Bay Area Firearms — Restaurant in Burlingame

I only gave them one star, so that I could get your attention.

THE FACTS: I called BAF (Bay Area Firearms) because I wanted a Firearm Safety Certificate. I reached their answering machine which instructed me to text them for a faster response. Here is the message I texted them: "Hi. I am interested in taking the First Steps Pistol Course. After completion will I be given a FSC (Firearm Safety Certificate)?" They responded with: "Yes of course. Go ahead book it online now." I booked the class for the following day. I go to the class, and 10 minutes into the class I realized the instructor Harold, has not said anything about giving us a Firearm Safety Certificate. I ask Harold if he is going to be helping us take the test for the certificate, and he tells me in summary "Oh, do you guys (There were 2 of us in class) want to get your FSC? Sure, I can help you with that. You just have to pay $35.00 for the test and if you miss any questions, I can help you retake it and pass. I explained to Harold what was communicated in the text I received from them, and that the only reason took the $189.00 class was to get the certificate, which I thought was included. He told me that I must have made a mistake, and that his colleague "Scott" must have been referring to a Certificate of Completion of the class, and not the FSC. I assured him that I was very clear on what I asked for, and that I still had the text message on my phone. He said he didn't want to discuss it, and that I would have to talk to Scott about it. When I spoke to Scott, he denied what he had told me the day before, until I showed him the text message he sent me. He then refused to take accountability for his actions saying, "Well, you do get the certificate after the course, you just have to pay $35.00 and take the test. Multiple times, in multiple ways I asked him, "After I complete the class will I receive a FSC?" He continued to be dishonest, and tell me yes, even though that was not true. He even went as far as saying, "It's the Feds, The Feds, they are the ones that make us charge you for the FSC. Completely missing my point. The issue wasn't the money or The Feds, the issue was him assuring me the FSC came with he class even though he knew it didn't. The truth is, the FSC does not come with the class. It is separate, and there is a fee. I went back in the training room and Told Harold I could not due business with them due to their complete lack of accountability and dishonesty. The money was not an issue. I already paid $189.00 for the class. An extra $35.00 was a small fee. But, I could not let them lie and cheat me. I have principles. I couldn't believe Harold's reply to me when I told him I was going to leave, "Well you're gonna miss a really good class...." No words like, "I'm sorry about the confusion," or "It's an unfortunate misunderstanding." Unbelievable! At this point I was thinking "What planet are these guys from?" I left and decided to dispute the charges with my bank. IN CONCLUSION: I don't think this was the first time something like this happened. When I addressed the issue with Scott, it was like he was ready to deny all plausibility, and he didn't want to address my concerns or take accountability for his actions. He also lied about the FSC fee, which is $25.00 not $35.00. I think most people just go along with it and pay the fee, because they have a No- Refund policy. I believe my bank will refund me, so I am not in fear of loosing my money to them. As a business, he should have paid the $35.00 fee. If so, he would have still made $154.00 and had a positive review instead of this one. Also, had they took responsibility for his actions and admitted they were wrong I would have paid the fee, but that was...

I think the Reviews here are fabricated. I took 2 courses, AR-15 and Long range rifle course(paid upfront). The class room time we spend is not very explanatory. It seems like everyone is in a rush, but not sure why; the class states that it needs 6-8 hrs of time on their website. which in our case Classroom is hardly 1 hour and the range time is another hour. (if you calculate the driving to and fro to the gun range, may be add up another hour, no one is instructing you here, unless you drive with the instructor: sarcasm) I spent total of $500 with Range fees+ ammo. Instructor Thomas is a good one, its not his fault, for our class he has been put in as a sub at the last minute, as the owner SCOTT who suppose to teach the class couldn't make it.

For the Long range rifle, It's partly my fault that I dint remind myself of the class, this rarely happens to me when I mess up my calender dates. I have been charged an extra $80 on top of $150 I paid, because the instructor was not happy. The class suppose to start at 8 AM, I called them up 30 minutes after asking that I can still be there in 15 min, we can still start the class but cut it short ( given the class is 8 hours as they mentioned on the Website), but the owner SCOTT said he is not happy that people missing classes and he is not going to decrease the standard of teaching by just cutting the class short. and he should start charging them $80 for missing or just fortify the whole $150 fees. I felt like he just used my lateness to charge me and fine me, which I gladly paid since it's my fault. I also felt this business is a very dishonest and not straight forward, they dont mention a lot on the website about the structure of the classes. He used strong tone against me and made me feel like crap on top that I already missed the class. He probably got the idea of charging $80 starting with me, and When I rescheduled my class the next week, the owner SCOTT who taught the class barely spent 30 min of instructions in the class and started talking about his personal life with other instructors..When I was there, I asked the owner SCOTT politely" why don't they set up an automated call reminder for their customers as the set up dates are at least couple of weeks apart( like the dentists do), people forget reminders", he bluntly said we don't have time to do it, I said it's just an automated service, It doesn't take your time.Just the total 2 hrs I spent there, i have seen a lot of confusion and choas, Customers returning that they set up a class and the instructor dint show up etc.. NO PROFESSIONALISM at all. I also overheard from other instructors that owner SCOTT doesn't pay them for their services, he simply give them certifications which they are not too happy about.

Thomas is a good instructor but the rifle scopes are messy, All my shots are consistent but not on the target. Thomas is generous to let me use some of this AR-15 rounds in my second class of Long Rifle instruction.

find another school, i don't recommend this to anyone. I would rate this 1 star to bring down the rating, i think people are...

TLDR: They are disorganized in running their business and the content they teach. It's not worth the price.

Teaching fails: I took a shotgun specific training class with some girlfriends. While I've shot pistols, rifles, and shotguns with family at gun ranges before, I was really looking forward to getting more information on gun safety and the use of shotguns for hunting small game. The instructor was very knowledgeable, but didn't know how to teach, especially a group of girls who know very little about guns to start with.

First warning sing: There was no curriculum or idea of content organization for the class. As we were all new to this we had no idea of what to even ask, so the open format of the class was terrible. The instructor also used terms that we didn't know and when asked what they were defined them in terms that we didn't know. He clearly knew about guns, but I would say he was certainly not gifted at teaching.

Multiple times we told the instructor that we wanted to know about gun safety, how the different shotguns operated (like please take the gun apart for us), to get better at using each one, and anything else relevant to hunting. Instead of taking this into account, he focused on setting telling us how to handle different self defense scenarios. He also had us practice shooting for speed at the cost of accuracy so that "we could defend ourselves from something like a home invasion". It just didn't feel applicable and was not what we were asking for.

The teacher also had trouble understanding what we were asking. For example when I was trying to understand the difference between two shotguns, he was telling me about different self defense situations each one would be good at. I finally got my answer by asking him to show me how to clean each gun.

In the end I felt like I learned more about the instructors past life, military service, youtube channel, favorite TV shows, and health problems than about gun safety and application to hunting. If you're thinking that you might have more success with the other instructor (he is also the manger). I'm sad to say I wouldn't expect anything better. He came in and ate away about half an hour of our class time by telling us about the trouble he was having with getting a hernia fixed and stories from his military experience.

Business fails: The website had said to come early to fill out paper work and that there was a classroom section and gun range section. When we got there at the specified time, the instructor was surprised that we were early. He commented that it was "lucky" he got there early so we weren't stuck outside... They also had overbooked the both the classroom portion and the gun range. We had to take multiple breaks to accommodate the overbooking and it lengthened our time there from the anticipated 4 hours to almost 7 hrs. I'm not sure how you can run something...