiatus in credit card processing his total charge of US$289:94 has not been processed and I have now cancelled it. He will pay nothing for his experience with us, and I hope he will accept my apologies. I wish I had had the opportunity of speaking to him while he was here.

It seems that the counter clerk (new to us) forgot to arrange for him to be picked up on the first occasion, could not telephone him as the phones were down, so went to his hotel at around 9am - too late - crossing paths with him. On the second occasion she cancelled his pickup and left a message for him to call, but for whatever reason the message was delivered to the wrong room in the hotel. We know this is the case as the person who actually received the note later came to us. The clerk assumed (unwisely) that the message had been received and he had simply chosen not to answer.

As to the costs, she assumed without checking that the first trip had been to Hol Chan when in fact it hadn't. The equipment rental is however correct - it was given free for the course but charged for for the subsequent dives.

This makes me acutely aware that the counter clerk has a key role to play and I am again looking for a new one. The previous one didn't leave us - she is now the DM Jason enjoyed diving with. Not that her record in the earlier job was impeccable, as Coreen points out. At the end of the day, people are people.

Protech certainly got it wrong and I am not going to try to defend the indefensible. But the reality is that there is no dive operation here with the 10-10 record that has been quoted.

Peter Jones
owner of Protech