Include a link to this thread in your reviews, in follow-up correspondence with the shop, and in correspondence with Atomic. It's good for them to all see the same photos and the input from other bootfitters.
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"Should I be angry at this bootfitter" with updated conclusion.
Yes. Hack job..
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2016
- Posts
- 605
What a mess! The guy obviously has no idea. The shop concerned is primarily a rental shop, the website is only in German, the “Bootfitting” page shows a few basic boot fitting tools and says that they can deal with pressure points and make footbeds, basic stuff. Nobody on the “Team” page is listed as a boot fitter.
The owner also holds a number of very senior positions in other local organizations so I can’t see how he finds the time to do a technical job like boot fitting.
The toe lug should be fixable, but its difficult to see what could be done to fix the gash in the front of the boot, it will have almost certainly reduced the impact resistance of the boot in that area. I very much doubt that you will be able to find anybody who would attempt to fix it here, the only person in the area I can think of who might be worth contacting is Aschi Gertsch in Interlaken. Even though spare boot boards are available you might have difficulty getting somebody to order them for you, a part no. of better still a copy of the relevant page from the spares catalog would be useful.
I think it will be difficult to get any recompense, but it might be worth contacting the Swiss Foundation for Consumer Protection https://www.konsumentenschutz.ch/ueber-uns/ but as you don’t speak German it will be difficult to explain to them exactly what happened.
In general, it’s a bad idea to purchase boots from one shop and have them modified by another as it puts you in a very weak position if anything goes wrong.
If you decide to cut your losses and get new boots and would like them fitted by a native English speaker contact Jules Mills at Sanglard Sports in Chamonix, he’s a World Cup level boot fitter.
The owner also holds a number of very senior positions in other local organizations so I can’t see how he finds the time to do a technical job like boot fitting.
The toe lug should be fixable, but its difficult to see what could be done to fix the gash in the front of the boot, it will have almost certainly reduced the impact resistance of the boot in that area. I very much doubt that you will be able to find anybody who would attempt to fix it here, the only person in the area I can think of who might be worth contacting is Aschi Gertsch in Interlaken. Even though spare boot boards are available you might have difficulty getting somebody to order them for you, a part no. of better still a copy of the relevant page from the spares catalog would be useful.
I think it will be difficult to get any recompense, but it might be worth contacting the Swiss Foundation for Consumer Protection https://www.konsumentenschutz.ch/ueber-uns/ but as you don’t speak German it will be difficult to explain to them exactly what happened.
In general, it’s a bad idea to purchase boots from one shop and have them modified by another as it puts you in a very weak position if anything goes wrong.
If you decide to cut your losses and get new boots and would like them fitted by a native English speaker contact Jules Mills at Sanglard Sports in Chamonix, he’s a World Cup level boot fitter.
I would be upset and you handled it very well - much better than most of us.
Just asking but is this Bernet Sport in Grindelwald? I have been to Grindelwald for six different trips and always had success there with good rental skis and customer service but have never had boot work done there.
Just asking but is this Bernet Sport in Grindelwald? I have been to Grindelwald for six different trips and always had success there with good rental skis and customer service but have never had boot work done there.
- Joined
- Aug 24, 2017
- Posts
- 364
Hi,
This winter, I had a bad experience with a boot fitter in Grindelwald, Switzerland. I posted about it here, and received some very helpful replies. It's taken a long time, but I finally have an update.
Link to the original post:
https://www.pugski.com/threads/should-i-be-angry-at-this-bootfitter.19096/#post-447835
(For anybody who doesn't want to read the original thread, I brought some Atomic Hawx Ultra XTD 120 boots to a prominent boot fitter in a large ski store. He broke the boot board in one boot (easy to do, no problem), he tried to glue it back together and hide it in the boot (surprising, unacceptable), and he destroyed the shape of the toe/binding interface so that the boot no longer passed the release function tests (astonishing, terrible). Furthermore, he charged me for the work, and refused to refund anything. I showed the boot to several other boot fitters, including some very experienced folks (see below) and they all agreed that the boot was damaged and unsafe. I could have let the whole thing drop, but it was a lot of money. I had to rent other boots during my vacation, and I knew I would need to buy new boots. Basically, the boot fitter stole money from me. But more than the money, the idea of it rubbed me the wrong way. So I kept trying to find a solution.)
