How Booking Agencies Work
The skydiving industry is plagued by companies that claim to offer skydiving packages when in fact they are just telephone operators selling you a marked up skydive. If you find a company that does not offer a physical address or provides vague information, you have very likely found one of these companies. In reality there are only 3 dropzones in the state of Colorado. Consider yourself warned, buy your skydiving direct from the source.
Are you calling a real skydive center or booking agency?
- Does the website provide a business address for the drop zone?
- Does the website include specific information such as which airport, facilities or type of runways?
- Does the website claim to be a National Skydiving Association (NSA) participating skydiving center? The NSA is fictional.
The only regulatory agency for sport skydiving in the USA is the United States Parachute Association (USPA). The USPA is a membership organization that maintains and regulates a group member listing of drop zones which abide by the association's Basic Safety Regulations. The unscrupulous business practices of these individuals are such that the USPA recently (2005 Summer BOD meeting) revoked the Group and Individual Memberships of the businesses and persons involved with the 1800Skyride operation. Revocation of membership is the highest level sanction available to the USPA, a member organization. Various State Attorneys General are investigating the business practices, and multiple individuals are pursuing civil suits.
For more information and to learn why this is a scam that hurts our sport:
USPA Consumer Alert (Consumer Alert form the United States Parachute Association)
http://www.funjumper.com/skyride/ (list of scams)
http://www.makeithappen.com/jumps/review/cedartown.html
(Jan Meyer's compilation)
http://uspa.org/publications/parachutist/capcom1004.htm (from
USPA headquarters)