Clearwater Sports

Reviews

• July 17, 2019
  "While buying the second new kayak from them in 12 months last October I asked if they could repair a small hole in the bottom of an old kayak I had. Barry said he could and quoted me a price range for the job. I told him I lived 5 hours away but was in the area occasionally to visit family. I asked if he would be able to do the repair while I was in town next for three days over the Christmas holidays. He said he could. I dropped the boat off at the beginning of that December 2018 visit. When I came back 3 days later to pick it up he acted amazed I thought it would be ready when he said it would. I was a little annoyed but it wasn't a big problem because I don't paddle in the winter. I told him I would pick it up on my next visit to the area. That visit was three and a half months later. The job STILL wasn't done. I asked him to do it during THAT three day visit. He said he couldn't possibly do it that fast and would need ANOTHER two weeks. I asked him why he had failed twice to do it in the time promised. He admitted he shouldn't have made the promises he had made. Ten days later he called me to say the job was done and that the price would be several hundred percent more than what he had quoted because the job had taken longer than he expected. Instead of calling me to ask if I wanted to spend much, much more on the repair than his estimate, he simply finished the job and used my credit card number from the new kayak purchase to charge me the higher price. He justified this on the grounds that the repair took two hours which was longer than he expected. The much longer time I spent driving there three times for a repair he said could be done in one trip for much less money did not influence him. I never would have authorized this repair in the first place if he had been honest about either how long it would take OR how much it would cost. These guys are not to be trusted. On top of all that, the patch in question lasted for about four hours of paddling and then started leaking agin."
  - Gregory Gilman
• March 6, 2013
  "I rented a pair of AT skis with Fritschi bindings from these guys last February to test the equipment as I was in the market for AT equipment. The experience was absolutely horrible and, a year later, they're still trying to whack me for 500. Here's the story. After asking half a dozen questions about the bindings and whether or not I should treat them any differently than a downhill binding the answer was an emphatic NO, I proceeded to Sugarbush for a day of skiing. After about my 3rd or 4th run down, the front left binding blew into about 5 pieces, my ski went flying, I fell but fortunately recovered without injury. At the end of the day I brought the broken equipment back to the store, the clerk expressed shock that the binding broke and that was that or so I thought. About a week later I received a call from the store, advising that they would have to charge me the full price for new bindings. I protested, explained that no backcountry binding should shatter like that, especially in a ski resort on cut trails to a guy who weighs 170 pounds. Upon further research I learned that the Fritschi binding has a tendency to shatter if it is set too tight. In an effort to settle the matter without hard feelings on either side, I offered to split the difference, a gesture that they simply ignored. So, they charged my debit card and, to this day, I am still fighting with them over the charge. Bottom line these guys seem to have zero interest in a satisfied customer, they apparently know nothing about ski equipment especially AT skis and they refuse to acknowledge any wrongdoing even in circumstances where it's quite clear they're at fault. DO NOT PATRONIZE CLEARWATER SPORTS."
  - Chris Brockmeyer

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