What happened?
I got nowhere with the boot fitter I went in several times, allowed for a cooling off period, tried to be reasonable, find a compromise, and so on. He was an older man, stubborn and proud, the owner of his store. His staff, and his son, were helpful and supportive (they completely agreed with me) but powerless to do anything.
I got nowhere with the tourism board in Grindelwald. This is not surprising, because the store owner is a prominent businessman, sits on several boards and regulatory groups. The director of the tourism office made it very clear to me that he had no sympathy for my problem, and no motivation to help find a solution. His position was in some ways surprising, because these towns live from tourism, and customer service is essentially their job, but, on the other hand, small mountain towns are very closed to outsiders.
I sent pictures to Atomic, and they replied that the boot was damaged and unsafe to use. They suggested that they would reach out to the store owner, but I don't know whether or not this happened.
The store is part or a large, country-wide rental and sports network, called Intersport. Intersport is huge. Think of it somewhat like REI or EMS (smaller of course, this is Switzerland!) with the additional difference that individuals have their own stores, associated in terms of stock, distribution, and finances with Intersport, but still independent. I reached out to Intersport, and that's when I found a solution.
Intersport was interested and concerned. Basically, a single pair of ski boots was small enough for them that they could easily help me, and because it was a potential safety and consumer rights issue, they did so.
They send me a brand new pair of boots, and a gift card for 100 CHF to cover a new boot fitting at any Intersport store in Switzerland. The service, communication, and so on, was wonderful. I was ready to accept a compromise--even just an acknowledgment that I wasn't crazy!--but they did the right thing. Respect.
Some lessons/links
1) Follow your instincts. It's like a relationship; it should feel right. If something seems off, maybe it would be best to go somewhere else, or be very mindful and clear. Communication is so important. I didn't have a good feeling about this boot fitter from the beginning, but the store had been recommended, so I went ahead with the work, to my regret.
2) Do not go for boot fitting work to Peter Egger at Intersport rent network in Grindelwald. Rent skis there if you must, although there are much better stores in town. Rent Stockli skis there, as they are the locla Stockli distributors. But don't leave your boots for fitting work at this store.
https://www.rentnetwork.ch/de/über-uns/team
3) If you have any problems in Grindelwald, I think you will find the tourism office to be extremely unhelpful. The director of the tourism office, Bruno Hauswith, appeared to be the mouthpiece for the private bussiness concerns in the town, with little intereest in helping any tourists.
https://www.sportzentrum-grindelwald.ch/en/about-us.html
4) If you need a boot fitter in Grindelwald, visit Danny at Grafsports. Native English speaker, really skilled and knowledgeable, patient, cautious, no ego, super nice guy. All the mountain guides, ski racers, and so on, go to him. I received bad advice at first, and only discovered him later. Would absolutely have gone to him first, had I known. He also helped evaluate the damaged boots.
https://www.grafsport.ch/en/team/
5) Another great option is Aschi Gertsch in Interlaken. He is the founder of the Swiss Alpine Boot Fitting Association, and has World Cup Race level experience. He also helped evaluate the damaged boots.
https://sabfa.ch/
6) A third option is Rene at the Pro Ski Rental near Zurich. I live in a different part of Switzerland, but I have driven there several times for boot fitting. Nice small shop, with a great selection of skis and boots.
https://pro-skirental.ch/en/
OK, thanks again for the good advice the first time around, and all the best,
Bruno
This winter, I had a bad experience with a boot fitter in Grindelwald, Switzerland. I posted about it here, and received some very helpful replies. It's taken a long time, but I finally have an update.
Link to the original post:
https://www.pugski.com/threads/should-i-be-angry-at-this-bootfitter.19096/#post-447835
(For anybody who doesn't want to read the original thread, I brought some Atomic Hawx Ultra XTD 120 boots to a prominent boot fitter in a large ski store. He broke the boot board in one boot (easy to do, no problem), he tried to glue it back together and hide it in the boot (surprising, unacceptable), and he destroyed the shape of the toe/binding interface so that the boot no longer passed the release function tests (astonishing, terrible). Furthermore, he charged me for the work, and refused to refund anything. I showed the boot to several other boot fitters, including some very experienced folks (see below) and they all agreed that the boot was damaged and unsafe. I could have let the whole thing drop, but it was a lot of money. I had to rent other boots during my vacation, and I knew I would need to buy new boots. Basically, the boot fitter stole money from me. But more than the money, the idea of it rubbed me the wrong way. So I kept trying to find a solution.)
