Florida Atty Gen.: Miami guy sells fake course, PADI cards
- Thread starter KeysCuda
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Fraud is defined in law as: An intentional misrepresentation of material existing fact made by one person to another with knowledge of its falsity and for the purpose of inducing the other person to act, and upon which the other person relies with resulting injury or damage. Fraud may also be made by an omission or purposeful failure to state material facts, which nondisclosure makes other statements misleading.
Example: I advertise, or in some manner indicate, either implicitly or explicitly, that I am authorized to offer a course in SCUBA by an existing agency with a reputation. whether that be PADI, NAUI or IRAFISH. The fact is, that I am not authorized to use either the name or logo of said organization. Now, I could be the world's greatest SCUBA instructor and give a course that the organization would happily adopt as their own, but the fact is that I was NOT authorized to use their name, their logo, their reputation or anything pertaining to their training. If I did so, without authorization, then the injured parties, who would include those people who paid money or gave up something (such as the ability to take a real course) in reliance upon my representation and also the organization whose reputation I may have injured by my misrepresentation, could seek damages in court. The unauthorized use of my name and logo would be a second cause of action.
As far as starting your own agency and claiming that you can give out certifications, that is certainly legal. Ask Ron Paul, he did exactly that, and while it is shameful and self promoting, it is not as of this moment illegal. The conduct of such agency, however, would pre-suppose that there are training guidelines, proficiency exams, licensing standards and requirements and steps necessary to obtain an agency approved certification. Most such agencies would also carry a lot of insurance for the legal actions that are going to be directed their way.
The hardest part, in actuality, would be to have your agency recognized by the dive industry so that when Wet Willie Wonka shows up with a freshly issued Open Water card from IRAFISH INTERNATIONAL, it will be accepted and the holder allowed to dive with the group.
Example: I am allowed to give courses and do, in fact, offer instruction. You come to my shop and tell me you are leaving in two days for the South Pacific and need a certification card. I either give you minimal or no instruction but issue the card.
Example: I advertise, or in some manner indicate, either implicitly or explicitly, that I am authorized to offer a course in SCUBA by an existing agency with a reputation. whether that be PADI, NAUI or IRAFISH. The fact is, that I am not authorized to use either the name or logo of said organization. Now, I could be the world's greatest SCUBA instructor and give a course that the organization would happily adopt as their own, but the fact is that I was NOT authorized to use their name, their logo, their reputation or anything pertaining to their training. If I did so, without authorization, then the injured parties, who would include those people who paid money or gave up something (such as the ability to take a real course) in reliance upon my representation and also the organization whose reputation I may have injured by my misrepresentation, could seek damages in court. The unauthorized use of my name and logo would be a second cause of action.
As far as starting your own agency and claiming that you can give out certifications, that is certainly legal. Ask Ron Paul, he did exactly that, and while it is shameful and self promoting, it is not as of this moment illegal. The conduct of such agency, however, would pre-suppose that there are training guidelines, proficiency exams, licensing standards and requirements and steps necessary to obtain an agency approved certification. Most such agencies would also carry a lot of insurance for the legal actions that are going to be directed their way.
The hardest part, in actuality, would be to have your agency recognized by the dive industry so that when Wet Willie Wonka shows up with a freshly issued Open Water card from IRAFISH INTERNATIONAL, it will be accepted and the holder allowed to dive with the group.
Example: I am allowed to give courses and do, in fact, offer instruction. You come to my shop and tell me you are leaving in two days for the South Pacific and need a certification card. I either give you minimal or no instruction but issue the card.
While everyone clears a mask the same way, the course materials created by an agency are much, much more than that.
Creating effective instructional materials is far more complex and far more expensive than people participating in this thread seem to think. When someone decides to skip all that and just steal the material from another agency, it is indeed a significant theft.
One more thing: except for materials created by the government at taxpayer expense, no scuba instruction produced in the United States is in the public domain. Current copyright laws protect everything written from well before the invention of scuba.
- Course materials must be carefully written in language that can be understood by the youngest students allowed (10 years old) while conveying challenging concepts fully and accurately. That is not at all easy, and it is hard to find writers with the skill to do that.
- The chapters are set up with regard to the latest theory on effective learning. I used to direct the creation of such materials. It is not easy to do it right, and you won't believe how much new curriculum writers struggle with it.
- The effectiveness of the course materials needs to be field tested to make sure people are able to understand them and learn the concepts effectively. That is expensive and time consuming.
