Dodgy Testing

After some advice here...

I've just bought (second hand) a couple of 12l tanks. I got the chap who
was selling them to put them through a visual test for me (somewhere on
the south coast), both passed fine and I have the certificates. They
were immeadiatly posted up to me, and I took them into my (friendly) LDS
to have the pillar valves swopped with the modular ones on my two tens.

We went downstairs and took off the valves - only to find that the
pillar o-rings had chunks taken out of them where the valves had been
overtightened. I'm pretty sure that if we had filled the tanks they
would have leaked - there is a good 3mm cubed chunk taken out of each
o-rings, and they were badly deformed. The opinion of the LDS is that
had they been filled the leak would have been obvious - and he thought
that the requirement for a visual test included a pressure test at the end.

I'm not sure what to do about this. On the one hand I should call the
testing centre and ask WTF was going on - but on the other I'm not
really sure that I have any right to come back to them as the actual
testing was purchased on my behalf by a third party.

Questions:

# How serious would the problem have been? Am I making a fuss about nothing?

# Anybody know if I have any legal to the testing centre in question?

ATEOTD It cost me 40p per tank for a new o-ring - my LDS was
exceptionally helpful on this - so it's not a financial thing, it's a
principal thing. You'll note that I haven't mentioned the name of the
testing centre, I think I ought to get in touch with them first, I'd
just like to know quite how indignant to get when I do.

Cheers,

Ben

--
Ben Panter, Edinburgh
My name (no spaces)@bigfoot which is a com.