What happened?
I got nowhere with the boot fitter I went in several times, allowed for a cooling off period, tried to be reasonable, find a compromise, and so on. He was an older man, stubborn and proud, the owner of his store. His staff, and his son, were helpful and supportive (they completely agreed with me) but powerless to do anything.
I got nowhere with the tourism board in Grindelwald. This is not surprising, because the store owner is a prominent businessman, sits on several boards and regulatory groups. The director of the tourism office made it very clear to me that he had no sympathy for my problem, and no motivation to help find a solution. His position was in some ways surprising, because these towns live from tourism, and customer service is essentially their job, but, on the other hand, small mountain towns are very closed to outsiders.
I sent pictures to Atomic, and they replied that the boot was damaged and unsafe to use. They suggested that they would reach out to the store owner, but I don't know whether or not this happened.
The store is part or a large, country-wide rental and sports network, called Intersport. Intersport is huge. Think of it somewhat like REI or EMS (smaller of course, this is Switzerland!) with the additional difference that individuals have their own stores, associated in terms of stock, distribution, and finances with Intersport, but still independent. I reached out to Intersport, and that's when I found a solution.
Intersport was interested and concerned. Basically, a single pair of ski boots was small enough for them that they could easily help me, and because it was a potential safety and consumer rights issue, they did so.
They send me a brand new pair of boots, and a gift card for 100 CHF to cover a new boot fitting at any Intersport store in Switzerland. The service, communication, and so on, was wonderful. I was ready to accept a compromise--even just an acknowledgment that I wasn't crazy!--but they did the right thing. Respect.
Some lessons/links
1) Follow your instincts. It's like a relationship; it should feel right. If something seems off, maybe it would be best to go somewhere else, or be very mindful and clear. Communication is so important. I didn't have a good feeling about this boot fitter from the beginning, but the store had been recommended, so I went ahead with the work, to my regret.
2) Do not go for boot fitting work to Peter Egger at Intersport rent network in Grindelwald. Rent skis there if you must, although there are much better stores in town. Rent Stockli skis there, as they are the locla Stockli distributors. But don't leave your boots for fitting work at this store.
https://www.rentnetwork.ch/de/über-uns/team
3) If you have any problems in Grindelwald, I think you will find the tourism office to be extremely unhelpful. The director of the tourism office, Bruno Hauswith, appeared to be the mouthpiece for the private bussiness concerns in the town, with little intereest in helping any tourists.
https://www.sportzentrum-grindelwald.ch/en/about-us.html
4) If you need a boot fitter in Grindelwald, visit Danny at Grafsports. Native English speaker, really skilled and knowledgeable, patient, cautious, no ego, super nice guy. All the mountain guides, ski racers, and so on, go to him. I received bad advice at first, and only discovered him later. Would absolutely have gone to him first, had I known. He also helped evaluate the damaged boots.
https://www.grafsport.ch/en/team/
5) Another great option is Aschi Gertsch in Interlaken. He is the founder of the Swiss Alpine Boot Fitting Association, and has World Cup Race level experience. He also helped evaluate the damaged boots.
https://sabfa.ch/
6) A third option is Rene at the Pro Ski Rental near Zurich. I live in a different part of Switzerland, but I have driven there several times for boot fitting. Nice small shop, with a great selection of skis and boots.
https://pro-skirental.ch/en/
OK, thanks again for the good advice the first time around, and all the best,
Bruno
Last edited:
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2016
- Posts
- 605
Glad to here you got the boots replaced. Interesting that Intersport replaced them, Intersport operates as a franchisor in Switzerland there are about 150 franchisees with a total of about 200 stores, as you said each franchise / store is independently owned and run. It sounds like they replaced them out of goodwill.
It’s a shame that you didn’t get the Foundation for Consumer Protection https://www.konsumentenschutz.ch/ or the TV program Kassensturz https://www.srf.ch/sendungen/kassensturz-espresso/uebersicht involved. If they had pursued the matter for you, you might have got more than a pair of boots and a voucher.