- Assessments have to be devised that effectively measure performance against the standards and are properly aligned with the instruction. This is far more difficult than it seems. Research by Alan Cohen of the University of San Francisco indicated that more than 60% of assessments used in American high schools actually assess something other than the material that was taught in the course.
Creating effective instructional materials is far more complex and far more expensive than people participating in this thread seem to think. When someone decides to skip all that and just steal the material from another agency, it is indeed a significant theft.
One more thing: except for materials created by the government at taxpayer expense, no scuba instruction produced in the United States is in the public domain. Current copyright laws protect everything written from well before the invention of scuba.
How are Navy diver professionals and folks who teach diving for living amateurs?
What has commercial and saturation diving have to do with recreatinal repetitive NDL diving?
How many procedures from the Navy manual are applicable to recreational divers?
Besides showing ignorance about the basic differences between Navy and civilian divers, you can also skip over the fact that PADI wrote the most used tables for repetitive diving and tested them for several years because the general diving population is a little more varied than 18-30 white males.
Rich Keller
Contributor
I never said or implied Navy Divers were not professionals those are YOUR words. I also never compared Navy Divers to scuba instructors, that would be a ridicules comparison regardless of the subject. Navy Divers are the professionals while scuba instructor is just another amateur certification. Though I am sure you have a much higher opinion of yourself then that you are just an amateur. The worst kind of amateur at that, the one who not only thinks he knows everything but wants everyone else to think he knows everything. You were the one implying the US Navy Dive Manual was not appropriate recreational divers. "Ignoring the professionals" refers to people like you ignoring the work done by Navy Diving Professionals. You seem to think PADI had something to do with creating repetitive dive tables and you call me ignorant? You have no clue do you?
---------- Post added March 9th, 2015 at 08:24 AM ----------
PS: I never said anything about commercial divers, we had nothing to do with writing the Navy manual. Unlike you though we do read the manual. Commercial divers do not know everything, most of what we do know comes from the Navy manual. The Navy dose not know everything either, that is why they are always doing research and testing. The only divers I have ever talked to who are sure they know everything have been amateur divers like yourself.
---------- Post added March 9th, 2015 at 06:14 PM ----------
I am finding it VERY hard to believe that someone who claims to be a master instructor seems to know so little about diving. What agency do you claim to teach for and would they admit to knowing you? Are you from Bellevue Washington or are you from the Bellevue in NYC?
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the beauty of the first amendment is that you can say anything you want, it doesn't make it more true.
The Navy stopped making any work on the dive tables back in the 1950s and ALL the work on tables for recreational diving, including experimentation for recreational tables, has been done by private entities (mainly PADI) - every other agency contribution to the dive tables has been to add conservatism to the 1950s tables and then make revisions to bring them in line with the current state of private research.
Moreover, in the NAVY manual there is nothing about teaching diving and certainly nothing about learning methodologies.
SubAquatix
Contributor
1. USN and NEDU have put out several table changes in recent years, including changes to ascent rates and TBT in 2008, as well as some dealing with tactical rebreather and a rewrite of SCUBA.
2. Not even sure where you get this stuff, certainly not from PADI since they have never taken this much credit. For example, with regard to RDP, in 1988 Ray Rodgers took the 1956 Tables, incorporated M values and other techniques to provide for additional conservatism turning them over to DSAT for testing. Certainly nowhere near the work and research of either Weinke (RGBM, used by NAUI since 1999) or Yount (VPM, 1991), and you somehow totally skip over Buhlmann (1983/4).
3. I have yet to see anything in the PADI OW student material (including the latest released last year) that discusses teaching or learning methodologies. That information is found in the OWSDI manual, where they actually talk about how to teach the course. I don't know why you would expect the USN Diving manual, a student manual and reference manual, to be any different.
what a basket case
---------- Post added March 9th, 2015 at 06:30 PM ----------
#1 none of the changes made by USN that you refer to has been incorporated by any agency, at least not publicly. Now you want to throw rebreather into the mix, but it does not change the end result
#2 DSAT == PADI and they did the testing (with the assistance of NOAA) certainly not the Navy - didn't gloss over Weinke, Yount or Bulhmann - their work has been taken andincorporated liberally by various agencies but certainly not developed by any of them and they all belong to the 'private' sector, not the Navy
#3 the PADI OW student literature is the fruit of learning methodologies which are developed and implemented by PADI and taught to OWSI and other professional levels - this is what makes the PADI system accessible and appreciated by students worldwide, while the USN sucks big time, just try to use it on a 12 year old next time.
gcarter
Contributor
not cool
Rich Keller
Contributor
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