Inrange following in footsteps of Groupon

[mmhoium]

Fair warning, this is a small rant that I needed to tell someone because it's been bothering me all night.

Took a renewal CCW class last night, bought a deal on Groupon for the class, which was supposed to continue over to Inrange for the shooting portion. As I'm sure everyone knows, Groupon pulled all the firearm related deals from their website. As the group of people were filing in for the class, the instructor was on the phone with the range, upset. He later told the class that Inrange told him that since Groupon cancelled the deal online, the range's deal with my instructor was also being cancelled immediately - which as you can imagine puts the instructor in a crap position. As I gathered, the deal was two lanes rental, 10min per student at a slightly reduced rate - there were 30 people in my class last night. My instructor was telling us that he sold almost 700 Groupon deals and now he was stuck looking for a new place to have his students shoot. And, I didn't even get a chance to shoot my CZ 75 PCR last night, which was a let down...

So, my question is, what would possess a range to take such an action - especially against it's own potential clients? I'm newer to the area (9months) and I have heard of Inrange but never been there. I do know retail business though and the opportunity to introduce 30 new people (or 700) to your business should never be passed up. I would think that they would jump at the opportunity, not turn their backs. Also, it's not as if the class would have taken all their lanes up, it was a two lane rental for about an hour. So now in my mind (and probably 29 others) Inrange has stepped down to Groupon's level - I hope they change their mind because it most definitely is going to hurt their business (if my instructor told my class about it, he's gunna tell all his classes). Am I off base?

[Synergy]

Something about that story doesn't add up and I doubt the reason In range canceled was because of Groupon.

[cabindriver]

Something about that story doesn't add up and I doubt the reason In range canceled was because of Groupon.

I wondered too. I just sent them an email. I hope they will contribute to this.

[ktech]

My guess is that instead of paying the money forward to the range, Groupon simply refunded the money to the people who bought the deal.
The way the range sees it, they've got no money from the deal so why should they give people free range time because Groupon are being jerks.

That's strictly a guess, but I think it makes sense given the available information.

[goaliemn]

I'm curious. Did he still do the range qualification?

[mmhoium]

My guess is that instead of paying the money forward to the range, Groupon simply refunded the money to the people who bought the deal.
The way the range sees it, they've got no money from the deal so why should they give people free range time because Groupon are being jerks.

That's strictly a guess, but I think it makes sense given the available information.

Groupon did not refund me anything. The deal was through a certain instructor, not thru the range. As I understand it, the range had done a separate deal with the instructor under the premise that the Groupon deal would bring in a ton of applicants. It seemed odd and fishy to me as well, but the upset nature of the instructor was certainly real and his explanation of the situation after the conversation meshed with the one side of the conversation that I heard. The only explanation that I could come up with was that the range is so busy now with the current firearms climate that they didn't have the lanes available anymore. If my understanding of what happened is true, I'm disappointed - first because of how someone is treating our own, but also because I looked forward to shooting with fellow shooters.

I certainly hope that someone on the other side of the conversation is able to shed light. I somewhat feel like I might be stepping into something that is none of my business, but at the same time, I paid for a service and a third party did not follow through.

And no, the shooting portion did not take place. Thanks for the thoughts guys.

[tman]

I thought groupon was honoring the commitments they'd already made.

[ktech]

Hmm, interesting. The whole situation is really weird - keep us posted if you manage to find out what exactly the deal is... good luck, I hope you can recoup your lost monies at least.

[Need4Speed]

I know they are busy. Used to be able to call them the day you wanted to shoot, and more often than not they would have a lane available at some time during the day. Now they tell you to call a minimum of 3 days ahead to reserve a lane.

[Holland&Holland]

Groupon is the one that screwed over a whole industry. You need to make sure groupon knows that since they can not uphold their end they will lose customers.

[rukwikenuf]

who's the instructor?

[Brunsi]

I'm new here so hello everyone, I also took my class through groupon as did many others that were there. As soon as groupon pulled their nonsense I requested my membership be canceled, it took numerous calls and e-mails to get through to someone there in order to voice my displeasure and cancel my account and I would encourage anyone else that feel as strongly as I do about this to do the same.