Not sure what you were expecting the tourist office to do. Tourist offices are operated by tourist associations whose membership comprises local businesses, if you click on “Impressum” at the bottom of the Grindelwald Tourism homepage you will see that the president of Jungfrau Region Tourismus AG is Peter Egger, he is Bruno Hauswith’s boss.
Defamation is a criminal offence in Switzerland, see articles 173 /174 of the Swiss Criminal Code https://www.admin.ch/opc/en/classified-compilation/19370083/index.html so unless you are no longer resident you might want to remove the defamatory content from your post. It is unlikely that the older, “stubborn and proud” man would take kindly to being called a thief.
It’s a shame that you didn’t get the Foundation for Consumer Protection https://www.konsumentenschutz.ch/ or the TV program Kassensturz https://www.srf.ch/sendungen/kassensturz-espresso/uebersicht involved. If they had pursued the matter for you, you might have got more than a pair of boots and a voucher.
Not sure what you were expecting the tourist office to do. Tourist offices are operated by tourist associations whose membership comprises local businesses, if you click on “Impressum” at the bottom of the Grindelwald Tourism homepage you will see that the president of Jungfrau Region Tourismus AG is Peter Egger, he is Bruno Hauswith’s boss.
Defamation is a criminal offence in Switzerland, see articles 173 /174 of the Swiss Criminal Code https://www.admin.ch/opc/en/classified-compilation/19370083/index.html so unless you are no longer resident you might want to remove the defamatory content from your post. It is unlikely that the older, “stubborn and proud” man would take kindly to being called a thief.
I can relate, similar story except with bindings from a ski shop in won’t give too much details as it will clearly identify them).
Mounted bindings on my GS skis, they forgot to tighten the screws and set the bindings in the wrong location, an inexperienced skier who would not have checked would have been hurt when the binding pulled out of the mount, let alone the poor performance.
Same shop after speaking with the owner (after he criticized my boot purchase for my daughter at a ski show) he offered a free service be his top tech. He mounted my daughters binding slightly forward, thankfully these are adjustable so I compensated.
Top shop, not so top service. Still shop there when the price is right but no longer look consider and any service work. Three strikes and you’re out.
If the owner reads this, I expect he’ll remember, hope he pushes his staff to do better to ensure proper work is performed.
Mounted bindings on my GS skis, they forgot to tighten the screws and set the bindings in the wrong location, an inexperienced skier who would not have checked would have been hurt when the binding pulled out of the mount, let alone the poor performance.
Same shop after speaking with the owner (after he criticized my boot purchase for my daughter at a ski show) he offered a free service be his top tech. He mounted my daughters binding slightly forward, thankfully these are adjustable so I compensated.
Top shop, not so top service. Still shop there when the price is right but no longer look consider and any service work. Three strikes and you’re out.
If the owner reads this, I expect he’ll remember, hope he pushes his staff to do better to ensure proper work is performed.
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- Nov 12, 2015
- Posts
- 6,339
Re bootfitting in the Alps in reference to one of the posts above, the problem is largely one of tourist volumes. When the majority of your trade is rental gear or comfort fit boots for tourists who likely you'll never see again the incentive to develop great skills as a bootfitter just isn't there. Even in a city like Innsbruck there will be just a couple of go-to guys and quite difficult to find out who they are as an outsider.
Certainly not all resort fitters are poor but there are many who don't care enough and plenty of punters who don't understand how to access and best use the advantages that a resort fitting offers i.e. rapid trial and troubleshooting.
Certainly not all resort fitters are poor but there are many who don't care enough and plenty of punters who don't understand how to access and best use the advantages that a resort fitting offers i.e. rapid trial and troubleshooting.
What a mess. If someone did such work from our shop, I would apologize and give them a new pair of boots. Atomic boots are super easy to work on, with a combination of heat mounding and simple punching. So sorry about your experience.
I think contacting Atomic is your best choice. Even if they don't help you, they will at least have a record of this shop's work - it may be a one time thing or it could be part of a pattern. It could help someone down the road.
Long story short--do not order fresh seafood at a burger shop.
I'm glad it all worked out. I love Switzerland and the Swiss. But remember--customer service has a different translation there...
I'm glad it all worked out. I love Switzerland and the Swiss. But remember--customer service has a different translation there...
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